At
the beginning of the book of Joshua, Moses, God’s servant had just died. After forty years in the wilderness, a man
named Joshua was called on by God to lead God’s people, the Israelites, into
the promised land. “Be strong and
courageous,” God told him, “because you will lead these people to inherit the
land I swore to their forefathers to give them.”
I
think that sometimes, when Christians think about the promised land, we imagine
it something like the early history of the United States, where people moved
out of the Eastern states and found empty farmland in the West and homesteaded
there. We imagine that God had this
little plot of land set aside for his people to inhabit and grow into. But that’s not the case.
The
promised land was indeed promised to the Israelites, but it was already
inhabited by other people at the time: the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites,
Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. There would be danger, resistance and fighting
involved. Part of the promise of the
promised land was that God would somehow give his people victory over the
people who already lived in that land.
And
God kept his promise right away and in an awesome way by giving the city of
Jericho into the hands of his people. Jericho
wasn’t just a little town in the way of the Israelites, it was a major
roadblock. It was fortified and had many
inhabitants who probably weren’t too excited about giving up their land to
people they didn’t know even if those people said it was “promised to them from
their God.” More than that,
archeologists hypothesize that Jericho may have been the center for Canaanite
religion where they would have worshipped the “moon-god”. Jericho probably means “moon city”. That meant that this fight was not only about
land, but about whether God himself or this so called “moon god” would
win.
The
Israelites were told to listen to God’s way of handling the battle. They were to walk around the city walls with
the ark of the covenant and trumpets leading the way, for six days—once every
day. On the seventh day, God told them
to walk around the city seven times with the priests blowing the trumpets. Finally, when Joshua gave the symbol, they
were to all shout. When the Israelites
followed God’s directions, the walls fell down and the Israelites destroyed
Jericho. It was an unlikely victory that
showed God’s commitment to his promise.
That’s what happened in chapter six of Joshua,
but in chapter seven, where we get our frist reading from today, something
surprising happened. The text reads that
Joshua sent men from Jericho to a city called Ai. Ai was not the fortress that Jericho was and
so the Israelites were confident that they could handle this battle. After all, God had proved to them that the
promised land was theirs for the taking.
But, surprisingly, the Israelites were defeated handily and chased
away. Some were even killed. At this, their hearts melted the text
says. Of course, Joshua and the people
blamed God and complained that he had brought them to this land to destroy
them.
As
we read this story, we, as readers and hearers are led to ask ourselves? Did God break his promise? Why did God abandon His people in this case
even though before, in a much tougher battle, He led them to an easy
victory?
“The Lord said to
Joshua, ‘Stand up! What are you doing
down on your face? Israel has sinned;
they have violated my covenant. That is
why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs
and run because they have been made liable to destruction.’” Israel had sinned and that is why a much
weaker enemy had defeated them.
What
did God mean by saying that Israel had sinned?
The story explains that one Israelite man, named Achan, had taken some
riches out of Jericho and kept them for himself which the Israelites had been
told NOT to do by God. One man’s
sin. One man’s disobedience caused God
to become angry with all his people. Once
this man was found out and repented, God relented from his anger and, in the
very next chapter, the Israelites easily take over the city of Ai.
This
story tells us something important about ourselves and about our relationship
to God. We often talk about a personal
relationship to God. About the need to
confess our sins and believe in Jesus Christ.
One day we will each stand before God and be held accountable for
everything we have done, both for good and evil.
But
we don’t often talk about another aspect of our relationship with God. It is not just a personal relationship, but a
communal one. We are the body of
Christ. We are part of a cloud of
witnesses. We are a community of faith. And as a community, we are responsible for
one another. Your actions don’t just
affect you, they affect your family.
Your actions don’t just affect you, they affect your church. This can be either positive or negative. When you share your faith with a stranger,
that stranger may become an integral part of this community in a few
years. In the same way, as in the case
of Achan’s sin, when you disobey God, your sin can affect many more people than
just yourself.
We
have a healing service today where we will ask God to heal people who struggle
physically, emotionally and spiritually.
And yet, at the same time, we may be living our lives in willing disobedience
to God. With one hand, we lift up our
prayers and praises to God while with the other we steal and murder and destroy
others and act as if it doesn’t matter.
Imagine a father’s reaction, if a boy came home and said, “Sir, my car’s
in the shop, could we borrow your vehicle for our date tonight? Oh, and by the way, I’ll be using it sleep
with your daughter.” Would you bless
that boy with your car? And yet, we have
the audacity to expect blessings from God while at the same time refusing to
repent of our sins.
Repentance
doesn’t just mean saying you are sorry or feeling sorry or being sorry, but
stopping bad behavior and trying to obey God instead. Achan’s story tells us that this important
not just for your own sake, but for the community of faith you are a part
of. Repentance doesn’t mean that you
will be a perfect person, on the contrary, you are admitting that you are not
but that, with God’s help, you are working to live out your faith more fully. When you steal from a person, you can’t just
make it better by saying you are sorry to God, you must make amends with that
person or else your relationship to God is still affected. Jesus told his disciples, when they had an
offering to make at the temple to God, if they realized that their relationship
with another person was strained, they should leave their gift in front of the
altar and be reconciled first with that person.
Then they ought to offer their gift.
Our
church will never experience the true power of the Holy Spirit if we are always
more focused on our own individual spiritual journeys instead of on taking care
of one another. We all need to repent
for the sake of God’s work through this body of Christ. Each one of you is important to God’s work
being done here.
I
pray that at today’s healing service, God doesn’t just hear our individual
prayers, but hears our entire faith community rising up in unity to
repent—trusting in His mercy to heal us.
God promises, “If my people who are called by my name, humble
themselves. Pray, seek my face, and turn
from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their
sins and heal their land.” Let us pray
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