sermon excerpts: "A Place for the Displaced" (Joshua 3: 7-17)

... we see the great and awesome power of nature is curbed once again to God’s will. In a mirror miracle to Moses leading the people out of Egypt through the parted Red Sea to begin a 40-year voyage, we see Joshua his successor deliver the people into Canaan through a divided River Jordan, and thus concluding that epic journey.

The scripture lesson tells us this happened so that the people would know that God was with their new leader, Joshua. This was some cosmic seal of approval and a guarantee that he continues with the same spirit and strength that Moses had. This might say more about the fickle nature of a crowd’s mentality than it does about anything spiritual.

In the scripture lesson, we see that there are limits to our world. There is only so much water, there is only so much space. We’re finding out that there’s only so much oil. When the reality of our living is that we don’t have the time for Sabbath, we find that we are pushed to our limits.

God is without limit, and we find that is something hard to imagine. ... So as people of faith, followers of God, disciples named Christian, spiritual beings all of us, we are caught in the paradox of searching for an unlimited purpose with limited resources. We are finite creatures with a call to infinite living.

Yet in our world, we have discovered that the church has been dislodged, displaced, shoved aside to make room for numerous other things. ... the neighbourhood church no longer holds the central role in community, recreation or spiritual education. It’s a postmodern echo of what happened to our First Nations; they were driven from the broad and fertile lands of this Creation to substandard enclaves of second-class citizenry, by powers and tactics they did not expect or understand. Is the flaw with the human understanding of conquest, of occupation, of living with land as a possession?

Is there any way that we could measure success that doesn’t depend on someone else’s failure? ... Could we ever live in a fashion that is fruitful and abundant but does not diminish those who do not have enough?

Because somewhere, the love of God for all people and the encompassing passion for justice and right relationships is lost in translation for the Canaanites, Hittites and all the other displaced tribes. God loves everyone, but seems to be acting in an unloving manner through the sanction of warfare and conquest.

Yet it is to this same God that we seek to gather the nations and be united in common cause with everyone who strives to live faithfully and in right relationships with one another. It is the same people of God who are the church of today. And even as we struggle against the tide that pushes the congregational church to the margins of society, we try to build a safe place for all the many displaced people who are seeking a spiritual home.

As a church we hope that this is a place where all can be accepted, welcomed, embraced for who they are, not what they have, what they represent or who they could or should be. We know in life that there will be times of rejection, of being cast aside, evicted or ousted. In response, can we not be a place of invitation, inclusion and hospitality?

In a world of limits and boundaries, the path lies before us, leading us to a Promised Land of endless goodness and grace. But we do not travel alone, the displaced people of many places and situations go with us, not just refugees or the homeless, each of us has experience rejection and everyone of us is searching for a better way. In this we know that we are not alone, we live in God’s world. Thanks be to God. Amen.