(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on March 26, 2017, Lent IV)
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“Sometimes We Have to Do Things We Don’t Want to Do”
Being able to play the piano is a wonderful thing. But when you’re nine or ten years old and it’s the middle of July and the sun is shining outside and your friend next door is going to the pool—having a piano lesson is about the furthest thing from wonderful.
I still have a vivid memory of that day. I’m sitting glumly in the back of the Aerostar, and my mom is driving me to piano practice at Derbyshire Baptist Church. Naturally we pass the pool on the way there, which just adds insult to injury. I give an audible moan, one last desperate attempt to turn my mom’s mind. She’s sympathetic, I can tell. Even though I can’t see her face, I can sense her commiseration. But the car does not turn around.
There follow a couple of silent minutes. Then my mom says something simple. It’s probably something she and my dad have said many times before, and probably something they will say many times again. But out of all those times, I remember only this once, because this is the day that I actually hear her. This is the day that her words grab hold of my world and shake it, leaving me stunned, leaving everything that I thought I knew looking a bit askew.
She says, “Jonathan, sometimes in life we have to do things we don’t want to do.”
A Lenten Lesson
I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but I think the reason these words hit me so hard is that, until then, I had lived thinking that life was about doing what you wanted to do. Of course there were certain exceptions—going to school, making your bed, doing your chores—but these were simply immovable features of the landscape. For the most part, I was able to do what I wanted to do.
I talk about this as though it’s something that I’ve outgrown, as though it’s something we all naturally outgrow as we grow up. But I have my doubts. What is the “American Dream”? Does it not suggest that, however difficult the landscape, we can overcome it and get what we want? And is that dream only American? I’d venture to say it knows no spatial or temporal boundary. We read in the Bible that again and again the ancient Israelites did whatever pleased them.[1]
“Sometimes in life we have to do things we don’t want to do.” We have all learned the lesson that I learned on that hot, sunny summer’s day. But I wonder if we ever outgrow that lesson. I’m doubtful. If the advertisements that flood our media are any indication, we remain firmly planted in the fantasy that life is all about what we want, that this is a “have it your way” kind of world. And so I think an important part of the Lenten journey is relearning the difficult but holy truth that life is about more than having it our way, than doing whatever we want.
Why the Israelites “Murmur”
It’s not long, however, before the people start complaining against Moses. The word in the Hebrew is “murmur.” They start murmuring. Today’s story isn’t the first time they murmur, and it won’t be the last.[2]
What exactly is a murmur? I can’t help but remember myself giving an audible moan in the backseat of the Aerostar. A murmur, I think, means we aren’t getting what we want. I murmured because I wasn’t going to the pool. The Israelites murmured because they weren’t exactly living the life of milk and honey that their dubious travel agent, Moses, had promised (cf. Ex 13:5). They were wandering in the wilderness, hungry and thirsty.
Two Competing Stories
If you asked someone of the Jewish faith, “What is the most important story in your scripture?” or “What scripture most defines your faith?”, chances are he or she would answer, the exodus. The exodus is the great epic of the Jewish faith: it’s got the first Passover, the parting and crossing of the Red Sea, the Ten Commandments, the great covenant between God and Israel. The exodus is like The Lord of the Rings for the ancient world. And just like The Lord of the Rings, the exodus doesn’t take place against the backdrop of the pursuit of self and satisfaction. It is not a story about getting what you want. It takes place against a much greater backdrop, a backdrop of wilderness and wasteland, risk and uncertainty, but also of God and salvation.
I wonder if the murmuring Israelites had any idea that they were living in what would become their people’s greatest story.
It seems to me that there are two competing narratives in our lives. On the one hand, we want satisfaction; we want to have it our way, to get what we want. And yet, on the other hand, we keep telling stories like The Lord of the Rings and the exodus because the greatness of these stories captures our imagination and resonates somewhere deep in our hearts. These stories quiet our murmuring souls and whisper to us that there is more to life than getting what we want, that life is about more than simply seeking our own satisfaction. They whisper to us that life is about something much greater.
Something Much Greater
What is this “something much greater”? What is this “more” to life? I don’t exactly know. I do know that Abraham sensed this greatness. One day he woke up and heard the call to be a blessing to others. For him, the greatness of life was all the families of the earth being blessed. I know that Jesus talks about this “something much greater” too. He calls it the kingdom of God, where the outsider is welcomed, the hungry are filled, the oppressed are liberated, the blind see, the lame walk, and those who mourn find great joy.
If the examples of Abraham and Jesus are anything to go by, this “something much greater” may take us through the wilderness. Not because the wilderness is some spiritual obstacle course that God has designed for us, where we must prove our faith. But simply because this “something much greater” is something much greater than our own pleasure or satisfaction. Living according to the kingdom of God—which means forgiving wrongdoers and loving enemies and welcoming strangers and speaking truth to power—will mean that sometimes we don’t get what we want. Sometimes it will feel like a wilderness, and we will get hungry, and we will get thirsty. At the very end of his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus himself will say, “I thirst” (19:28).
Hearing the Twenty-Third Psalm in the Wilderness
As I read today’s scripture and consider the wilderness through which Abraham and Jesus and you and I walk, I cannot help but wonder about our lectionary psalm today, the twenty-third psalm, which famously proclaims, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want [or lack, or need]” (Ps 23:1). I wonder how our world, which preaches instant gratification and eternal happiness, hears this declaration. I worry that it is misheard as a simple promise that we will always have it our way.
Only in the wilderness, I think, can we hear the full truth of the statement, “I shall not want.” For the wilderness shatters any illusions we have that life is about getting what we want, or even what we think we need. In the wilderness, Abraham hungered in the face of famine. In the wilderness, the Israelites got thirsty, to the point that they questioned God: “Is the Lord among us or not?” In his own wilderness, Jesus got thirsty too, and he also questioned God: “My God, my God, why have you left me?” And the psalmist who wrote these words—he himself admits that sometimes he walks through the darkest valley and faces enemies and challenges.
According to the wilderness, “I shall not want” does not mean that we will get what we want. “I shall not want” is a defiant declaration of faith, a renunciation of our little wants in the hope of something much greater. It is someone saying, “I shall not lack anything because I’m not claiming anything. My only claim is the love of God that has already claimed me and all the world.”
It is such a faith that sustained Abraham and Sarah as they crossed the wilderness and carried God’s blessing to the families of the earth. It is such a faith that sustained Jesus, as he gave himself to others. And it is such a faith that sustains us, whenever we leave the land of “have it your way” and follow God into something much greater.
A Prayer for the Wilderness Journey
The Lord is our shepherd.
And sometimes we don’t get what we want.
The Lord leads us through the wilderness,
And the Lord stretches our souls.
For the Lord desires more than we do—
For goodness’ sake!
Even though we get thirsty
And quarrel and question,
God is always there—
Sometimes as stony and tough
And incomprehensible
As a rock.
You give us love
In a world built on power and control,
And blessing to share
In a world that keeps to itself.
You anoint our head with sweat,
And make us thirsty for you.
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