ONE MORE MOUNTAIN

October 26, 2014

Pentecost 21

Deuteronomy 34:1-8

Matthew 22:6-10

(prayer)

As a child, it was a regular summer routine for my family to vacation for a week in Penticton.  We would always stay in one of the dozen motels on Lakeshore Drive, right across from Lake Okanagan. [I happened to spend an hour or so in Penticton a month ago, and the Crown and Shoreline Motels really haven't changed much in 40 years.]

Twenty-six years ago, I lived in that Okanagan city because I spent a year as a student minister at Penticton United Church. 

It's funny: I had spent more than a dozen summers there, but rarely ventured beyond the lake.  As a 'resident', I got to know the place.

That’s is not an uncommon experience, I suspect.  When we get stuck in our routines and seldom notice the gems of discovery in our own backyard.

I know a song whose lyrics say:

We finally made it to the local museum

Took Uncle Lester out to see the sights

Beautiful places but we've never seen 'em

Though we've been living here all our lives

Ain't that the truth 
You don't get it when you got it 
You can't see it when it's in plain view

Don't ask a fish about the water

You never notice what you're right next to

When it's in plain view.

//

On the eastern edge of Penticton BC is Mount Carmi.  Nothing special, really.  It looks not a lot different that the others hills in the area.

The lower reaches of the Carmi hillside contain some of the Okanagan city's outer neighbourhoods.  Riding up its slope is a well used logging road.

//

One day, on  the advice of a friend, I biked up that road - okay, I walked my bike up the steeper climbs.   As promised, a little ways up there was a small road side parking area with some marked paths leading away from the spot.

I chained my bike up to a tree (eventhough no one else around - a city boy habit) and took one of the paths.  I strictly followed the guidance of the sign that said to stay on the path because of rattlesnakes (I never saw or heard any).

After a few minutes, I could hear the sound of rushing water. As I got closer, I could see that I was approaching a clearing... more than that, I was coming up to the edge of a deep gorge.  It was an amazing site.  What a view and me without a camera.  No cell phones in 1988.

Down in the rocky valley between Carmi and its neighbour to the south was the Carmi Creek - noisily making its way down to Penticton.  I had driven on small bridges the Carmi Creek in town dozens of times, as it gently flows west in to the canal that connects the Skaha and Okanagan Lakes.  It is a forgettable experience.  A very small river: it is well named as a 'creek'.  But just a few kilometres up steam it is a wonder to be hold.

Therein lies my literal mountain top experience: there is great value and wonder to learn and know when we look beyond our routines.  When we appreciate the beauty of earth, when we seek the beauty within others, we are opening our hearts and minds to the possibilities of God's grace.

//

//

When a person suddenly realizes a wide perspective that helps make sense of a situation, it is sometimes called a "mountain top experience".  Now these insights are not limited to higher altitude locations; it is just a metaphoric phrase.  But it is a good metaphor, because most of us can imagine ourselves being 'up' where a wonderful vista opens not only our eyes but our souls.  For many people a mountain top is a "thin place", where God seems particularly close.

Maybe that is why there are several actual mountain top experiences remembered and recorded as part of the Bible.

Over the past several weeks, the prescribed scripture readings of the Revised Common Lectionary, have moved us through the story of Moses leading the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt to new life in the land of Canaan.

Moses was raised in the Egyptian royal court, unaware of his Hebrew-slave lineage, because the Pharaoh's daughter rescued him from her father's death squads who were seeking to control the slave population by murdering infant and toddler Hebrew boys.

As a young man, Moses learned of his true identity and (whether out of kinship or just a sense of right and wrong) came to the defense of a Hebrew slave being beaten by a taskmaster.  Moses' actions led to the death of the taskmaster.  Moses fled Egypt and found a new life in Midian in the Sinai wilderness.  He married and herded  sheep.

Then came his first mountain top experience.

On the slopes of Mount Horeb, God spoke to Moses from a burning bush.  Go to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go.  Moses' life opened up in a new way.  He had a new perspective on what was valuable and true for him.

//

When Moses brought the people safely out of Egypt, their decades-long journey to Canaan would include an encampment back at Horeb in the Sinai peninsula.

Again up on the mountain, Moses would gain new insight: ten commandments to guide the people in the years to come.

//

Today's reading from Deuteronomy marks the end of the Exodus journey.  Moses and the Hebrew people had spent 40 years traversing the wilderness to get them to the eastern shore of the Jordan River.  Moses, at 120 years old, had one more mountain to climb.

At 2680 feet elevation, Mount Nebo is about 700 feet lower than Penticton's Mount Carmi, but still offered a grand vista.  From Nebo, Moses was able to look west far beyond the River Jordan.  His eyes were still strong despite his age.  He saw the vastness of this promised land: the end goal of the exodus journey.

Unfortunately that is as close as Moses would get.  He died before the people crossed into the promise land.  

It is a fact that was remembered by the Israelites in the years after they settled in the promised land: Moses, and the great prophet who had convinced Pharaoh to let the people go, giver of the Law, leader through forty years of exodus, did not live long enough to finish the journey.

Well, he was 120 years old.  But it was a question for the historians: why did God not extend Moses life just a little longer so that he could set his feet on the ground west of the Jordan?

When I was in Sunday School, I seemed to remember learning that this was a punishment from God for the murder that Moses committed against the taskmaster in Egypt.  That is not supported anywhere in the biblical text. 

But there is a story in the book of Numbers, chapter 20, where Moses hits a rock (twice) with his staff to release water [a different time from the more familar version in Exodus 17].  The problem was that this time, God told Moses to 'command' the water to be released, but he hit it instead.  "Because you did not trust me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not lead this assembly into the land that I have given them."

The written versions of these events did not come until many centuries after the fact.  So, it is hard to know whether the Numbers reasoning is anachronistic or not.

I prefer to imagine that (for Moses) being able to see the promised land with his youthful eyes was a good end to his life.  I imagine that Moses passed away content knowing all the graces of God.  I imagine that from that Nebo vista, Moses saw not only the layout of the land, but also experienced a moment of clarity: that Yahweh is a God of all eternity: through endings, into new beginnings.

//

Therein lies a message for us today: are we open to seeing God as part of the vast vista that is our life: God is with us in all times, from beginnings to endings and to new beginnings - and all the changes in between. 
//

Some might say that life in Canada changed this past week, with two separate ‘lone wolf’ attacks in Quebec and Ontario that brought modern terrorism right on to our nations front steps.

Others are steadfastly telling themselves that they refused to be changed even after acts of terror.

I don’t know where the truth lies.  Perhaps it is a varied as each one of us.

//

I do not have any words to make sense of what happened; but I will profess today, as I would have professed a week ago - that we live in God’s world and we are not alone.

Through difficulty, in joy, when confused and when focused - God is with us.

That was my planned message for this Sunday as I laid it out several weeks ago - and it is unchanged in the shadow of Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent’s and Corporal Nathan Cirillo’s deaths.

As surely as God was with Moses and the Israelites on their exodus, God was with the people in slavery and God promised to be with the people in the promised land. 

And God is with us in this time - whatever that time is for us.

//

The work is ours.  How do we live with God? is our question.

Jesus give us the easy summary:

·        Love God with all that we have;

·        And love others as we love ourselves. 

Personally, I do not subscribe to the crazy circular argument that for me to love God, I must act out in hate.
So, I cannot absolve myself of these great commandments by heaping blanket hate at Muslims in wake of jihadist terror.  I was saddened to see the vandalism at the mosque in Cold Lake, but that sadness was more than overcome by the news that many, many people helped that faith community remove the words of hate.

That is a sign that the God, whom Jesus proclaimed simply expects expressions of love, is
among us.

//

If we are fortunate and if we work at it, we can step back and see the big picture of God’s realm of joy and compassion being lived out all around us.

Let us pray:

God, we know our past, but not our future.  Yet we have your promise of your presence not matter where the journey takes us.  Amen.

#161MV “I Have Called You By Your Name”