Wilderness Time

“The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’” (Exodus 16:2-3, NRSV)

Dear friends in Christ,

At a recent Tulsa District gathering our new District Superintendent, Dan Peil, shared his thoughts about the state of the church and asked us to reflect on this Old Testament lesson. I want to take this time to talk a bit about what Dan said and how it relates to our faith community. There has been a lot of talk in recent years about how “the church” is in a wilderness period. Membership is declining, attendance is down, and giving is off. There are lots of opinions about why this is happening and even more on how we go about fixing the problem. You see this is a problem shared throughout the country across all mainline denominations. There just seems to be a move by many to seek their spiritual food outside the walls of “organized religion.” Many people in our mainline churches bemoan this trend and cry out that everything was great back in the “good old days” when church was the center of community life and Sunday was family day and everybody gathered at church in the morning, then around the table for lunch, and then back at church in the evening, every Sunday without fail. Back then, they tell us, society was better off, everything was simpler, there was less crime and our families were stronger. If we could just go back all our problems would be solved and our churches would be healthier.

This sounds a bit like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. If only they had never rebelled against Pharaoh; if only they had never left slavery in Egypt; at least they would have had a place to sleep and something to eat. We need to listen to what God had in mind for those whining Israelites. God told Moses that he would rain bread from heaven and the people should gather only what they need for a day. “In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not.” (Ex 16:4) The story continues as God provides and the people complain. Ultimately, Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’” And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. (Ex. 16:9-11)

Being the church and fulfilling our mission as disciples is not about going back to the way things used to be, or doing things the same way we’ve always done, or sitting around complaining about how bad things are. Nothing in our world is about keeping things the same or going back to those good old days. That’s not the way this world works and it’s not the way God’s world works. God is always moving forward leading us toward the divine vision of what the world should be. God has always called us to follow; we hear that command in both the Old and New Testament. The problem seems to be that God is out there on the horizon and we just can’t seem to keep up. We continue to cling to the comfortable and the familiar while God is calling us out to the challenging and the difficult. We think in terms of human economics where resources are scarce and we need to hoard what we have like the servant who took his master’s money and buried in the ground for fear of losing it and getting into trouble. God calls us to take what we’ve been given and use it, invest it, plant it, and risk it so that God’s economy can multiply it and make it fruitful.

Like the Israelites, we are required to make difficult choices as we seek to draw near to the Lord and follow God’s leading through the wilderness. Sometimes these choices will be costly; they will be emotional; they will involve changing our perspectives and our priorities. Often the choices we must make will cause disagreement. Nonetheless these difficult choices must be made to enable the whole church to serve God’s mission.

When we talk to people who have left the church or never even tried the church we often hear complaints about what the church represents, about how behind-the-times the church is, or how exclusive the church “club” is. It seems to me that we could go a long way toward addressing these complaints if we had the courage to move forward with God instead of clinging to the past and wondering why things can’t stay the same. No organization can survive unless it keeps moving; the church is no exception. God has been moving forward since the beginning of time urging Creation to grow and change and adapt. God is constantly calling us to keep up. I pray that we will all “draw near to the Lord,” and be able to discern how we might better respond to the leading God offers to each of us.

In Jesus’ name,
Pastor Don