"Who is With You Tomorrow?"
The power of the past to affect the future
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, September 28, 2003
Text: 1 Samuel 7:10-17
I've always found it quite amazing how things that happened in the past influence the way we live in the present and will live in the future. I know that back in September, after returning from summer hiatus, I preached about the importance of the future. But the future cannot be separated from the present or the past. What has gone before inextricably influences the way we live now and will live in the future.
Never was this more noticeable to me than when I read a piece of trivia not long ago about the standard gauge of the railways in the United States and Canada. That might not sound like a very exciting topic to you, but I must admit that this article grabbed my attention. The standard gauge of a railway is four feet, eight-and-a-half inches - that is the separation between the two rails that form the track. This article was discussing how such a strange number became the standard railway gauge here.
It was British expatriates who laid the railway lines in North America, and they are standard everywhere, except Newfoundland. (But that's an entirely different story!) They did so on the basis of old tramway lines in the United Kingdom. That gauge had a fascinating origin: It was based on mud tracks formed centuries before by horse-drawn carts. When they were first laying tramway lines, the British decided to align the tracks with the existing ruts created by the wheels. The distance between the tracks in the mud were a standard size because, 1,500 years before, imperial Rome had brought its own chariots over when it conquered Britain.
Imperial Rome had a standard chariot width: four feet, eight-and-a-half inches. And that was determined because every chariot needed to accommodate the rear-ends of two horses, a width deemed to be exactly four feet, eight-and-a-half inches. So, railway tracks in North America are based on the rear-ends of two horses!
It gets even more fascinating. You've all seen the boosters on the NASA rockets - well, they are a certain width, and they can't be any wider even though NASA wants them to be. The reason they can't is the booster casings are built by the Thiokol Corporation, in Utah. They make the casings for the rockets there and transport them to the launch site by what? Railway! They are therefore limited in width by the width of the railway tunnels, which in turn are based on the four feet, eight-and-a-half inches of the railway tracks.
In other words, NASA booster rockets are based on the rear-ends of two horses in imperial Rome! Isn't it incredible how the past affects the present? I couldn't believe it! It's not just in technical terms that the past influences the present. It also does so spiritually, morally and in terms of what you and I believe.
That is in evidence in today's passage from the first Book of Samuel. You have to appreciate a bit of the background to understand its importance: The people of Israel owned the Ark of the Covenant. (Anyone who has seen the Indiana Jones movies knows how important the Ark of the Covenant was to Israel). It was stolen and plundered by the Philistines at Ebenezer. It was taken to a place in Philistia called Ashdod, and there it stayed for awhile.
The only problem is that when it got there, all kinds of bad things started to happen to the Philistines. They lost their children, wars and plagues broke out and after a while they said: “The Ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is heavy on us and on our god Dagon.” And they gave it back to the people of Israel, who stored it at a place called Kiriath-jearim.
Now, comes our story from Samuel, who was one of the judges. He believed that since the ark had been returned to the people of Israel, they must be worthy of possessing it, and should live in a state of victory. He sees Israel worshipping the gods of the Canaanites - Asherah and Baal, the fertility gods - and that there is a syncretism taking place, as the people of Israel are turning away from God in their ignorance and worshipping the false gods of the Canaanites. In so doing, they practise immorality and licentiousness and turn their backs on the moral code given to Moses.
In other words, as a judge Samuel is concerned that the people of Israel are no longer worthy of possessing the ark and will not have victory over the Philistines completely until such time as they become faithful.
So, Samuel lays down a number of rules. First of all, people must turn away from false gods and worship only the Lord. Then, they must wash themselves (and here is where baptism comes into it) as an act of cleansing, purity and dedication. You see, baptism goes back even to Old Testament times, as a symbol of belief in God. Then, they must begin to pray and if they do all that, God will give them victory over the Philistines, and they will be worthy of the Ark of the Covenant.
To ensure that the people of Israel don't forget all this, Samuel goes to Ebenezer and picks up a big stone to signify that the Lord, up until now, has always been their help. It was a reminder to the people that God had been faithful to them by returning the Ark of the Covenant, and they must learn to be faithful to God in response. As a judge, he goes on a circuit - and here is where it becomes applicable to us. We're told in the Scripture that he goes back every year to remind the people of the judgements of God and of their need to be faithful. He visits a number of towns on this circuit that represent the power of the past, as a reminder of how the people should live in the present.
The first of these places was Bethel. In Hebrew, Bethel literally means “the house of God.” Now, of all the places in the Bible, Jerusalem is mentioned the most, but what is fascinating is that second to Jerusalem is Bethel. That's how important it is within Scripture. As the house of God, Bethel was the place where Abraham and Sarah first set up their tent. Bethel was the place where Jacob had his dream and wrestled with God. It was the place where Hosea believed that the people of Israel must have a strong conscience. And Bethel therefore was the place that represented, for the people of Israel, the importance of worshipping and acknowledging God.
For the people of Israel worship was central in all they did and all they believed. Samuel, in going to Bethel first, is affirming the importance of worship. You see, the people of Israel looked first to God and then to the world around them. Other people tend to look at the world around them, then look to God, if they decide to look to God at all. For the people of Israel, the acknowledgement of the sovereignty of God was first and foremost in all they believed, and worship therefore became a two-part activity.
First, worship became an act of stewardship. Today at Eaton Memorial we celebrate Stewardship Sunday. Stewardship is our response, with everything that we have, to what God has given us. In other words, stewardship is the acknowledgement that everything that you own, everything that you have, every child that has been born to your family, is a gift from God. Therefore, as a response to God's graciousness, you worship, give thanks and offer yourselves.
My friends, one of the great concerns I have for Canada is that we have been given so much that, at the hand of God, the Ark of the Covenant has come to our land metaphorically and has blessed us greatly. That is why what we're doing this morning, by bringing the children into God's presence, by acting out our stewardship in worship, is acknowledging that God is the author of all that is good in our lives.
But so often, just like the people of Israel, we forget Bethel. We forget that worship comes first and everything else proceeds from that. Worship is central. Bethel is central. Samuel wanted the people of Israel to know that life should be an act of worship and thanksgiving for the grace of Almighty God.
It is also an act of remembrance. When we gather in this place and baptize children as we do a number of times during the year, what are we doing? We are remembering the covenant of God with Israel, and the covenant of God in Jesus Christ for you and I. It is an act of remembrance, so we don't forget how good God has been to us, and we don't forget that our children are a precious gift from God. When we worship, we remember, when we break bread at Communion, we remember, when we hear the words of God as Scripture, we remember, when we hear the word of God preached, we remember. This is the ultimate act of worship.
Samuel didn't only go to Bethel. He went to Gilgal as well. Gilgal literally means “the stones that are at the foundation” of the people of Israel. When Joshua went into the west Palestinian land, he first came to a place called Gilgal. There he dedicated Israel to the worship and the service of God (Joshua 3-4). Gilgal represented the foundation on which Israel was built. The Church of Jesus Christ, the covenant people of God are here to remind and to establish and to preserve the foundation on which the society and the church is built. The very reason we exist is to be a Gilgal, to be a reminder to people that there are certain things that become the standard upon which society is based.
I read in the September 23rd newspaper that from 9 until 10 p.m., prime television watching hour for families, profane language went up 94 per cent from 1998 to 2002! 94 per cent! One critic called it the era of vulgarity. Now, we give this to our children on a plate and yet we expect them to be respectful of their sexuality, to be respectful of their elders, to be respectful of God. In many ways we let this continue in the name of some sort of bland freedom that is nothing more at times than crassness, often because of a lack of craft and intelligence. We do this and we don't understand how we erode foundations!
Now, I don't want to be some old fogey here, but I think that there is something profoundly serious about the fact that our language, the way we talk about one another, is of such a degrading nature. How can we expect the children of the next generation to grow up respecting foundations that are holy and solid and righteous? Gilgal is the place where the people of God stand. It becomes a place where foundations are important and they are based on the law of God.
There is a third place. It's called Mizpah, which means “place of prayer.” Many of you who have belonged to the United Church Women will know the very famous Mizpah benediction that concludes all meetings of the UCW. It's a beautiful benediction, one that we should say to one another when we leave this morning. It goes: “The Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from the other.” This is a prayer for the other. This is a prayer that the Lord who has protected and preserved Israel will care for the other. That's what prayer is about. It's not just praying for ourselves, it's praying that the Lord will watch out for the other.
I've been praying, my friends, over the last few months, especially during this election time, that the Lord will watch out for our politicians and leaders. I'm so confused right now, I don't know if I'm voting for a mayor or a premier or a city councillor. I'm so bombarded with people writing letters and telling me what's important, I often don't know what I'm doing. But this I do know: As Samuel told the people of Israel when he went around from city to city, we must pray for all our leaders.
I heard a lovely but rather cynical prayer called the “Politicians Prayer,” and it goes something like this: “O Lord, teach me to speak with gentle and wise words, for tomorrow I might have to eat them.” It's hard to be a politician, isn't it? But it's no good condemning our politicians or being cynical about the process. Mizpah is the place of prayer. It is the place to lift them up and to leave them in God's hands - and my God, they need it!
There's one last place. It is Ebenezer, which means “up until now, the Lord has helped us.” It is not always a place for good things; it is also a place for difficult things. It's where the Philistines took away the ark in the first place. It was where the Israelites were defeated in battle, but still they remember it. They remember it because even in the midst of the battle God was with them. Not only that, Ebenezer was the place where the ark was returned, where Israel experienced its victories, where God changed and transformed that which was difficult in their lives and made it beautiful.
The past is not always good, it's not always glorious, it's not always wonderful. Your past may be ignominious, our society's culture may have been poorer, we may have made mistakes in the church, but that does not mean that God cannot be our Ebenezer and transform even the difficult things, for that's what God is about.
On his 80th birthday, the great Arturo Toscannini conducted an orchestra for the last time. One violinist wrote that they were all nervous to appear before the master on this momentous occasion. They went over their music and began to play. They were very precise, very accurate, very good and very boring! As the concert went on, Toscannini started to get into the music himself. This old man began to wave his baton, he became emotional and all eyes were on him. Suddenly, the musicians forgot about being accurate and played with their hearts. As the violinist said, “When we looked into the eyes of Toscannini the music came out of us,” and then it was great. Toscannini's final performance was memorable, for the master had brought the greatness out in the orchestra.
This is what Samuel wanted for Israel. He wanted them to gaze upon Bethel and Gilgal and Mizpah. He wanted them to gaze upon Ebenezer, because by looking to the master, the power of the goodness in them would be brought out, for only then would they be worthy to face tomorrow and have the Ark of the Covenant.
May we also look to God, and may the power of God come through us. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.