The Great 2008 Amphyctiony
Sermon text for August 3, 2008:
Joshua 24, Hebrews 12
Eagle River Presbyterian Church, Avon, Colorado
Very early in Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land the people experienced many successes and on the surface things looked good. Under Joshua’s leadership, the people successfully occupied the Land of Canaan. They started farms, built homes, and occupied Canaanite cities and towns. Compared to providing slave labor in Egypt just forty years before, most of the people were prosperous. They had enough to pay their tithe and still support their families. But there was a problem. While the people were thriving economically, they were decaying internally and their spiritual compass was broken. Religious practices that were foreign to traditional Hebrew spirituality had become commonplace in community life. Some people reasoned that if they were prosperous following Yahweh, they might be twice as prosperous worshipping both Yahweh and Baal or Yahweh and one of the Egyptian gods.
So it was that Joshua issued a call to the great General Assembly of 1200 or 1300 B.C. He sent out word to all of the twelve tribes that they should send their elders to a meeting to discuss the religious life of the community. It was Joshua’s “amphyctiony”. During this General Assembly the elders debated whether they would follow Yahweh exclusively, or allow for the worship of multiple gods like their neighbors. They pondered the imponderable God and spoke of what they believed. It was during this Assembly that Joshua uttered his famous challenge, one that still rings in believer’s ears today. You decide whom you will serve, he said, but “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” And the elders present at this General Assembly voted with one voice, “We will serve the Lord.”
This is the way God’s people have always made decisions about our common life and faith. Trusted elders gather together to discuss, decide, and recommend. These elders are known for their faith in God and fidelity to the Community of Faith and we entrust them with the responsibility of setting the direction for the Church to follow. From time to time these elders might make a very bad decision, or they might make a decision that the rest of the church is not ready to accept and follow. But it is a maxim of our faith that when faithful people gather together, in the name of Jesus, to do God’s will, the Holy Spirit will direct us. Sometimes it takes a while for the elders to hear God’s voice, but over time, the Spirit overcomes our human resistance.
Since the first General Assembly, Joshua’s amphyctiony, believers have participated in a continuing conversation about matters of faith and life. These formal assemblies, are a part of the “Cloud of Witnesses” who have helped the Church decide essential questions like who is Jesus? What is the nature of God? What are the sacraments? What is the nature of ordination and who may be ordained? Not surprisingly some of the most essential questions took the longest to decide. It took the Church about three hundred years to decide on the divinity of Jesus and to proclaim that Jesus and God are of one substance with one another. So when we try to analyze the Church’s conversations around issues that we judge to be essential we must always take the long view. Eventually God breaks into our individual and communal realities and sets us on the right path. The problem is that often God does not do things in a time line that is pleasing to us.
The writer of the book of Hebrews understood the need to look at the whole sweep of human history in order to see how God intercedes with people of faith. In Hebrews chapter 11 he begins his analysis by going all the way back to Cain and Abel, and moves progressively through people like Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Joseph, and Moses. He tells of Gideon, David, Samson, and Samuel. He doesn’t tell their stories because they are particularly good people, but because they kept plodding along until eventually they got something right. Gideon was a coward whom God made into a general, Abraham and Sarah didn’t believe that God could deliver on the promise for a son and took matters into their own hands. David was a terrorist, an adulterer, and a murderer. But each of these people’s stories gives us courage when our lives are turning upside down. They are a part of the “Cloud of Witnesses” whose life stories’ inform our lives. They didn’t necessarily get things right the first, second, or even the tenth time, but they doggedly continued to trust in God no matter what. Their stories help us to believe that we’ll be okay when we struggle because we share common human fallibility with these people who have persevered. We might even become a little cocky when we read some of these stories. Almost anyone of us might say something like, “You know if Moses or Gideon can make it, I know I can too.”
Their stories also encourage us because each one of them is a microcosm of the life of the Church itself. Like the Church, these individuals are a mixture of faithfulness and fear, understanding and misunderstanding, energy and exhaustion.
The good news is that God does not leave us alone to fend for ourselves in matters of faith. We may struggle and fight and even try to run away, but God matches us struggle for struggle, and literally never lets us go.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has just finished the “Great 2008 Amphyctiony”. Some of us will applaud certain decisions while others of us will be saddened. But each of us can be encouraged because the Church will continue to hold councils and meetings and we will continue to send faithful elders to reflect on important issues. And by the grace of God the Church will be that group of people who, perhaps because of our struggle to be faithful, will always be known as children of God.
Copyright © 2008 by Dwight R. Blackstock
Joshua 24, Hebrews 12
Eagle River Presbyterian Church, Avon, Colorado
Very early in Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land the people experienced many successes and on the surface things looked good. Under Joshua’s leadership, the people successfully occupied the Land of Canaan. They started farms, built homes, and occupied Canaanite cities and towns. Compared to providing slave labor in Egypt just forty years before, most of the people were prosperous. They had enough to pay their tithe and still support their families. But there was a problem. While the people were thriving economically, they were decaying internally and their spiritual compass was broken. Religious practices that were foreign to traditional Hebrew spirituality had become commonplace in community life. Some people reasoned that if they were prosperous following Yahweh, they might be twice as prosperous worshipping both Yahweh and Baal or Yahweh and one of the Egyptian gods.
So it was that Joshua issued a call to the great General Assembly of 1200 or 1300 B.C. He sent out word to all of the twelve tribes that they should send their elders to a meeting to discuss the religious life of the community. It was Joshua’s “amphyctiony”. During this General Assembly the elders debated whether they would follow Yahweh exclusively, or allow for the worship of multiple gods like their neighbors. They pondered the imponderable God and spoke of what they believed. It was during this Assembly that Joshua uttered his famous challenge, one that still rings in believer’s ears today. You decide whom you will serve, he said, but “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” And the elders present at this General Assembly voted with one voice, “We will serve the Lord.”
This is the way God’s people have always made decisions about our common life and faith. Trusted elders gather together to discuss, decide, and recommend. These elders are known for their faith in God and fidelity to the Community of Faith and we entrust them with the responsibility of setting the direction for the Church to follow. From time to time these elders might make a very bad decision, or they might make a decision that the rest of the church is not ready to accept and follow. But it is a maxim of our faith that when faithful people gather together, in the name of Jesus, to do God’s will, the Holy Spirit will direct us. Sometimes it takes a while for the elders to hear God’s voice, but over time, the Spirit overcomes our human resistance.
Since the first General Assembly, Joshua’s amphyctiony, believers have participated in a continuing conversation about matters of faith and life. These formal assemblies, are a part of the “Cloud of Witnesses” who have helped the Church decide essential questions like who is Jesus? What is the nature of God? What are the sacraments? What is the nature of ordination and who may be ordained? Not surprisingly some of the most essential questions took the longest to decide. It took the Church about three hundred years to decide on the divinity of Jesus and to proclaim that Jesus and God are of one substance with one another. So when we try to analyze the Church’s conversations around issues that we judge to be essential we must always take the long view. Eventually God breaks into our individual and communal realities and sets us on the right path. The problem is that often God does not do things in a time line that is pleasing to us.
The writer of the book of Hebrews understood the need to look at the whole sweep of human history in order to see how God intercedes with people of faith. In Hebrews chapter 11 he begins his analysis by going all the way back to Cain and Abel, and moves progressively through people like Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Joseph, and Moses. He tells of Gideon, David, Samson, and Samuel. He doesn’t tell their stories because they are particularly good people, but because they kept plodding along until eventually they got something right. Gideon was a coward whom God made into a general, Abraham and Sarah didn’t believe that God could deliver on the promise for a son and took matters into their own hands. David was a terrorist, an adulterer, and a murderer. But each of these people’s stories gives us courage when our lives are turning upside down. They are a part of the “Cloud of Witnesses” whose life stories’ inform our lives. They didn’t necessarily get things right the first, second, or even the tenth time, but they doggedly continued to trust in God no matter what. Their stories help us to believe that we’ll be okay when we struggle because we share common human fallibility with these people who have persevered. We might even become a little cocky when we read some of these stories. Almost anyone of us might say something like, “You know if Moses or Gideon can make it, I know I can too.”
Their stories also encourage us because each one of them is a microcosm of the life of the Church itself. Like the Church, these individuals are a mixture of faithfulness and fear, understanding and misunderstanding, energy and exhaustion.
The good news is that God does not leave us alone to fend for ourselves in matters of faith. We may struggle and fight and even try to run away, but God matches us struggle for struggle, and literally never lets us go.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has just finished the “Great 2008 Amphyctiony”. Some of us will applaud certain decisions while others of us will be saddened. But each of us can be encouraged because the Church will continue to hold councils and meetings and we will continue to send faithful elders to reflect on important issues. And by the grace of God the Church will be that group of people who, perhaps because of our struggle to be faithful, will always be known as children of God.
Copyright © 2008 by Dwight R. Blackstock
posted by Dwight Blackstock | 3:00 PM
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