I preached on Sunday about our obsession as human beings with being right, particularly on religious and faith matters, and how often times we can become so stubborn and stupid as to not see what it is that God is really trying to tell us. I’ve also spoken at some length in the past on how we are so quick as a species and a society to divide ourselves, one from another, to create antagonism between ourselves and our designated “other.”
Combining these two human tendencies is usually a formula for disaster.
The scripture text from Joshua is an example of that. In the early days of Israel, in the time when the people had just arrived in the Promised Land and were divvying up the territory among the Twelve Tribes, there were disputes and arguments about who got what. The tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh recognized immediately that they were in trouble. Between them and the other nine tribes was the river Jordan. There was a literal boundary between them, a literal separation and division, and they had the foresight to recognize that was going to be a problem in the future. It nearly proves a problem in the present, because the moment they set out to find a solution to this future problem, the other nine “call their banners” (old medieval phrase for going to war) and march on their territory. It didn’t take much for those divisions to get hostile.
The worst part about it was that it was all based on a misunderstanding. The tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh had built an altar, a monument, to show their reverence to God and to remind the other tribes that despite the physical separation between them, that they too were loyal children of Yahweh. The other tribes saw this monument as a blasphemy and set out for war, the very thing the altar was meant to prevent. But they were wrong and, thankfully, they were willing to admit their mistake before blood was shed. But what if they hadn’t? Would the history of God’s people be marred with the ugliness of a Civil War generations before Kings David and Solomon? Would that be their legacy as God’s own chosen people? It very nearly was.
And what does this have to do with us today?
Well, let me ask a question. How many of the divisions we’ve created in our society today are based on misunderstandings? How many are based on misreading the intentions of the other? How many are because we think we’re right about them and their motives when we’re not? Probably a lot more than people care to admit.
Take nearly anything controversial in the news today, from immigration to #BlackLivesMatter to the Iran nuclear deal, and you can quickly see that the scuttlebutt is based more on presumptions, half-truths, and prejudices than reality. It’s seems like we’re looking for an excuse to hate, because often times we are. And there’s the danger and the threat of disaster.
As Christians, we are called first and foremost to the truth. And when it comes to our encounter with the other, the way to find that truth is to do what the nine tribes did in our Joshua text: They listened in order to understand. We don’t do that very well, because again we want to be right and we’re stubborn about that. And that stubbornness could be the cause of tragedy. Lives could be destroyed, families ruined, war declared, and a whole host of other nightmarish possibilities all because we refused to listen to the truth. The blood of our siblings, fellow children of God, could be on our hands because we were too full of ourselves to admit we were wrong about something.
Is that really what we want? As a society? As individuals?
Maybe instead we need to step back and listen before we do something we’ll regret. And maybe, we as the Church need to show the rest of society how that’s done. After all, that was one of the points of the covenants both old and new. To show the world a better way of life. Perhaps, in these turbulent and tense times, we need to remember that and get back to what we’re to do and to be as the Church and show the world how it’s done. If we truly want a society of justice, peace, freedom, and equality, then we need to lead the way.
And it starts with opening our ears and our hearts. It starts with listening as the people of God did.
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