Just Beyond the Horizon
Reflections on Deuteronomy 34.1-12
RCL Proper 30A
29 October 2023
Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
Ever since I began serious biblical studies in seminary, I have found today’s story from Deuteronomy profoundly sad and not a little unjust. Moses has led the people from their bondage in Egypt, in their escape from the military might of Pharaoh and through the long wilderness journey across the Sinai. He has faced God and he has faced down God. He has been praised by the people as their saviour and accused by them for conniving with God in their destruction. He has lost his family and is not being denied the undeniable fruit of his labours – a triumphant entry into the promised land, the land of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob.
Over the many centuries this story has been told, various explanations have been advanced as to why Moses is denied his prize. But I think that there is only one way this story makes sense to me. All who follow the God of Abraham, of Moses and of Jesus are destined to live in ‘the already but not yet’ of God’s unfolding purposes for us and for all creation. Despite our longing to arrive, we are not destined to do so. We are destined to see where we are going but not to dwell there.
None of us, none of us, can see the endings of our lives. By ‘endings’ I do not mean our physical deaths. By ‘endings’ I mean the ‘purposes’ for which we have lived and worked and perhaps suffered. Throughout our lives we have striven to achieve one or more goals, but goals are not the same as purposes. Purposes are the legacies that all our striving, all our worrying, all our sacrifices have sought to bestow upon those who are walking with us now and those who will walk in the paths we have forged after we have finished our leg of the journey.
When Moses left his family after the vision of the burning bush, he could not have known where his journey would lead him. He only knew that he was embarking on this path trusting that the One who had called him was also guiding him towards a future with the people of Israel would have the opportunity to become a people of destiny. But becoming a people of destiny would be their descendants’ vocation not Moses’ nor any other member of the generation that had entered the Sea ahead of Pharaoh’s army save Joshua.
When the people crossed the desert, they travelled from oasis to oasis, from water-spring to water-spring. I am sure that they were often tempted to stop and put down roots, claiming a way-station on the journey as the destination. But this was neither their purpose nor their destiny. Their future lay in a rich country full of dangers and uncertainties as well as possibilities.
“We are pilgrims on a journey, fellow-travellers on the road,” a familiar hymn reminds us. Our destination lies somewhere in the future. Like the Israelites we may be tempted to find an oasis and settle in it as if it were our destination. After all, most human beings have a built-in preference for stability and a sense of having arrived.
But ours is a journey in stages that has involved many generations before us. Each generation has had its purpose, its role in bringing the world closer to it consummation, its destiny. Like Moses, each generation has caught of glimpse of where the journey is leading us, but only from a mountain top and not within its borders.
As I prepare for retirement, I am coming to some peace with hoe God dealt with Moses. I am grateful for whatever role I have had in the on-going drama of God’s mighty work of bringing the whole of creation to its consummation, its end as that place where all God’s children shall be free. I wish it were already here, but it is not yet. But it will come.
O God, you have called your servants
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.
Give us faith to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go,
but only that your hand is leading us
and your love supporting us;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. [1]
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