Following in the footsteps of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and Facebook’s version of a chain letter where you are asked to list three things you are grateful for each day for a week, another social media challenge being passed back and forth between friends is listing 10 of your all time favorite books. While no one has challenged me to add my list yet, it has caused me to think about which books would be on my list. In addition to Raids on the Unspeakable by Thomas Merton and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, my list would include the book The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim. Bettelheim was a child psychologist who worked with emotionally disturbed children. While much of his work has since been discredited, his book The Uses of Enchantment forever changed the way I understand stories and how I read the Bible. The thesis of his book is that for most of human history, stories and storytelling was primarily not about enjoyment, but about meaning and message.
About a way…
About the way…
To convey social norms and to talk about the complexity of interpersonal relationships and about what it meant to be a responsible member of the community of which you were a part. The Bible is filled with these types of story. And, if we are to ever understand the Bible, we need to read and to hear it in this way. I agree with the insight of William Sloan Coffin, one time Chaplain at Yale and Pastor at Riverside Church in New York City, who said, “The Bible is true and some things happened.”
So with that, this true story from the Bible for your reflection this morning.
After their escape from Egypt and after years of wandering in the wilderness, Moses selected 12 men, one from each of the tribes of Israel, and sent them to spy on the land of Canaan, the land which they believed God had promised to them. After being gone for a long time the men returned bringing with them grapes and pomegranates and figs. An abundance of food to those who knew only the dryness and the scarcity of the desert. In anticipation, the people gathered as the spies made their report to Moses and Aaron.
“The land to which you sent us,” they said, “is beautiful and abundant.
A land flowing with milk and honey.”
You can imagine the excitement those words caused.
Caleb, one of the spies, then spoke up.
“Let us go, right now, and occupy the land for we will be able to overcome it.”
“No” said the others.
“Not possible. For those who live in that land are giants who live in strong, well fortified cities.
Next to them we are only grasshoppers.”
The story continues to unfold, of course.
You can read it in the Book of Numbers, one of the first five books of the Bible.
The end result of this portion of the story is that Moses and the Israelites did not listen to the urging of Caleb. Instead, they let the fear of the giants prevail and so consigned themselves to more time in the wilderness. More time wandering in the desert.
So, this morning I would ask you to think with me about giants.
Not the Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum giants of Disney animation, but those situations or those circumstances or those problems which seem so large. So overwhelming. So invincible. So gigantic that you dare not face them.
That we dare not face them.
And so resign ourselves to whatever wilderness it is in which we find ourselves.
Here is the truth.
Giants exist.
Health giants.
Social problem giants.
Relationship giants.
Self worth giants.
Growing up or growing old giants.
Financial giants.
You know what I mean.
They are real.
They tower over our lives.
The shadows they cast wrap our lives with gloom.
And, next to them we feel like a grasshopper.
And, here is also the truth.
At least if you, like me, believe that stories are or can be true.
By the end of the story, the giants never prevail.
Jack cuts down the beanstalk.
The Israelites eventually find their way to the Promised Land.
David slays Goliath.
You find the courage to face the issues confronting you.
The blind man is healed.
Jesus is resurrected.
We find a way to name and to address the complicated issues facing us as a church or as a community or as a nation or as the world.
The way between here and there may not be easy.
Is never easy.
Or, neat or clean or even clear-cut when we are in the midst of it.
But the end of the story is already known.
If we face them…
When we face them, the giants lose their power.
So, what does all this have to do with God and church and beautiful fall Sunday morning?
And, more importantly, what does this have to do with life and faith and your life as it is?
Maybe this (again, if you believe like me that stories are or can be true)…
Remembering the story from the Bible I told this morning, the prompting of God was in the witness of Caleb who spoke up and said: “We can do this. It may not be easy, but we can do this.”
God is in the possibility…
God is not only here, but waiting for us in life over there.
In life beyond fear.
In life outside the scarcity of the wilderness.
Or, what about this?
You may be walking…
At some point in our lives we are sure to walk…
Through what the Bible describes as that Valley of the Shadow of Death;
With darkness surrounding us and uncertainty clinging to us;
But even there, the Bible says, God is with us;
With goodness and mercy dogging our steps.
Or, what about this.
You may stumble.
You may get weary.
We will fall down.
But if we trust in God the day will come when we will mount up on wings like eagles.
We will run and not be weary. We will walk and not faint.
Remember hearing those words?
And, we may be blind and not able to see the way forward;
And, fear may churn within us creating a knot in our stomach.
But, if we notice…
When we take time to see, grace still finds a way to brush up against our lives.
Can you believe it?
Giants.
But, also goodness and God and amazing grace.
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