Sermon, 1st Sunday of Lent

The book of Deuteronomy is actually an interesting example of time travel in the Bible. In its possible origin and discovery of this book that the past and the present come together to form a hopeful future.

Its possible discovery is written about in the Old Testament book of 2nd Kings. Second Kings reports on events that would have taken place hundreds of years after Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, Moses is making his last will and testament to the Israelites before they move into the land of Canaan that God first promised to their father, that "wandering Aramean" called Abraham. In 2nd Kings, the land has belonged to the descendants of Deuteronomy for centuries. But by now, the 12 tribes of Israel have divided into 2 kingdoms, Israel in the north, Judah to the south. Israel has been conquered, wiped off the map and the few survivors scattered by the conquering Assyrians. In the southern kingdom, King Josiah oversees the renovation of the Temple in Jerusalem. It is during this renovation that this "Book of the Law" is found in a dusty corner somewhere, apparently forgotten for many years.

Some scholars identify this "Book of the Law" with Deuteronomy. But other scholars don't believe that something as significant as Moses' last will and testament would have been forgotten for centuries. Their theory is that some survivors from the destroyed 10 tribes made their way south to Jerusalem and brought this book, which reflected their particular understanding of Moses and the Israelites' experience of being delivered from Egyptian slavery, and their 40 years of wandering before they were ready to conquer the land of Canaan.

Forgive this historical digression when I tell you that it really doesn't matter how the Book of Deuteronomy came to be written, or how it came to be discovered. Because no matter which theory is accurate, the people of Jerusalem under the reign of King Josiah would have heard this book read for the first time. To them, it was fresh. To them it was new. To them it was a bolt of lightning from the distant past, connecting them to events that had taken place centuries ago.

In the text of Deuteronomy, Moses is commanding the Israelites to make an offering to God, to acknowledge that the land they are entering is not anything they have earned, but is God's gift, unearned and undeserved. They are to acknowledge that they are not the children of privilege, but that their father was a wandering Aramean with no place to call home. Of course, hundreds of years had passed between the time of Abraham and that generation of Israelites about to invade Canaan. No one hearing Moses speak could literally be the child of Abraham. But in the moment of that holy offering received by the priest, it seemed that time melted away. There was no longer any past. In the moment of that offering, the Israelites declared that they would never be conquerors seizing land to exploit for their selfish purposes. They, their fathers before them, and their children after them, would always be children of God, utterly dependant on the loving grace of God.

And so, for the Jews of Josiah's kingship hearing this book for the first time, would these words melt away the years and centuries separating their past from their present. They too were to "declare today to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our fathers to give us." Nearly 2,000 years may have passed between Abraham the man who wandered from Aram in the north down south to Canaan. But the Jews of Josiah's time were to declare, "A wandering Aramean was my father." They were to acknowledge their smallness and weakness in this violent, stormy world. And they were to declare their trust in a God who would lead them to a future of unimaginable joy.

4,000 years later, we too declare that our father was a wandering Aramean, and in that declaration, the millennia just melt away. The miracle of time travel occurs every Sunday in this most Holy Eucharist. When we offer ourselves, and the bread and wine, just as Jesus offered them 2,000 years ago. Jesus Christ is right here, in the bread and the wine, and in the hearts of his faithful people who accept the gift of his very being, his very self. Those who serve with me in the service of the Lord's holy table and altar know my favorite prayer: "Be present, be present, O Jesus, our great High Priest, as you were present with your disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of bread."

More often than not, I suspect, time is our enemy. The Past floods our hearts with the memories of those no longer with us; the regrets of things done and undone; which cannot be put back, not be made right again, in the words of the author Cormac McCarthy. Before us the future looms; with tasks too Herculean for us to imagine how we'll even start them, much less complete them; destinies so heavy that we can't imagine how we will bear them. Whatever lurks in the closet of your heart, it is a puny thing compared to the grace of God which travels across time. That grace links us to the wandering Aramean who entrusted his future to God. Jesus the Son of God, who was who is and who is to come, redeems our past, makes new beginnings from it. And he who has borne the worst of human suffering will help us bear whatever we fear of the future.

In all our worship and discipleship, in our fellowship with each other and our ministry to each other, may you catch a glimpse of the eternity that melts away the regrets of the past and fears of the future. May that glimpse make this a most holy Lent for each of you.