Sermon:
October 9, 2005
Morning Services

Scripture:
Joshua 4:1-9

It was bound to happen. God knew it. Joshua knew it. Someday, a child would ask the question. 

• Someday, when the people were comfortably settled in the Promised Land and the tales of Abraham and Sarah living in tents had given way to high rise lofts and seaside condos;

• Someday, when the stories of Moses and the manna had blended into a mosaic of ancient myth and the traveling tabernacle had been replaced by a permanent temple;

• Someday, long after the bones of Joseph had found their final resting place;

children playing along the banks of the River Jordan would stub their toes on a pile of weather-beaten, sun-bleached rocks and ask, “Daddy, why these stones?”

And it’s bound to happen here. In fact, I am sure already some folks have asked, “Why these stones?”  

• Why spend millions of dollars renovating a sanctuary and rebuilding an organ? 

• Why invest in gym floors and basketball hoops, conference rooms and coffee tables in the CLC?

• Why all this fuss about landscaping and beautifying and gardens and green space?

• Why these stones?

The Book says that after forty years of wandering in the wilderness, feeding on manna and worshiping in a tent, Moses brought the people to the Jordan River, carrying the bones of Joseph with him. They came just within sight of the Promised Land, and in a handoff more gracious than the demise of Allen Trammell, Moses passed the torch of leadership to a new coach, Joshua…then he disappeared into the mountain wilderness to his final resting place, where God alone would bury him.  

When the people were ready for the final crossing, God told Joshua to pick up twelve stones, carry them over and pile them up on the other side, “And when your children ask in time to come, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’...then, ah then, you shall tell them what the Lord has done for you.” 

1.  The stones look back and witness to what God has done. 

These stones are a witness to God’s deliverance and salvation, a memorial to God’s gracious care, a reminder of God’s steadfast love. 

For Joshua and the generations that followed him, it was the Exodus…that great act of deliverance from slavery in Egypt which is re-enacted every year in the Jewish festival of Passover—the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread, the cup of deliverance through the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of the houses. 

In the same way our Lord took the elements of that Passover meal…the same bread, the same cup, and said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” In an instant, these ancient symbols of their deliverance from Egypt became the symbols of our deliverance through the blood of Christ on the cross. 

So we build our buildings as a reminder of what God has done for us. We pile up stones as a witness to God’s great love in Jesus Christ so that our children and all the children of the earth will know of God’s redemption.   

And every time we gather in this space,

• Every time we baptize a baby or break the bread together,

• Every time we share the cup of wine or the cup of coffee,

• Every time we send a tutoring team to Pontiac or a mission team to Costa Rica, or fill a Rummage Sale coat rack, or hammer a Habitat nail,

we do it as a way to remember and give thanks for all God has done for us. 

• Hundreds of Rummage Sale volunteers (and by the way, we need more!)

• The building of a church in Costa Rica

• Lay leadership scattered throughout Methodism

• Volunteers who commit their time in service

• The transformation taking place through group life

• Ministry with youth, children, music…and on and on

When you stub your toes on the stones of this church’s ministry around the world, how can we help but give thanks to God? When your children ask, “Why these stones?”, tell them what God has done. 

I take great delight in our “Sunday Night Alive” and “Emerge” services. We live in a day when one size simply does not fit all, and if we are to effectively communicate the Gospel, we must offer a variety of worship experiences. In my college days in the ’60’s, we had groups singing what was considered “contemporary Christian music.” Back then, it was built around folk music—Christian “hootenannies” and “sing-alongs.” At Asbury College, instead of the Kingston Trio we had our own “Kent, Cliff and Phil.” Instead of the “New Christy Minstrels” (remember them?), I sang in a group called the “New Christian Minstrels.” Clever, but you never heard of it. Anyway, one of the songs we sang said: 

You can tell the world about this,
you can tell the nations about that.
Tell them what the Gospel has done,
tell them that the victory’s been won.
He brought joy, joy, joy into my heart. 

He took my feet from the miry clay
and put them on the rock to stay.
My Lord did just what he said,
he healed the sick and he raised the dead.
He brought joy, joy, joy into my heart.  

So let the stones cry out! Tell the world; tell each new generation; tell all the children of every place, of God’s deliverance and of the great good news of Jesus Christ.   

Why these stones? They look back and witness to what God has done in the past, 

2.  And these stones look forward to what God will do in the future. 

The operative verb in this passage is cross over, the Hebrew word abar. It is used 21 times in the Joshua narrative. Commentator John Hamlin says:   

The word emphasizes the decisive nature of this moment in the history of the Hebrew people—the link between the past and the future. 

“Why these stones?” They mark the point of “crossing over,” the movement of the People of God from the past into the future.  

You see, it’s not enough for the people of God to look back in memory. The Church is not a historical society. There is nothing more deadly to the life and witness of the church than to be focused solely on the past—preserving old buildings for their own sake, hanging on to old patterns and practices for their own sake, unwilling to risk new ways of being a church. Of course we look back and honor the past, but the calling of God always lays out there somewhere ahead of us in the unknown future, and we are called to “cross over.” 

During a stay in England some years ago, I remember visiting a wonderful village church dating back over 500 years…a lovely sanctuary with a high vaulted nave and glorious stained glass. To the eyes of a first-time American tourist, it was a mini-cathedral. I complimented the priest on the beauty of the place and the excellent condition of the ancient building, and his response was, “Oh, we Anglicans know how to care for old buildings.” But come Sunday, the place was empty!  

Tell me, what good is taking care of old buildings, piling up old stones, remembering what God has done in the past, if we aren’t connecting with people today and claiming the future for Jesus Christ? The stones look back and give thanks, but in the words of Charles Wesley’s great hymn, the stones call us to “cross over:” 

To serve the PRESENT age, our calling to fulfill;
Oh, may it all our powers engage to do my master’s will. 

The future, of course, is not always one of promise. The future can be filled with difficult challenges and foreboding. Just read your Free Press this morning. Robert S. (Steve) Miller, chairman of Delphi, says, “We all understand that life is not going to continue the way it has been.” (Detroit Free Press, Oct. 9, 2005, page 1.) Oh yes, the people of Israel will have battles to fight and challenges to overcome as they move into this new future on the other side of the Jordan, as will we. Be we face the future with hope built on the experience of what God has already done.   

Later we will sing an old American gospel hymn, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” The second line uses the word “Ebenezer,” and it does not have to do with Ebenezer Scrooge. The verse says, “Here I raise my Ebenezer, my pile of stones, my signpost along the way.” And the next phrase defines the word “Ebenezer:” “Hither by thy help I’ve come.” It is to say, “I’m marking the path right here, right now. I’ve come this far by the grace of God, and I have confidence to trust him for the future.” 

Dick Wills, in his book Waking to God’s Dream, says that our prayers should not ask God to bless what we are doing. He says that’s how we usually function. We organize, strategize, get it all planned out, then say a prayer and ask God to bless what we are doing. Rather, we should pray to see if we can get in touch with what God is blessing, then to step into that stream, to pile our stones in that river of new life, and to cross over.            

The pile of stones on the riverbank symbolized the forward movement of the people on the journey of faith. The very act of piling them up affirms confidence in the hope that there will, in fact, be another generation of children to ask the question. After all, there is still a land to be possessed, cities to be built, a new community to be established...lots of work ahead.            

But they piled up the stones as a bold act of faith, a witness of hope in God’s promised land:  

believing that the God who had brought them out of bondage,
the God who had parted the sea and led them through,
the God who had fed them with manna in the wilderness
and journeyed with them through their years, 

would lead them into the future as they “crossed over.”

One of my favorite authors is the prolific Frederick Buechner. In one of his many books, Buechner says: “Hope stands up to its knees in the past, and keeps its eye on the future.” 

In this historic church, we are “standing up to our knees in the past.” These stones witness to what God has done here. And we are called to “keep our eye on the future,” to cross over and discover the land God has prepared for us. 

Well, it was bound to happen. God knew it. Joshua knew it. And we know it is bound to happen here. 

“When in times to come, your children ask ‘What do these stones mean?’, then you will tell them how the Lord delivered you, so that all the people of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty.” 

O God our help in ages past,
our help for years to come,
be thou our guide while life shall last
and our eternal home.