What does God require of us?

Deuteronomy 30:11-16

Preached Canberra Baptist Church October 1, 2006

When I was at school I read the novel The Go-Between. From memory it began with the line: “the past is a foreign country – they do things differently there”. As you know I have recently returned from Thailand, where I and three others from the church spent 2 weeks at the Mae La refugee camp on the Thai Burmese border, and then I spent another week in Chiang Mai in the north of the country. Thailand is a foreign country for me. I have visited Thailand twice before – once with my family when I was a young child and once in the year 2000 when I spent two days in Bangkok on the way to Mizoram. And I grew up in Papua New Guinea in a place with lots of rain and mosquitoes where the climate was hot and humid and vegetation very similar to that of Thailand.

But even so the experience was still very foreign to me – there were lots of things to get used to and lots of things to learn. Gary and Rebecca kept very detailed notes of the trip – they were writing all the time - but I also kept a diary. The first day we arrived in Mae La I wrote this: “the bible school is impressive but first impressions include consternation at the primitive conditions, lack of privacy, the incredible number of visitors they have and admiration for the Naga teachers.” The next morning reads “wide awake at 4ish but couldn’t sleep again with the many noises – occasional musical instruments and singing, a child crying, a mechanical toy (?) [– it turned out to be geckos in the walls!] wood chopping etc. Rooster at 5 o’clock and then a flurry of activity: every surface thoroughly cleaned, morning devotion, bible studies, personal cleaning, cooking breakfast.” Two weeks later, of course, we were very much part of the routine, and yet we still knew we were foreigners. Things were different for us because we were in a foreign country.

I like to read and teach the Old Testament. All of the bible is very old but the Old Testament is especially ancient. What we read there is about events that happened a long time ago. In the past. The story of God’s people was written down more than 2000 years ago. It is the past. And the past is a foreign country.

And yet this story (hold up bible) is our story too. It is part of our history. We are the people of God too. And we preach from the bible week by week because we believe that by the grace of God’s spirit these ancient foreign words can still say something relevant to our lives.

We heard some words read to us from the book of Deuteronomy. These verses come from an important time in the life of God’s people. God had rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. He had heard their cry, seen their suffering, and acted to lead them to freedom, to a land of their own. He raised up a prophet – Moses – to lead the people of Israel. You probably know the story. Moses went to Pharaoh and asked for his people to be freed, but Pharaoh said No. God sent plagues to convince Pharaoh, and Moses told the people to be ready. On the night of the last plague Israel were ready. They prayed, and waited, and the angel of death passed over their families but struck down the eldest born in Egyptian families, even the son of Pharaoh. Pharaoh finally said “Go”. And  Moses led the people out of Egypt to freedom.

That was the beginning of the story. Hundreds of years after God had promised Abraham a land for his people they were on their way.

But their journey turned out to be a long one. The Old Testament tells us that because of their lack of faith and disobedience the people of God had to wander in the desert for forty years. During this time they had experiences that taught them to trust God, they learned how to worship, they discovered that God was with them wherever they went, and they were given laws to show them how to live with each other when they came into the land.

Four of the longest books of the Old Testament describe this time – the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Together with Genesis these books are known as the Pentateuch, the most important and precious part of the bible for Jewish people and the beginning of the Old Testament for us. The Pentateuch has at its core God’s promise to make his people a great people in a land of their own.

But at the end of Deuteronomy they are still waiting to get into the land. They are on the verge, in a camp on the edge of the Jordan – about to cross into the land. But they are not there yet. And before they go in, Moses has an important message from God. Let me read a little of that message again:
11 Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. 12It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ 13Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ 14No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.
These are words Moses addressed to the community of Israel before they went into Canaan. Their promised land.

But these words have been preserved in the Scriptures and so they are words addressed to us too – here in Canberra, to the refugees in Mae La, to Christians all around the world. But as I read these words while I was in the camp and talked with one of the bible school teachers Lae Htee, it seemed to me that these words were particularly relevant to the Karen people with whom we were staying. You see they are a people who are not in their own land. They too are a people of great faith who believe in God’s promises. They are a people who are living in a close community, restricted so that most are never even able to leave the confines of the camp, and so they need to know how to live with each other. Although we saw very little evidence of conflict and a lot of evidence that the Karen are a very gentle people we also heard of a time about a year ago when there was some tension between Muslims and Christians at Mae La, and how in those houses where there were no doors or windows they slept uneasily for some months. There is a very real impetus to live well with one’s neighbour in such close and restricted confines. And the Karen too are a people who need to remember their history, and work at maintaining their identity. I suppose this is one of the reasons they give visitors items of clothing that represent their tribal patterns and traditions. Ginny and I encountered a similar thing amongst the Zomi people. But for the Karen refugees especially their task was to wait patiently and prepare for life back in Burma, or perhaps in a third country in another part of the world. We had been asked to find out what was happening to the daughters of Pastor Simon, the head of the bible school, two young women whose refugee status is being sponsored by Mark and Twilla Welch. Their application was lodged 18 months ago, and they have had interviews and medical checks, but they are still waiting for the applications to be processed.

As we read between the lines in the Old Testament we realise that actually for most of the history of Israel the people of God were away from their land, and needed to wait patiently for the promises of God to come to fruition. For much of the time they were on their way to the land, such as in the Pentateuch, or living away from it in exile. And in fact it was while they were away from the land of Israel in exile that much of the Old Testament was written down – it was an important and creative time. And so the Old Testament tells us that they learned to trust God and live their lives in God’s ways whether they were in their land or not.

This is emphasised in the passage at the end of Deuteronomy. As Israel are camped at the Jordan and poised to go into their land, Moses addresses them, reminding them of the promises to their ancestors, and reminding them of their laws that have shown them how to live with each other in their land.

And yet the choice they are to make is not tomorrow when they cross the Jordan to go into the land. Moses tells them

Today you must make a choice. You must choose to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his commands, decrees and laws. And what God is asking you today is not beyond your reach.

Moses says God’s will for our life is not up in the heavens where no-one can reach it. Nor is it over the seas – so that we have to cross the sea to find it – or even so that someone like me needs to cross the sea to tell this word to people in a foreign country. No, says Moses, the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart. God has given his word directly to his people, it takes no special effort on their part to know it and understand it. The challenge is just to act on it.

Today we are beginning a series of  sermons wrestling with the questions “what does God require of us?” and “What do we require of God?” The middle of this 5 week series will be Micah Sunday, the day when we will focus on the Micah Challenge – grounded in the well-known verse in Ch 6 of Micah – “What does the Lord require of you? He has told you,  O Mortal, what is good, and what is required: to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with your God.” For many churches around the world that requirement is being fleshed out in a commitment to working against poverty in our world. But the other readings in the lectionary this month come from Job – a book which wrestles with the question of God – how can we understand who God is when our experience seems to cut us off from the evident presence.

This was the experience of the people of Israel to whom Deuteronomy was being addressed too. Probably the original audience of these words written down were not the exodus people, but the 6th century Israelites in exile, in Babylon. To them the message was just as challenging and just as encouraging. The word of God is not too hard, nor is it too far away, even if you are in exile. The word of God has been uttered, and it is already in our hearts.

I was teaching a course to the BA students in Mae La on History of Israel. I tried to show them the multiple layers of Israel’s history in the Old Testament, and how each layer retells the story from the perspective of their new experience. I was wanting to get across the idea that the bible remains alive for us when we reinterpret the story of God’s people in the light of our own experience. I shared with you last week how many of the students wrote lament psalms about their own experience of being in exile. I set a short test at the end of the course with one question being “what was the most important thing you learned” and was very gratified to read this response from one student: “I learnt about Israel’s sacred history. No matter how weak Israel was in following God’s law, God always cares, guides and is with them. God is their close friend in the Jahwist history, their almighty God in the Elohist history, the only God in Deuteronomy’s history, and they are priests before God in the Priestly history. Now we are in the 21st century but I am happy to know that God is for me as he is for Israel”.

In just two short weeks at the bible school we could see that the word of God is very near to these Karen refugees. We saw it in the studies of the students, in the hospitality of Pastor Simon and his family, in their worship, in their gentleness, in their sharing with each other, in their joy and hope.

To be in exile, but to be a people of hope is a powerful sign that God’s word is alive today. This is a people on the edge of their homeland, and not able to live in it, and yet they remain a people committed to God’s word.

And I think that Moses’ words to the Israelites camped outside of their land is a word of encouragement and challenge to each of us too. Even though we don’t live in exile or in a no-man’s land such as those in a border refugee camp, God’s word comes to us in the midst of our experiences here in Canberra. And we too are challenged by this word.

Choose today to trust in God’s promises, to love God, and to walk in his ways.

When Rebecca and I taught English classes in the bible school we used some of our favourite poems. I would like to read one to you, because I think it speaks of the powerful blessing it is to live with hope, but to live today with God’s word:

(Extract from “Late Bloomer” by Barbara Brown Taylor)

It's a hard thing to believe in a promise-to live by it, day after day,
It's a hard thing to believe in a promise with no power in it to make it come true. What is there to live on now?
And yet.
What better way to live than in the grip of a promise and a divine one at that?
To wake in the possibility that today might be the day.
To remain wide awake all day long, noticing everything
-the way the shade of the olive tree processes from west to east,
and how the smell of the fields changes from green grass to yellow hay as the sun heats up overhead.
To search the face of every stranger in case it turns out to be the face of an angel of God.
To take nothing for granted.
To handle every moment of one's life as a seed of the promise
and to plant it tenderly, never knowing if this moment, or the next,
may be the one that grows.
To live in this way is to discover that the blessing is not future but now.
The promise may not be fully in hand.
It may still be on the way, but to live reverently, deliberately, and fully awake –
This is what it means to live in the promise, where the wait itself is as rich as the end.

May God bless you as you live today with God’s word. Amen.

Jeanette Mathews
1.10.06