July 8, 2012
Joshua 3:7-17 (1)
“Waters of Faith”
Rev. Lauren J. McFeaters  

                                                                                
One of the mistakes we make when listening to the Old Testament stories, like the Israelites crossing over the Jordan, is we tend to listen as if it were a performance. The stories characters become actors on the stage. God is the director who moves people from, in this case, Jordan River stage left to Jordan River stage right. And we are the audience who take it all in. Applause. Applause.

One hundred and fifty years ago Soren Kierkegaard said the same thing about going to church; that most of us tend to sit in our pews as if worship is a performance. We come to worship believing that we in the pews are the audience – take your seat and enjoy the show; the pastor and choir are the actors on a stage, and God is the prompter moving us from “Let us Worship” to “Go in Peace”– all of it a deliberate production aimed to please, improve, and educate. Lovely.
But this is, as Kierkegaard observed, a suffering of role confusion in worship; a suffering that needs to be washed clean and flipped on its head.

In truth, the congregation are the actors, the minister and choir are the prompters, and God is the audience.
If you and I enter worship and listen to scripture facing anywhere but toward God, the experience may please us, it may inform us, it may comfort us, but it will hardly transform us. (2)

And God’s story of Joshua and the Jordan has the power to do that.

Moses is a tough act to follow.

For Joshua maybe even God felt that way. Even the Almighty Yahweh seemed to know if Joshua was going to gain acceptance in the eyes of the Israelites, God was going to have to do something spectacular in a parting-of-the-Red-Sea sort of way.

Of course, you have to wonder if Joshua felt he was in Moses’ shadow. After all, through Moses, God had parted an entire ocean, Pharaoh and his legions drowned behind them, and a nation went from slave to free. (3)
Joshua really need not have worried. For those with eyes to see, and ears to hear, Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, had salvation history moving full speed ahead.       

After forty years, a nomadic life in sand and sun, grappling with deprivation, intimidations, and worry; their deliverance from Egypt still bantered around nighttime campfires, the Israelites were about to be experience fulfillment from the Living God:

“This day, proclaims God, I will begin to exalt you Joshua…
When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan,
you shall stand still in the Jordan.’”
“Draw near and hear the words of the Lord your God.
By this you shall know that among you is the living God.”
“Come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan.”

At almost every juncture of salvation history, water is central. Water is essential. Water is a primary player.
The first mention of water in scripture is found in the first book of the Bible, chapter 1, verse 1:
“The Spirit of God broods over the face of the waters.”
And the last mention of water is found in Revelation, the last book of the Bible in the last verses:
“Let anyone who wishes, take the water of life as a gift.”
From beginning to end, and all the way in between, water flows right through the pages of scripture as a sign of God’s salvation. We are people of the water.

“Come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan.”
What makes this so central and necessary?

Because,
“By this you shall know that among you is the living God.”
The Living God. The Living God.
Not the God who moves us like we’re actors on a stage; who plucks us up moving us down stage center and then out the door, but the Living God. who takes us to the edge of the river and says: Come to the edge, dip in your toes, and walk with me.

“Come to the edge of the Jordan.”
What’s waiting for us at the edge of the Jordan?  Perhaps, like the Israelites, God has been forming us in faith in order to move into a promised land –

You know and I know that life with God is an ever-changing adventure. It’s not for the faint of heart. Come to the edge of the river. “God is inviting us to climb into the landscape of our own life...to walk into the depths of the riverbed and to finally shed the illusion of our own self-sufficiency to trust anew God’s promise (5)-- “Stand at the edge of the river and I will be with you.”

Forget the, “Oh I could never do that/ I’m not a risk-taker / it’s too late to make that decision after all this time. I’m too old, too young, too set in my ways, too married,  too single, too Presbyterian,  too tall, too wide, too short…Blah, blah, blah. 
You’re not watching a performance. No. You are a full participant and God’s aim in your life is not to please, improve, and entertain. God’s aim is to transform.

When we open ourselves to the Living God we have to hold on fast. Our excuses will slip away and our need for perpetual security will disappear.

Hold on and hold fast because the Living God is breaking into the waters around us; the Living God dives in and buoys us; the Living God catches us in a swimmer’s carry and won’t let go.
“Come to the edge of the Jordan.”
“Dip in your toes.”
God is waiting.

ENDNOTES

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