Sunday, September 30, 2018

Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets

Message on Numbers 11
Good Samaritan Lutheran
September 30, 2018

 Good afternoon, Good Samaritan. Good afternoon, brothers and sisters, elders and children. It is good that we are here. In Christ, the Father has claimed us as his own, and the Holy Spirit has gathered us into this place. We have all come by different journeys, but it is by no accident that we are here today.

 I must warn you that I am not a preacher. Rather I am a statistician who works for Bank of America. Perhaps that is why I wanted to speak on the book of Numbers. There are a lot of statistics in the book of Numbers. While I am not a preacher, as Pastor Crispin translates for me, I am sure that the Spirit will add God’s anointing to the preaching and to our hearing.

 Like some of you, I grew up Pentecostal. Do we have any Pentecostals among us today? As a Pentecostal I am particularly interested in the promise made in Chapter 11 of Numbers. I believe that Moses was moved by the Holy Spirit when he said, “I would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” Truly the Holy Spirit today is still calling us to be his Holy People, to bear his prophetic voice in this day, in this place.

 But before I get too far into this message, I would like to begin with a song which is also a prayer. I’ve taught this here before, so sing with me:

 Come, Holy Spirit, guide me.
Come, Holy Spirit, protect me.
Clear out my mind, so I can pray.
Pray, Holy Spirit, within me.

 Amen.

 “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” This was the complaint that rose up before Moses and before God. Yahweh had rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and promised to their children a new land they could settles as their own. But this generation was to wander in the wilderness for forty years.

 They had complained of thirst, and Yahweh provided water from the rock. They complained of hunger, and Yahweh fed them with manna from heaven. But in our lesson today, bread and water were no longer enough; they were craving meat.

 “But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing but all this manna to look at.” They ate manna for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They would grind it, roast it, boil it and make cakes of it. Every day it was the same. Every night the dew would fall on the camp and bring manna for the next morning, and it would start all over again. They would remember all the diverse food, all the wonderful, delicious food, they had in Egypt. The craving would come. Maybe it wasn’t so bad in Egypt. Maybe we should stop fighting the temptation and just go back. Perhaps slavery back there would be better than dying out here.

 “Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, all at the entrance of their tents.” This distressed Moses and grieved the Lord. They were craving meat, but clearly this situation was becoming distressing for everyone. Yahweh had been sustaining them with water and manna. Was this not enough?

 Here’s were some statistics can help us. The fourth book of Moses, Numbers, begins with a counting of all the people. There were twelve tribes. They counted all the men of age 20 years or more who were able to go to war for Israel, and enlisted them by ancestral tribe. Their number came 603,550. Jewish rabbis love to point out how this means that each child of Israel was counted and are precious in God’s sight. But oddly, this recorded count only included men fit to carry a spear into battle. For every fighting man, there must have been several children, a wife and perhaps an elder. I’m 51. I’m not sure if I’m still fit to be counted here. I’m not as strong as I used to be, and my shoulder would not be good for throwing a spear. Maybe I would not be counted. So easily there are 4 or more people for each fighting man listed. So all souls in the camp easily exceeded 3 million. Was manna everyday enough to sustain so many? Did they even have a modest amount of meat for their fighting men? Perhaps this was not just a craving for variety in their diet. I suppose the people were weeping at their tents because they were worried about basic security. If an enemy were to rise up against them, would their men be able to fight them off?

 Last spring, one of our families was morning the loss of an aunt back in Congo. I went with the rest of congregation to be with this family in their mourning. I did not know what customs I was walking into. There is a custom of feeding meat to older men on such an occasion. Mwenge had been preparing food all morning for this. I was not prepared to be honored in this way, and felt in no way should I deserve to be honored at such a time. To make matters worse, I do not eat meat—I have have been a vegetarian for 27 years—but I did not want to be ungrateful. Mwenge was gracious to make me some beans to eat, which was quite enough for me. I thank her for that. I was led to the front of a line. My hands were washed. And I ate beans while other consumed the meat. This whole custom, which was strange to me, was really about honoring Mwenge’s aunt who had passed on.

 Now I suspect this tradition may illuminate what the Israelites may have been experiencing, why they wept as they cried out for meat. You see, every child in the camp was counted and precious to Yahweh. But the recorded count includes just the fighting men. These were the first line of defense to ward off an aggressor. If things were to go badly for the fight men, then the women would of necessity serve as the last defense of the children. And if they could not escape with their children, they may yet need to go with their children into captivity. Let us not take this service lightly. Yahweh had promised a new land to the children, but if necessary their mothers would have to survive to carry them alone into that land.

Likewise, the men of the tribe of Levi were not enlisted to carry spears into war. They were set aside to carry the ark and the tabernacle. They would carry the sacred vessels representing the presence of Yahweh in the midst of the camp. So the fighting men formed a perimeter around the whole camp. Their strength was critical to assure that the people God had claimed as his own would be able at last to enter the promised land. So perhaps when facing death there can be some comfort in knowing that at least there is enough meat to keep the men strong. We want to know that our people are strong enough to carry on.

 But Yahweh had already demonstrated that he could protect Israel from an armed enemies. In crossing the Red Sea, the Israelites had seen how Yahwah could defeat the armies of Pharaoh, even without fighting men taking up spears, swords or shields into battle. Moses was a great prophet. He was strong in spirit. Remember how at the Red Sea Moses lifted not as sword but staff to call the sea to call the wind to open the sea before them and to close it upon the chariots and fighting men of Egypt. Through his leadership, Yahweh was fashioning for himself a people, a sovereign, priestly and holy people. We don’t know why we may need to persevere through 40 years in the wilderness, but somehow God was using this wilderness trek to shape the people. Yahweh was perceived as a passionate, often fiery and angry god. This God would become angry at the suggestion that his people would turn back to Egypt, back to the slavery had known. Yahweh could protect them from enemies, from famine, from plagues, but if these people, who once cried out to be liberated, longed to return to bondage, how could this God stand in their way?

 The burden of prophetic leadership weighed heavily on Moses. He too complained against God for treating him so poorly. He certainly did not know where they could get enough meat to feed 600,000 fight men, let alone everyone else in the camp. There were not enough flocks and herds among them. There were not enough fish to be fished. Moses could hear the people weeping. They would shout, “Give us meat to eat,” but he felt powerless to do anything about it. Indeed, Moses just wanted to die rather than face the misery all around him.

 “So the Lord said to Moses, ‘Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel...bring them to the Tent of Meeting, and have them take their place there with you. I will come down and talk with you there; and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them; and they shall bear the burden of the people along with you so that you do not bear it all by yourself.’”

 In the first chapter of Numbers, Moses had set aside 12 leaders from each of the ancestral houses of Israel. These were the leaders who had counted and enlisted the 600,000 fighting men. But in our story today, 70 elders are being called. They are being called for a different service, not to lead men in bearing spears for war. Rather these 70 elders are called lead the whole camp in bearing the spirit of prophecy that was upon Moses. The people had been afraid to get too close to this fiery god. They were content to let Moses and Aaron to approach God on their behalf. But Yahweh has a different plan for the people. The seventy elders were to discover that they too could draw close to Yahweh as Yahweh had drawn close to Moses.

 But not all the people were prepared for this. They craved meat. They wanted to feel strong and powerful in this life. They wanted to feel that they could fight off their own enemies. They were not yet ready to live simply upon the water from the rock and manna from heaven. Yet, Yahweh was moved by their tears and wailing as was Moses. So the Lord promised to Moses that he would send an abundance of meat, enough meat that the whole camp, some 3 million of them, could eat their fill for a whole month. As much as the provision of quail was an act of mercy from the Lord, it was also a test. Did the people truly hunger and thirst after righteousness? Or would they gorge themselves with the meat of power, wealth and security?

 You may have thought that leaving the refugee camps in Africa and coming to the United States that you were finally approaching the Promised Land. But perhaps you have been in the US long enough to realize that all is not well here. I can tell you as someone with a good paying job, nice car and home, and extra money in the bank, that even that is not enough. All the money in the bank is not enough. Th cravings still come at us. The more we have, the more the cravings pull at us. They lead us into selfishness, into vanity, into anxiety and obsessions, into abusing one another, into callousness and discord. Worst of all affluence with unchecked cravings leads us into spiritual pettiness, where we do not love one another, nor do we have any regard for God.

 There are two kinds of wind. One wind went out from the Lord. It brought quail from the sea and filled the camp with more quail than they could eat in a month. Some were overcome with their cravings. They gorged themselves. And while the meat was still in their teeth, the anger of the Lord was kindled against them. Some fell sick and died. When the people buried their dead, they called that place the Valley of Craving.

 But there is another wind. Scripture says, “Moses went out and told them the words of the Lord.” He gathered the seventy elders and placed them around the Tent of Meeting. “Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to Moses, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied.” This wind is the Word of God. This wind is the spirit of prophecy. This is the wind of Pentecost.

 One wind can lead us to the Valley of Craving, but the other wind leads us to the Tent of Meeting. But we know this outpouring of the Holy Spirit was not just for Moses and the seventy elders. There were two elders who had remained in the camp. They too prophesied. When Joshua found out about it, he told Moses to stop them. But Moses would not. Rather Moses said to Joshua,

“Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

 I believe that Moses was moved by the Spirit to speak these very words to us today. We still wait for the fulfillment of this prophecy. This is the promise of the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist said, “I baptize with water, but there comes another who will baptize with fire and spirit.” Jesus breathed upon his disciples, saying receive the Holy Spirit. And after Jesus ascension into heaven, the disciples and many believers gathered in the upper room, waiting for the Spirit to descend upon them as wind and fire. Pentecost confirms God’s desire to pour out his spirit, the spirit of prophecy on all people. But still we wait today to see this new land, our true promised land.

 Will we be tossed about by our cravings for pleasure, wealth, status, privilege? Or will we seek first the kingdom of God? Our Father knows how to give us all that we truly need. But once we have become sick with the cravings of this world, there is one thing that is needful. We are called to the Tent of Meeting. We are called to the Upper Room. We are called to God’s Word. We are called to the Table of our Lord.

As a Lutheran congregation, why do we receive communion each Sunday? Because we know that we need to be fed always the Bread from heaven and to drink always from the Cup of salvation. We may forget this in the busyness of our week, but each Sunday may we return to this Table. How we need to be reminded! Truly we are not far from the promised land when we gather here, together in Christ. 

And we need our elders, wazee wetu, to guide us. They have learned in their years that the cravings of this world are not worth returning to bondage. It for freedom that we have been set free. We may not need to carry the spear much longer, but how we need to bear the Holy Spirit! How we need to lift holy hands to bless the Lord and all the people of this good earth! Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets. We need our elders to take their place around the Tent of Meeting, so that we may follow them there.

 Amen.

The Mission of Good Samaritan

The Mission of Good Samaritan

 For the Installation of Crispin Ilombe Wilondja,
Pastor of Good Samaritan
Service at St John's Lutheran Church, Atlanta, GA
Sept 8, 2018

 Good afternoon, brothers and sisters. I have been with Good Samaritan from the beginning, in Swahili they have come to call me Ndugu. Indeed while Crispin was waiting a long time for First Call, I was one who nudged him saying, “Hey, Crispin, I think you need to call a new congregation for refugees.” I was delighted that the Synod had also been encouraging him in this direction. I would like to share a few words about Good Samaritan and how we can all share in this mission.

 What does missions mean to us today? I grew up in the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination with a strong emphasis on mission. About once a month a different missionary would come to our church. As a child, I loved the slide shows in Sunday evening worship. We would see pictures of far off places like Brazil, Burma or Burundi. We'd see the little villages, the humble buildings, and the faces of other children, like us but maybe not blessed as we were. Perhaps their skin was a little more brown than ours and their clothes a little more worn than ours. And the missionaries would bring little objects to show us. I remember one missionary brought the long skin of an anaconda snake. He unrolled it for us. It must have be 40 or 50 feet long. Okay, maybe just 10 or 15 feet, but in my eyes it was big. At the end our families would be asked to make a pledge of $20, $30, even $50 dollars per month for the three year cycle of the mission. Above and beyond a full 10% tithe to our local church, my family would always support some half dozen missionaries with these pledges. Now, I'm not going to ask you to make a pledge like that today, but I just want to let you know where I come from. My parents gave to these missions because they believed it was important to share the gospel with people around the world. We could not go personally, but we could send our missionary families with our prayers and financial support. Our missionaries took with them our bibles, our songs, our beliefs and practices to places like Congo.

 A few weeks back I was speaking with Papa Celestine about this. I sang a little song, “Oh the blood of Jesus.” As I sang it, he sang along too. I asked him how did you know this song in English. He explained that he learned it in bible college when he was 17. This was just a few years before I was born. I learned that Celestine had become a Pentecostal pastor as a result of this brief training. This was exactly the kind of missionary work my church had been doing in places like central Africa, training young men to lead new churches.

And of course, it was not just the Assemblies of God who sent missionaries to Africa. Most American and European denominations did this. In fact, the Lutheran missionaries were so successful that presently there are six times as many Lutherans in Africa as there are in North America. No doubt all this missionary activity has left a lasting impression on the religious cultures of Africa. For us in the west, missions was about sending the gospel somewhere else. But what was it like to receive?

 You see before you the people of Good Samaritan. I need no slide show to show you their faces. These have come to us by way of fleeing war, spending decades in refugee camps, and finally coming to the United States as refugees seeking a new life. Many of the child have been born in the refugee camps, and this is there first chance to feel connected to a country. This was no easy passage. I suspect that Jonah had better accommodations in the belly of a whale. They have not come with much. But they have come with their songs, family members, their memories. Some have brought their bibles and their understanding of the gospel.

The first time I heard Pastor Crispin preach, I became clear to me, and I told him, “You are a missionary. God has sent you to us because in America we need missionaries to help us.”

Let's flip this around. Perhaps missions is not so much about where we send the gospel, but how we receive the gospel in those who have lived it out in cultures and under circumstances other than our own.

 As I started attending services with Good Samaritan, I just took it all in. At first my ears could not detect the difference between French and Swahili. I would just smile and greet people. One of the first Swahili word I learned was “Safi.” This was the name of young woman I had met and her name means, “clean”, good or beautiful. I would try to follow along in worship. The songs were mostly in Swahili, but there was something strangely familiar about the singing. The whole approach was much more like singing in the Pentecostal churches of my childhood. Call and response, poly-rhythmic. There was spontaneity in who would lead a song and how one would follow. In a little while as we commune, we will sing, “Damu ya Yesu, usafisha kabisa.”

You see, that song was sent around the world with our missionaries, but it was received in Africa. And so it comes back to us to day. That song carried the blood atonement theology that was common among evangelicals like my parents. How is it that this song was received in Africa and is now a living expression of this congregation refugees here in Atlanta? Whose mission is this? Where did it begin? Yes, we have just installed Pastor Crispin, but this mission is Christ's.

The blood of Christ makes us completely clean, safi, usafisha kabisa. But more than that, Damu ya Yesu makes us brother and sister, ndugu na familia.

 So I welcome you to share in this mission, the mission of Good Samaritan. Pray for us. Worship with us when you can. Participate in activities that help us connect to our new home in this country and within the ELCA. For the children, we want to form an club call Little Green Samaritans so that our kids can learn about the environment and have outing experiences in natural settings. You can help us with these trips. Remember our youth also for shared activities. For example, St John's and Good Sam will share a confirmation class, and they are right here with us for their first meeting. We aspire to have a dynamic women's ministry. As many of our families are headed by single mothers, being a refugee family makes this even more challenging. We would like to offer heath, finance and other practical living classes and support. We also work actively in cultivating English as a second language. We do this as preparation for worship each Sunday.

 Our vision for Good Samaritan is that we form a strong community of refugees and friends who are able to minister among wider community of refugees. We start small, where we can celebrate and cultivate our various gifts for ministry. The ways in which this congregation connects with other Lutherans in this synod is critical. So we invite you to participate with us. Ultimately, the mission is to discover who we are for each other in Christ, how damu ya Yesu makes us brother and sister. We do have financial needs. So give as you are led to, but more than that we covet your prayer, presence and participation.

Together we are Christ's mission. The offering this afternoon will be greater work of Good Samaritan Lutheran Ministries.

Please make checks payable to Good Samaritan Lutheran Ministries.

Five years

It's been five years since I have last posted. I've become a yoga teacher. I integrate Christian faith and spirituality into my yoga practice. I've been teaching yoga in a church setting since 2014. This year I've been helping a new church start. Good Samaritan Lutheran Ministry is a missions congregation in Clarkston, GA, which serves refugee families. Most of our members are refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Our services are in Swahili, English and French. Before worship services, I teach an English for Worship, which reinforces English as a second language while learning biblical texts in both English and Swahili. Along the way, I've been learning Swahili myself. Our Monday night yoga class, 7PM, has moved to WellRefugee Center in Clarkston. Here we are able to welcome more refugees to our community yoga practice. Both teaching yoga and ministry at Good Samaritan have given me ample opportunity to reflect on scripture in community and work toward a more embodied spirituality. Perhaps it is time for me to start sharing this journey here. With God's help, I'll resume posting to this blog site. Feel free to ask me anything. Blessings all, James