I wonder whether you have a vision of the Promised Land? A vision of how life might be that you cling onto; a vision that sustains you? Let me tell you about mine.
For many many years I have had a plan to go and live on a Scottish island. Every so often I do a bit of research into it. I start thinking about which island and what kind of house I might live in. I imagine a new life – a perfect life – a life in which I am wearing a thick woollen jumper, driving around in a 4wD pick up truck, looking after sheep as well as chickens, drinking malt whiskey before a blazing fire with a trusty border collie at my side.
About fifteen years ago I shared my vision of the Promised Land with one of my best friends and he told me that amazingly he too wanted to live on a Scottish island as well. That’s great he said, we could live there together because you know all about growing vegetables and looking after livestock. Yes, that’s great, I agreed, because you have got a degree in electronic engineering so you will be able to fix things when they break. And you are better with dogs than I am.
Then we found out another shared feature of our Promised Land vision; neither of our wives had any intention of being part of it. So now part of the vision is that they stay in Manchester and come and visit us occasionally; and send us money. Marian doesn’t seem to mind about the Promised Land. That’s because she knows it is a delusional fantasy.
Promised Land fantasies tend to contain an element of delusion. It’s an element of delusion that makes them dangerous if they are ever enacted upon.
European culture has a long history of indulging these fantasies and unfortunately acting upon them. For hundreds of years ordinary people in Europe have dreamt of a better life somewhere else. A life based on a home and a farm of their own; a Promised Land.
And these Promised Land fantasies have been based on genocide and slavery and theft. The example of the United States is the one that we know most about in our culture. Malcolm X once said, ‘’ I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare”. This same nightmare has been acted out in many parts of the world; Australia, Latin America, Africa. We also have the example of the Middle East. The nightmare isn’t over yet.
Our nightmare appears to have Biblical roots. That’s where the phrase Promised Land comes from. The land promised to Abraham for his descendants. The land promised to Moses as he led his people out of slavery. The land given to Joshua as he led his people across the River Jordan. And it is in the Book of Joshua that the final conquest of the Promised Land is described. It is presented as a genocidal conquest in which God urges the conquerors on and delivers their victory for them.
The Lord said to Joshua, ‘This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses. You are the one who shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, “When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.”’ Joshua then said to the Israelites, ‘Draw near and hear the words of the Lord your God.’ Joshua said, ‘By this you shall know that among you is the living God who without fail will drive out from before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites:
In my big thick study Bible that I had to buy when I began my training to be a priest there is an explanatory note for the Book of Joshua. Let me quote from it:
“The Book of Joshua presents a form of Holy War. The Hebrew word kherem occurs frequently in the book, usually translated ‘devote to destruction’ or ‘utterly destroy’. The entire concept of holy war is deeply and profoundly troubling … we should continue to be troubled by its grimly violent understanding of God’s work in history”.
When I studied the Old Testament during my ordination training, one of the other ordinands suddenly declared that he had a real problem with the Book of Joshua and simply did not accept it as the Word of God. This generated a sharp debate. This man based his opposition to the Book of Joshua on Christ. He said that he could not see how the God who gave his Son to die upon the cross, the Son who forgave his killers could possibly be the same God who urged his people to commit genocide. Those who argued against him said that the God who condemned the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites also condemns all those who deny that Jesus is the Son of God. So essentially the debate became a debate between a vision of a forgiving God and a vision of a vengeful God. I dare say you will all have your own views on whether you want God to be forgiving or vengeful.
It is often very helpful when reading these texts to do so with an understanding of how they came to be written. The Book of Joshua was written by the people of Israel when they were in exile. So, although it is a book about how God gave them the Promised Land on condition that they drive from it the previous inhabitants, it tells this story hundreds of years later when the Promised Land has been taken away from them and they in their turn have been driven from it. And the Book took its place in Hebrew Scripture alongside other texts including the Books of the Prophets which detail how the people of Israel broke God’s laws and lost the land that had been promised to them. So in this context it is not at all clear that the book is intended as a justification for genocidal war. It tells the story of a time when the people of Israel were victorious. They knew only too well that they had been defeated and subjugated many times since then. We have to read the Bible as a whole sometimes. We have to take the full council of Scripture.
Probably more than any other book in the Bible, the letter to the Hebrews helps us to understand how we should read the Bible as a whole. This is a book that explains the new covenant that God established with the people of Israel and the whole of humanity through his Son Jesus Christ. This is a new covenant, so different to the old covenant, superseding the old covenant, and yet fulfilling the old covenant.
The description of who Jesus is that is set out in our passage this evening seeks to explain why Jesus is the final word in our relationship with God, replacing everything that has gone before. Jesus is the heir of all things. The world was created through him. He is the means by which we see the glory of God. He sustains creation. His sacrifice on the cross purified the world of all sin. He sits at God’s right hand. Our salvation, therefore, rests in having faith in him.
And faith is the framework through which the entire story of the people of Israel including that part of the story told in the book of Joshua is reframed. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews exhorts us not to lose faith like those who were excluded from the Promised Land (Chapter 3 verse 11), but rather to emulate the faith shown by Joshua and others at the fall of Jericho (Chapter 11, verse 30). The entire story of the Old Testament is to be understood not as a story of victories and defeats but as a story of people being faithful to God both in victory and in defeat. This, essentially, is the great gift to the world of the Hebrew Scriptures, that God accompanies us still even when it appears that all is lost. It is this message that prepares the ground for the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
So when we read the story of the people of Israel passing through the waters of the River Jordan, we admire their faith. We remember the faith by which we also passed through water when we were baptised. We renew our commitment to remain faithful as we journey through our Promised Land which is wherever we are when we proceed step by step in faith.
There may or may not be a 4WD pick up truck and a border collie in my future. Some of our dreams may come true, many more will prove to have been delusions. We will arrive in our true Promised Land when we can let go of the delusions which we have indulged and concentrate rather on the faith we have been asked to have in the one who made us, sustains us, inspires us, redeems us, intercedes for us and waits for us; the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.