“So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt prepared for battle. And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph who had required a solemn oath of the Israelites, saying, “God will surely take notice of you, and then you must carry my bones with you from here.” They set out from Succoth, and camped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.”
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For those of you who don’t know – my full-time gig is not Urban Abbey communion server – I’m an English teacher – in a public middle school. I get to hang out with 7th graders all week. So if there’s one thing I might know a little bit about – it’s surviving the wild.
When Debra asked if I would be willing to offer a reflection today, and that it would be a bit of a prelude to the series using Brene Brown’s book Braving the Wilderness, I immediately said yes.
Then I immediately stressed out. You might say I started making a home for myself in a wilderness state.
And of course to make matters even more wilderness-y, I started procrastinating.
But then I thought, “Tell everyone you know that you’re working on a sermon! That’ll light a fire under you!”
So I told…crap. I’m no pastor! What makes me think I can do this??
Well, this might just be one terrible example of a self-manufactured wilderness. But it gets even wilder.
Having reminded myself I’m not a pastor, I began the hard work of trying to find the right books to get me close enough to offer a Sunday reflection.
As an English teacher and preacher’s kid, I do have a lot of books. Even Bible-y books … seminary-type books. Can lots of books help me navigate my way through this wilderness?
OR will I simply drag a bunch of people into the wilderness with me?
I guess if that’s the message…that we are all in the wilderness, then I’m done! You’re welcome.
But since I want to reflect on God’s presence and guidance with us through the wilderness – we’ve got lots more to talk about.
The scripture reading today is nestled in the midst of the high drama of Exodus. It comes after the plagues and the Passover and right before the parting of the Red Sea.
Picture Charlton Heston in the 1956 film “The Ten Commandments”.
And if the reference to UB40’s song “Red Red Wine” during communion doesn’t do anything for you, then I can guarantee you have no idea who Charlton Heston is and have never seen that movie. Trust me when I tell you it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It’s just…really dramatic.
There are plagues of blood, frogs, and darkness (and by darkness I mean literal darkness AND death to all of the firstborn in Egypt – human AND animal),
Just listen to this list of plagues! If the Lord is nothing else, She is creative:
We have water turned to blood (I prefer Jesus’s methods of water to wine), plagues of frogs, gnats, flies, diseased livestock, boils, thunder and hail (my dog would die from this one if she survived the others), locusts (can you imagine the sounds?), and before the plague of death to the Firstborns, there is a plague of darkness:
And the scripture (Exodus 10: 21-23) says that the Lord commands Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be felt.” And there was dense darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days. People could not see one another, and for three days they could not move from where they were.”
This plague of darkness – imagine. (Easy to do…this plague of darkness sounds a lot like winter in Nebraska)
Imagine for 3 days. No movement, no vision, no human contact.
I wonder if this was Jesus’s experience for 3 days.
I know that sometimes this is our human experience…blackness, utter darkness without sight, without human contact, without connection from one heart to another. This is wilderness.
And this might be the worst kind of wilderness we encounter.
It is the wilderness of ancient history; it is the wilderness of modern experience.
This inundation of natural terrors, these plagues, culminates in a confrontation between the Lord, the Israelites and the Egyptians at the Red Sea.
So here we are post-plague, post-Passover:
Exodus 13: 18-22 “So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt prepared for battle. And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph who had required a solemn oath of the Israelites, saying, “God will surely take notice of you, and then you must carry my bones with you from here.” They set out from Succoth, and camped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.”
I want to point something out here – while God may have spared the Israelites from the plagues, God intentionally leads the Israelites to the Sea BY WAY OF THE WILDERNESS.
Stay with me for a moment as I go down a couple wilderness rabbit holes:
In Braving the Wilderness, when Brown explains the wilderness metaphor, she says the following:
“Theologians, writers, poets, and musicians have always used the wilderness as a metaphor, to represent everything from a vast and dangerous environment where we are forced to navigate difficult trials to a refuge of nature and beauty where we seek space for contemplation. What all wilderness metaphors have in common are the notions of solitude, vulnerability, and an emotional, spiritual, or physical quest.” (Brown p. 36)
God intentionally leads Her Chosen people by way of the wilderness, and I think Jesus can relate to their wilderness experiences through his own just as the early Christians related to being in the wilderness after the resurrection, and that we can relate to thousands of years later…to understand our belonging – to one another, to Christ’s redeeming love, and to a place at the table that God has set for us and for ALL of us. We have to be willing to see with new eyes in ways that journeys through the wilderness empower us to do.
Brown goes on to say:
“We can’t expect to take a well-worn path through these badlands…we all have to find our own way deep into the wild. And if you’re like me, you’re not going to like some of the terrain.
We’re going to need to intentionally be with people who are different from us. We’re going to have to sign up, join, and take a seat at the table. We’re going to have to learn how to listen, have hard conversations, look for joy, share pain, and be more curious than defensive, all while seeking moments of togetherness.
…it takes tremendous courage to knowingly walk into hard moments.” (Brown p. 37)
Other great authors agree with Brown. Joseph Campbell “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” and “A Hero’s Journey” suggests that “the cave we fear to enter holds the treasure we seek.”
The wilderness holds treasure!
Many literal wilderness experiences very obviously hold treasure and beauty.
These are experiences where it is easy to see and feel God’s presence:
witnessing the migration of the sandhill cranes through the Platte River Valley
watching the sky change hues of purple, orange, or red during the sunrise or sunset
sitting on a beach, gazing into the horizon, listening to the crashing waves, sinking your toes in the sand
watching puffins divebomb fish in the north Atlantic Ocean
Other literal wilderness experiences carry a little more fear and vulnerability:
watching the sky turn green as the clouds swirl in an ominous circle, threatening safety
trying to navigate through snow and ice-covered pathways
losing your GPS signal when you’re trying to find your wayAnd then of course:
plagues of gnats, locusts, frogs, and flies
But more so than these literal experiences – I think God means for us to enter metaphorical and internal wilderness; like Brown names the emotional and spiritual quests
Examples of wilderness quests that hold a 99% guarantee of abundance:
Wedding planning!
Reading books! Especially books like “The Call of the Wild”
Writing books – or thinking you’ll someday write a book; creating art – or thinking someday you’ll create art
Training for a 5k, triathlon, any sort of competition, weight loss
Dance lessons, swim lessons
First days of school or a new job or of retirement
These are physical, emotional and spiritual quests thru wilderness (or new experiences) with a more obvious treasure or a clearer route to joy.
But what about the metaphorical wilderness experiences where the terrain seems tougher, the pain seems more powerful and our defenses are higher? Where the risk is so much greater and we turn a blind eye to the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that are ever-present? Wilderness experiences like:
A conversation with a 7th grader who wonders, “Ms. Peltz, how do people get poor?”
Facing a friend or loved one after a fight, a misunderstanding, a disagreement, or other pain
Being laid off from your job in the midst of laying a foundation for a new home or while paying student loans or when bringing a new life into the world
Wondering how someone you love could have such huge differences in opinion from your own and not seeing a way to reconcile those differences in your heart or in your head, let alone face to face with the other person (like the 2 students in my classroom recently, one so adamantly pro-life and one so adamantly saying, “wait! It’s more complicated than that! We need to talk about this!”)
Not knowing how to share with your parents that you love differently than they do
Conquering a deep-seated fear of speaking in front of a church audience that includes people you admire and respect and you can’t possibly say anything that could be of value or that they don’t already know
Isaiah 43: 19-20 “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert…"
You see, wilderness is a teacher and trainer, a challenger and a changer, a source of renewal and recalibration. Where our thirst is quenched and our hunger is satisfied.
God invites us into the wilderness, guides us there – with intention. So that, in the midst of our thirst, hunger, brokenness and fatigue, our eyes may be opened to God’s abundant love, God’s radical presence, and the inextricable connection that She so desires us to have with each other. Because, you see, we don’t go into the wilderness alone. The journey is both yours alone and ours collective.
This means that on the other side of that tough metaphorical wilderness that you are in is the person who wonders the same things you do…whose way is being made through the wilderness just like yours is:
How did I lose everything? How did I get here?
How do I face the friend or loved one after our fight?
How do I release someone from this space to find something new?
How can I both disagree with AND love him or her? How can I discuss tough topics with both passion and compassion and still LOVE the person with whom I disagree? (We might be able to take a lesson from middle school kids on this one!)
How can I accept and love my child who has just come out to me?
Will I hear the message today or will I even understand it?
While preparing this reflection, I began to wonder. Maybe the wilderness IS God. Maybe as good Methodists who know that God is in the grass, in the clouds, and in the speckles of dust visible only through rays of sun or moonlight, that in this wilderness OF COURSE that’s where we meet God. OF COURSE that’s where She leads us. She IS the light, the pillar of fire and pillars of cloud – guiding us AND surrounding us.
And of course this means we cannot pick and choose our wilderness companions.
All of us are in the wilderness, and whether we’ve entered from the right or the left, from the heart or the head, from starvation or from abundance, from fears or from courage, from anger or from gratitude – we’re there.
And so maybe, is this what it is to be living the way of Jesus?
To be in the wilderness in all its manifestations…to survive it, to become it, to enter it and re-enter it.
To see crucifixion and resurrection over and over and over again. And to remain hopeful, wild, wildly hopeful and wildly loving.
To be Easter people even if our hearts break, our minds question, our backs bend, our lungs fatigue, our guts hunger, and our feet grow weary as we travel through this wild life.
We are all of us in the wilderness; and our Wilderness God is with us, too.
May we have the courage to enter the wilderness, thirsty for Living Water that sustains us and eyes open to Wild Fire that guides us, brave enough to see everyone who is with us, and vulnerable enough to discover something new within ourselves.
May it be so, Amen.
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