The presidential election is just days away now, and I for one am tired of all the talk.  Let’s do this thing and get it over with.  I spent about an hour in the food court at the outlet mall at Foley, AL, on Friday sitting with Dianna’s dad who really didn’t want to shop and that is why we parked there in the food court. The big TV on the wall was tuned to CNN.  Now I am interested in politics, I am patriotic, I do care about my country and what happens in this election, especially this election, but after watching Wolf Blitzer for an hour I wanted to shoot myself in the foot.  I was amazed at all the different angles that CNN could look at the election.  The phrase “paralysis of analysis” came to mind.  CNN had an expert for everything.  I think they even had an expert on experts.  They had a fashion expert to talk about Sarah Palins’ wardrobe and how the $150,000 the Republican National Convention spent on her clothes might hurt her image as a soccer mom. Ya think? They had some guy analyzing something minute that Joe Biden said.  They pontificated and guessed and predicted about anything and everything.  And to make matters worse, the closed captioning on the screen ran right across Michelle Obama’s face.  She was just a hairdo and words.  It was most annoying.  Not only that, but the closed captioning was so woefully behind it was worthless and probably violated the American Disability Act in some way. I could not separate what the voices were saying from what I was reading, and I could not stop reading it.  I would have changed the channel but the TV was too high on the wall.  I am pretty sure that I was missing something good like Sponge Bob Square Pants on the other channel.

            OK, Blitzer was not all bad.  The show did have an extended segment about Saturday Night Live’s spoof of all things political.  You know by now of SNL’s Tina Fey and her portrayal of Sara Palin.  Fey is good, she is the spitting image of Palin, and Will Ferrell makes a pretty good George W. as well.  I am sure W. would make a pretty good Will Ferrell as he is pretty funny himself; I am not sure who the best comedian is. But one of the things mentioned on Blitzer’s show was the recent and highly popular portrayals of Palin by Fey.  And since we don’t have multimedia at Providence, I am stuck trying to describe how funny SNL’s shtick really is to those who may have missed it.  But on a recent SNL, Fey did the Sara Palin Rap, and I was able to find the words on the net, so imagine them plastered all over the front of the chapel on a huge screen just like the big boys do it:

One two three

my name is sarah palin you all know me

vice president nominee of the gop

gonna need your vote in the next election

can i get a ‘what what’ from the senior section

mccain got experience, mccain got style

but don’t let him freak you out when he tries to smile

cause that smile be creepy

but when i be vp

all the leaders in the world gonna finally meet me

how’s it go eskimo

eskimos

tell me what you know eskimo

eskimos

how you feel eskimo

ice cold

tell me tell me what you feel eskimo

super cold

i’m jeremiah wright cause tonight i’m the preacher

i got a bookish look and you’re all hot for teacher

todd lookin fine on his snow machine

so hot boy gonna need a go between

in wasilla we just chill baby chilla

but when i see oil lets drill baby drill

my country tis of thee

from my porch i can see

russia and such.

            There is more, but you get the point.  The rap mocked of Palin’s native state Alaska introducing actors dressed up as Eskimos, Palin’s husband Todd in a thermal suit, complete with a dancing moose and snow.

            Well, all joking aside the election is important, we will all live with our decision for at least four more years, and I for one think the last four haven’t been so hot, so it is important to get it right. The election of the American President is especially of interest because of the incredible power that we invest in one person.  And depending whose propaganda you listen to, we will either have the friend of a domestic terrorist or a 72 year old maverick who was tortured for seven years in Vietnam sitting in the Oval office with their potential fingers on the Armageddon trigger. So it is an issue that requires prayerful guidance.

            Because good, bad, or ugly, the American President is a world leader, maybe the quintessential world leader who wields mind-boggling power and influence. Our greatest presidents have been outstanding leaders as well.  The names of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Roosevelt are names that symbolize greatness and are icons of American Spirit and leadership.  Some would add modern names of Kennedy, Regan and even Clinton, at least the good Bill to that leadership hall of fame.  And great leaders are not easily replaced.  We have all seen that in our history firsthand.

            I remember exactly where I was when JFK was assassinated and I remember how everyone was affected even though I was only eight years old.  We all grieved just as though we had personally lost a family member, as this type of loss is an existential loss where even though our grief is not personal, we lose something important about ourselves as well, so our grief is real. I was in Mrs. Moon’s (no relation to Daniel I am pretty sure as I don’t remember her being Korean) third grade class when the principal of the school came over the intercom (yes, we had intercom in those days, we got rid of the carrier pigeons the year before) and announced that the President had been shot in Dallas.  There was a stunned silence.  Moments later he came on again and said that President Kennedy had died.  We all were in disbelief.  My teacher cried.  They dismissed school early.  The principal led us in a moment of silence over the intercom.  I rode the bus home to find my parents glued to our TV as the whole thing unfolded in the news.  America grieved and watched in disbelief as more than a President and great leader had died.  Our age of innocence was lost as well, and a turbulent decade would begin to unfold and at times rapidly seem to unravel. I am a product of those changing times, and to this day I naturally question authority and traditional institutions because of it.  It is who I am.

            In our lectionary text today we have the loss of another great leader, in fact maybe the greatest leader in the history of Israel.   Only the names of Elijah or David rival his name. As a leader, Moses takes a back seat to no one in the Bible.  He was an unlikely leader at first, he was hampered by shyness, had early problems of unwillingness, and was on Pharaoh’s most wanted list but he overcame all of that and became a man who took a rag tag bunch of slaves and made them a great nation.  He received the law code that would become the foundation of civilization.  He defeated the great dynasty of the Sun God and split the sea into.  He fed his nation Manna and gave them water to drink in the desert. He was bigger than life itself this man Moses. It is as Dr. William Quick states:

What a GIANT is Moses – not only a towering figure in the Bible – but also in human history! He stands taller than the mountains on which he received the word of the Lord. By whatever standard the makers of history are to be judged, Moses towers over most of the human race in solemn solitude and majestic grandeur. His story is one of the most captivating in the Bible. Only a man of iron will could have endured the endless bickering, scheming, and backbiting of this cantankerous crowd. Moses was such a man. Despite the disappointments and heartbreaks along the way, the Israelites would discover that the Lord went before them; every mile the Lord went before them. Around every rocky curve, the Lord went before them. Up every hill and mountain, the Lord went before them. The purpose of the exodus was not merely to free a group of slaves but for something of far greater significance. It was the creation of a new nation, the uniting of a people. He would see them transform from a disorganized horde of cringing slaves into a compact and confident nation of fighting men capable of wresting a fertile land from a desperate foe. But Moses did more than make a nation out of those terrified slaves. He gave to them and to their descendants a sense of divine destiny that marks them to this very day. Wherever you meet a Jew today, he is first a Jew and after that a citizen. He may be American or Russian, German or Polish, Spanish or Asian, but he is always a Jew. (You Have a Call From God. DAY 1, Dr. William Quick, Oct 22, 2002)

 

In our passage today we have the account of the death of Moses, which of course will end our sermons on Moses.  The account is significant when you consider that we have few such accounts in scripture.  After all, who the heck knows how any of the disciples or the apostle Paul died?  This  is a strange account in some ways.  For those who insist that Moses was the author of the first five books of the Bible, they have to explain away how Moses could write about his own death, burial, and the ensuing commentary on his life in this chapter.  There is also the strange issue that Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land because of what seems like one act of disobedience, contrasted against many, many acts of courage and faith.  It appears that there was certainly not much room for screw ups in the wilderness.  And there is the problem of the burial as to who did it, and also to the manner of his death as he was described as otherwise very healthy and had all his faculties about him.  God simply showed him the Promised Land and said he could not go there, and Moses died– end of story.  Moses, here is what you could have had, what you looked for 40 years; there it is, now time for you to die.  And Moses death almost sounds like a suicide to me, but not one writer anywhere on the planet suggests that, so forget it. I must be way wrong to even think such a thing.  Shame on me, but read it closely, and yes, read way between the lines.  But there certainly was a lot of killing in the Moses story though, and considering the law giver prohibited killing it was somewhat ironic at the least.  I guess it was OK to kill those that God wanted dead.  But nevertheless, in the end he is described as the greatest of the great and the writer of this chapter eloquently states, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face (also a contradiction by the way, remember the cleft of the rock business?). He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.” (NRSV)

            So a great leader dies, and he is not easily replaced.  Well, actually he was easily replaced as Joshua did what Moses was not able to do and turned the children of Israel into skilled soldiers who were able to take the Promised Land from all those who lived there, those who names ended with “ites.”  You know, the Canaanites, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the termites and the like. But Moses was one of histories great leaders, no doubt.

            So how come mighty Moses didn’t get to go into the Promised Land?  Evidently, like any of us Moses had a fatal flaw or two, but he had many more saving graces.  Maybe as a leader he was overly responsible for his people’s failures.

I ask you this morning, is it only me, or does his fate seem especially tragic and unfair that he was not able to enter the Promise Land, the place of blessing that God had promised?  I mean in the great ledger in the sky he had way more credits than debits.  It seems as though Moses made one mistake and it undid all the good that he was faithful over.  If this is so, it hardly seems right, it is an impossible standard that none of us can meet.  Well, that is the point you Christians say– that it is impossible and that is why we need Jesus.  But my response is still, is it fair to hold us to a standard that none of us are capable of keeping?  We are destined to fail, we are created flawed creatures, we cannot succeed it is impossible, and to prove my point that we were created to fail, just remember that everyone has failed, even the greatest of them all, Moses.  So what kind of God gets his jollies by holding us to standards that none of us have the capacity to meet unless we cry uncle and admit that we losers and need God to bail us out, knowing full well that we were created with that forced assent as our only option for blessing.  Otherwise we are damned to eternal torture in hell, or at least only get a glimpse of the Promised Land. Is that what we preach, is that the gospel? Is that what the Law of Moses is all about?

            I remember as a child having a Baptist Sunday School teacher tell the class that Moses went to Hell for slapping that rock to get water for those thirsty, yet whining Israelites.  It was explained to me that God said for him to tap the rock and he slapped the tar out of it and that made God mad.  It was explained to me as a matter of degree.  For this act of disobedience he was sentenced to hell, which I guess is what this teacher equated what the metaphor meant of not getting into the Promise Land.

            No wonder I grew up as a Baptist with an image of a God who was stern, who was no fun, who was standing in his omnipresent wings waiting to smite me any time I didn’t toe the line.  I grew up in a church where we worshipped the Old Testament God.  My preacher preached every single week from the Old Testament, especially the mean parts and intended to scare us into Kingdom compliance.  God was very stern, a very harsh taskmaster, and human life seems so cheap to him.  He didn’t mind casually and callously wiping out whole hoards of people who got in the way of the righteous adequately worshipping him. I mean after all, he wiped out hundreds for slapping the water out of a silly rock. And I don’t remember seeing frustration over being thirsty in the desert as one of the 10 rules you had to keep. 

You see, the problem for me is in the Moses story you had to do an awful lot of do good to get rewarded and do just one thing, one little thing marginally bad and God would smite you.  For me, this led to the belief that I was trapped in the downward spiral of doing bad things and feeling guilty which led to a low self esteem which led to doing more bad things which led to feeling guilty and throw in a good measure of worthlessness.  I mean heck, if Moses wasn’t good enough, who the heck is?  He was denied the blessing that he looked forward to for 40 years, and he never took his eyes off the goal, he was more faithful amidst the unfaithful than anyone else, who maybe ever lived.

            OK, I admit these people were trouble, they were whiners and no one likes whiners, but Moses had the patience of a saint.  But on the other hand, the troubling thing is it seems that God did not.  What this story needs is a God who is as grown up as Moses.  Instead we all too often envision a vindictive, childlike God who sulks and gets even with us when he doesn’t get his way. 

            And many people have this image of God as well, it is alive and well on planet earth in Little Rock, Arkansas in 2008.  In the Old Testament, it seems that people were very strictly expected to toe the line.  It was all about do what I tell you and get blessed, don’t do what I tell you and get damned.  It was a dichotomous world, one where the only two options led to dualistic extremes.  Moses was the lawgiver, and as such people knew right from wrong, good from bad, pretty from ugly, black from white. When they did good they were rewarded, when they failed they were punished, sometimes harshly.  The rules were posted, everybody knew the score, and they were to obey.  The trouble was and is no one is able to obey the rules completely.

            I am amazed at how many Christians today preach the law of the land.  The Bible is a rule book to be followed to the letter, and they preach the constant need to confess and ask for constant forgiveness to please and appease the almighty.  For some of them, Jesus offers a way out, but he really doesn’t change anything in their lives.  We still constantly fail, we still need forgiveness, we still are worthless, we still are incapable of anything good, and we are still bound to the shackles of the law.  These Christians want the 10 commandments posted everywhere, they can tell you exactly what God expects of you and you have to follow their interpretation of the rules to be OK with God. 

            But I have learned at least one thing being an Old Testament Christian myself over these last few months of preaching from it in the lectionary.  That the Old Testament is not about the law, it is not about the commandments, it is about grace. That’s right, grace. Grace is the theme of the Old Testament; it is in every story on every page.  I am not sure why we don’t see that, it may be more psychological than theological.  It is not about the law, it is about love, it is about grace of a loving God. Moses wasn’t punished by not getting into the promise land to wage war with a bunch of trouble makers at his side, he was given something better, and it was not hell.  His epitaph here attests to his greatness. To see it we need to simply fast forward 1200 or so years to and event in the life of Christ we know as the Transfiguration.  When Christ was transfigured, remember the two persons who appeared in grandeur and glory with him on that mount?  Elijah and Moses.  Moses didn’t get to the Promised Land; he got to heaven and Christians, that is even better.  And we are not bound for the Promised Land either.  We are bound for something even better.

            And in his dying he shows us something else: he shows us that keeping he law is not enough, and maybe it is not even the point.  Moses was indeed redeemed, saved if you will.  We have all the proof we need at the transfiguration.  Jesus heals our image of Moses, but maybe Jesus does something even more – maybe Jesus heals our image of God in the process.  That God is not about the law, but is about grace.  That the grace of God is always the point, God is always there offering us another chance, he is always there picking up the pieces of our lives, he is always there offering us a way out.  We see this grace in the live of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  We see it in Joseph and Noah and especially in the one who is synonymous with the law, our man Moses.

            You see, when we see grace instead of law our image of people like Moses change. When we see grace instead of the law, our image of God changes and something more important happens as well:  the way we view ourselves changes.  That we are loved, that we are valued, that we are accepted, that we are part of the family of God. And that my friends is Good News indeed, for all of us who have come up a little short of the Promised Land.  Thanks be to God. Amen.