Author Archives: Justus Hunter

There are two difficulties with our prayer, “Thy will be done.” We fret over the first, but the second is far more dangerous.

“What is Your will? How do I know it? Where can I find it? Is this Your will?” This is the first difficulty. The second accompanies it, and often escapes our notice.

There is a forgotten moment in Elijah’s early career. First the widow’s jars of flour and oil never fail. Then her son, once dead, revives at Elijah’s prayer. Later, Elijah defeats the prophets of Baal. Those prophets, masters of spectacle, cannot reach their gods’ ears. Elijah’s God silences them. And when Elijah’s God comes, a consuming fire on Mount Carmel, the prophets of Baal are wiped out, along with the spectacle of their gods. The Word of the Lord silences them, and at that Word, heard once again by God’s chosen people, the drought breaks, rain falls.

But that Word, the Word on Elijah’s lips, was not so clear in the forgotten moment between the miracle of the widow and the miracle of fire. In that moment, two men meet before a Mountain.

1 Kings 18:1-16

After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year of the drought, saying, “Go, present yourself to Ahab; I will send rain on the earth.” And so Elijah went to present himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria. Ahab summoned Obadiah, who was in charge of the palace. (Now Obadiah revered the Lord greatly; 4 when Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets, hid them fifty to a cave, and provided them with bread and water.) Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go through the land to all the springs of water and to all the wadis; perhaps we may find grass to keep the horses and mules alive, and not lose some of the animals.” So they divided the land between them to pass through it; Ahab went in one direction by himself, and Obadiah went in another direction by himself. As Obadiah was on the way, Elijah met him; Obadiah recognized him, fell on his face, and said, “Is it you, my lord Elijah?” He answered him, “It is I. Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here.” And he said, “How have I sinned, that you would hand your servant over to Ahab, to kill me? As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom to which my lord has not sent to seek you; and when they would say, ‘He is not here,’ he would require an oath of the kingdom or nation, that they had not found you. But now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here.’ As soon as I have gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will carry you I know not where; so, when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me, although I your servant have revered the Lord from my youth. Has it not been told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred of the Lord’s prophets fifty to a cave, and provided them with bread and water? Yet now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here’; he will surely kill me.” Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.” So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him; and Ahab went to meet Elijah.

Like Elijah, Obadiah is a servant of the Lord. Like Elijah, he defies the Canaanite gods of Jezebel, the Baals and the Asherah, gods tolerated by Ahab, King of Israel. Like Elijah, Obadiah defies the king. But he does so secretly. Obadiah defies Ahab in the king’s own court. He conspires against Jezebel’s plotting. In a time of drought, he secrets water away for prophets pursued by the queen.

Like Elijah, Obadiah’s faithfulness is dangerous. He is a faithful servant of the Lord in the house of Ahab. He risks himself for the Lord’s prophets. In this work, secrecy is his ally. He hides the prophets, fifty to a cave. He hides them.

Obadiah’s secrecy was his faithful service. He knew God’s Will: hide the prophets. And he followed God’s will, risking martyrdom. Jezebel silences prophets. But Obadiah guards the word of the Lord on the prophets’ lips. He preserves them, and in preserving them, he preserves the Lord’s word.

When Elijah comes, however, Obadiah is caught. He is caught between two other lords. “Is it you my lord Elijah?” he says. But Elijah replies, “It is I. Go tell your lord Ahab that Elijah is here.”

How often we find ourselves caught between Ahabs and Elijahs – caught between lords, uncertain how to serve the one Lord?

Of course, to us, the decision between Ahab and Elijah is obvious. But it was not so clear for Obadiah. Has not Obadiah been serving both the Lord and Ahab to this point? Not only that, but his obedience to Elijah, another lord, risks the failure of his prior faithfulness. What will happen to the prophets if Obadiah is found out, if Obadiah dies? Who will preserve the Word of the Lord on the prophets’ lips?

Obadiah is uncertain. He is not uncertain as to his Lord – that is clear. It is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. It is the God whose Word is on the lips of the prophets. But what does faithfulness to this God look like in this moment? How does he choose between his prior faithfulness and this new Word?

This is the second difficulty of “Thy Will be done” – that God’s will for one moment will become our idol in the next.

We focus our attention on easy idols. We love to preach against the Baals and the Asherah. We preach against injustice and immorality. But we’re afraid to speak of the idols that tempt us most: what God is doing through me, my gifts, my ministry, God’s will for my life.

How easily “thy will” becomes “my will.” Beware: the idol of “my will” is difficult to kick down. “God, if what you’re doing now doesn’t confirm, if it doesn’t extend, if it doesn’t expand the good works you began for me, I’m not interested. God, what about my sacrifices? What about my responsibilities? What about my gifts? What about my…..”

“What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Cor 4:7) What do you have that was not a gift? Do not mistake your gifts for possessions. They came from the Will of God, and there they must remain.

This is the second difficulty of “Thy Will be done” – the temptation to turn “Thy Will” into “My will.” Obadiah confronts this second difficulty. He pleads for himself. He pleads for his faithful service to God. And once again, the Word of God confronts him. “Go, tell your lord that Elijah is here.”

“So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him.” So ends the story of Obadiah. His departure is as sudden as his appearance. But even if his appearance is brief, his lesson lasts.

Obadiah could have usurped the Word of the Lord. Had he not won the right? While Elijah was away, in Zarephath, Obadiah was sleeping under the same roof as Ahab and Jezebel. Obadiah was hiding prophets. Obadiah was risking death.

And yet he obeys. And yet he submits. Confronted by the Word of the Lord, his prior service to God disrupted, his gifts, influence, and life risked, Obadiah obeys.

Another day, another man confronts the will of God before another mountain. Jesus prays the prayer he taught his disciples, “Thy Will be done.” “Not my will, but Thine.” And in his prayer, he overturns our most tantalizing idols. He shows us that we too can pray that prayer – “Thy Will be done.”

But God, look at what I can do for you. Look at what I’ve begun. What about my gifts? You don’t give them in vain, do you?

All the gifts of God are ordered to a greater gift: the gift of Christ-in-me, so that all things might be conformed to the pattern of Christ, the One through whom God is reconciling all things to himself.

Unless we hold God’s will as Christ held his Father’s, our gifts corrupt. They grow into the most sinister of idols, more powerful than the Baals.

Obadiah came, and encountered the word of God. His will submitted to God’s, and in his obedience he prefigured Christ. Christ came, and was the Word of God. His will was the will of the Father, and the power of his obedience empowers our own.

Christ’s prayer in the garden, “Not my will, but thine,” silences the false gods and overturns the idols. Christ’s prayer in the garden, “Not my will, but thine,” empowers our own prayer – “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” The prayer is there in Obadiah’s silence. The prayer is now on our lips.

And so we pray, and we pray, and we pray, and we pray … and we teach our children to pray, just as we were taught: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…Not my will, but thine.”

This post from our archives originally appeared on Wesleyan Accent in 2017.

There is a river and there is a city.
There is a river
And its streams make glad.
There is a city
And its streams make glad
And God inhabits the city
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God
The holy habitation of the most high.
And God is in the middle of it
And God will not be moved.

There is a river and there is a city.

So why go into the ashes?

There was river and there was a garden.
There was a river
And its streams made the garden glad.

And the streams made glad a tree. And the fruit of the tree swelled with knowledge. And the fruit of the tree spoiled with death. And a couple came and they ate, and from them came the rest.

And the rest built cities. And among the rest, some had much and some had little. And so, among the rest, some were made to carry and others made them carry. And so the rest made cities. And the cities grew hungry. The cities hungered, and they foamed.

The cities hungered and foamed, and their hunger bore fruit, fruit swollen with knowledge and spoiled with death. The cities hungered and foamed, and their ripplings went round the world, cresting with promises. And the ripplings rebounded, crossed back, and swept the peoples and promises in their swell. From wilderness, desert, forest, and plain they were swept. They were swept into the cities, and the cities teemed with people. And the cities teemed with promises.

The cities teemed and roiled and spewed forth promises, promise upon promise. And one city ate another. Its promises consumed the promises of the other. And the cities and their promises grew. And so the ones made to carry grew to pursue the promises. And the ones made to carry built promises for the city. They worked miracles, making brick and laying brick. They worked miracles, making bricks with no straw, laying bricks with no straw. And so the cities built their promises.

Now the ones made to carry, the ones working the miracles, they did not forget their promise:

 There is a river whose streams make glad.

The ones made to carry did not forget. Their promise lived on. But the promise lived as the soft accompaniment of absence. There, in the other cities, they lived on other promises, promises created by the city and for the city, promises dreamt by the ones who made them carry. And still their promise lived on – There is a river whose streams make glad. – but it lived on as absence. And as absence, the promise spoiled and turned to sorrow.

And then the Word of the Lord came and spoke again the promise.

There is a river and there is a city.
There is a river
And its streams make glad.
There is a city
And its streams make glad
And God inhabits the city
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God
The holy habitation of the most high.
God is in the middle of it
And God will not be moved.

The ones made to carry left their bricks behind and the Word of the Lord led them through the waters and back into the wilderness and the desert. They wandered far from the cities. And there, far from the hungers and foamings of the cities, they remembered the promise. There, in the wilderness, the most high made a holy habitation in their midst. It came into the middle of them. And with them, it moved, it wandered.

And so they built a city. And though there was no river, there were springs, and its springs made the city glad. And they built channels for the springs, and the channels fed terraces for their gardens. And there they grew trees, and on the trees grew fruit. There they built a holy habitation of the most high. And the most high came and was in the middle of it.

And they thought this is the city that will make glad. They built their city. They sought the promise. But then they remade the promise in their own image. They sought their own justice.

And the city turned. Its kings doubted the promise. And so they remade it in their own image, and once again the promises grew. And the city roiled and spewed forth promises, promises upon promises. And they promised their own justice and their own freedom from oppression. And once again, some of the rest were made to carry. And the ones made to carry built the city her promises.

The city turned. Its promises grew, and it ate other cities. But then other cities ate it. And the city burned, and her promises turned to ash. And the promises could not be told one from the other because ash is only ash. Ash does not remember.

So all the people, the ones who made carry and the ones made to carry, tumbled. The people were swept from their city to other cities. And once again the promise was theirs only as the soft accompaniment of absence. The promise was there as sorrow. And then the city swept them back, and they lived among the ashes of their promises.

The people lived among the ashes of their promises. And the people fasted and tried to remember. But the promise had spoiled, and the ashen promises of the cities overwhelmed them.

And the Word of the Lord came again. But this time, the promise came as judgment.

Shout out, do not hold back!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet day after day they seek me
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the promise of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.
They say, “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all the ones you make carry.
You fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

The Word of the Lord came again. The promise was spoken again, but this time as judgment. The people sat among the ashes of their promises, promises made in their own image. The people sat among the ashes. And yet, they could not make the fast the Lord had chosen. Though they sat among the ashes, the could not humble themselves. And other cities grew hungry, and one city ate another, and one city of ash replaced the next, and one ashen promise followed another. And the people tumbled.

Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

So why go into the ashes?

Lent is a season that begins in ashes and ends in death. Lent is born in ash and dies in the descent to the dead.

Lent is a season for fasting, a season for bowing down, a season for exchanging silk for sackcloth. Lent is a season for ashes.

Lent is a season of judgment. Lent is a season of the judgment that will renew within us the promise. “There is a city.”

Lent is a season of clarity. We already sit among the ashes. We already sit in cities made in our own image. We already run after promises made to ourselves. We already seek our own paths to our own justice. And we already know, our own cities and our own promises and our own justice end in the ashes.

Lent is a season of clarity. It is a season to remember – from ash we came, and to ash, we will return. It is a season to remember – though we have the hope of a city that will not reduce to ash, though we have the hope of a promise that, once fulfilled, will bring an end to the foaming after more promises, though we have the hope for a justice founded in the righteousness of God, a justice that shares in God’s own eternal righteousness – we do not have this city or this promise or this justice as a possession. We have it as a promise. And so we must hold it as a promise.

And what is it to hold a thing as a promise?

To hold as a promise is to be cleansed by the truth, the truth which pierces us as judgment: we sit among the ashes of our promises. We do not come to the ashes from outside. We are awakened to the ashes already among us. We cannot resist replacing the promise of God with promises made in our own image. We cannot resist substituting the City of God with cities of our own making. From ash we have come. To ash we will return.

We hold the promise – There is a river and there is a city. There is a river and its streams make glad.

We hold the promise as a promise.

Before Christ’s final Lenten descent, his descent to the dead, he comes to the gate of that city of ash, that city where the most high dwelt. He comes to the gate and he cries out:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

The Word of the Lord comes again. But the Word of the Lord comes not merely on the lips of this prophet, but on the lips of this prophet who is the Word become flesh, the Word dwelling among us. The Word comes in this man, Jesus Christ, the holy habitation of the most high. The Word comes in this man, Jesus Christ, the living God in the middle of us, in the center of the rise and fall of our hungry cities and our ashen promises.

The Word of God comes again, and cries out:

“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate.”  You sit among the ashes.

^“And I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Happy is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Glad is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

There is a river and there is a city.
There is a river
And its streams make glad.
There is a city
And its streams make glad
And God inhabits the city
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God
The holy habitation of the most high.
And God is in the middle of it
And God will not be moved.

So why go into the ashes?

There is a river and there is a city. But we have forgotten the way. And so the Way comes to us. And the Way guides us: Into the ashes. Through the ashes…

“Shape without form, shade without color, 

Paralyzed force; gesture without motion.”1 

Noise without Word. 

After Solomon died, his Kingdom was split in two – the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. 

Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, reigned over Judah. He lived in Jerusalem, where Solomon built the temple of the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 

In the North, Jeroboam reigned over Israel. The Kings of Israel were masters of noise. 

Noise-making, then and now, has benefits. You see, Jeroboam was worried. As long as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the God of Israel, then Jeroboam’s people would travel to Jerusalem, Rehoboam’s home. Year after year they would trek to the Temple to offer sacrifices. Year after year they would trek to Rehoboam’s home. So Jeroboam was worried. 

Now the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was not like other gods. You couldn’t just build a temple anywhere for the God of Israel. This God spoke. And this God told the Israelites to build one temple, in one city. This God required one worship.  

Other gods were just the opposite; the more the merrier! A King could build temple after temple, holy site after holy site, install priest after priest for these other gods.  And though these other gods did not speak, they made a lot of noise. 

So Jeroboam gave them noise. Lots of noise. Like the Israelites before him, he fashioned his own god rather than wait for the God of Moses. Like the Israelites at Sinai, Jeroboam cast a golden calf. But not just one. He cast two, and placed them on the Northern and Southern edges of his kingdom, in Dan and Bethel. He built them Temples. He gave them priests.  

And he said to the people, “you have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”  

Just like that, Jeroboam changed their history. He exchanged the God of Exodus for cheap imitations. And unsurprisingly, the people forgot their history. They forgot the story of true Exodus; they lost the God who sets free. They exchanged truth for imitation, form for shape, color for shade, Word for noise. 

In changing their history, Jeroboam changed their worship. The gods who stole their history gave them spectacles. And so the people exchanged true worship for spectacle. They went about with spectacle in their eyes, and noise in their ears. 

So they silenced the God of David. Jeroboam built sacred sites in all the high places across Israel. He installed priests to offer sacrifices to his gods. And so, all across Israel, from Dan to Bethel, noise filled the air. No one could hear the Word of the Lord, the God of David. All was imitation, mimicry, spectacle, and noise. 

This was the way of Jeroboam. 

After Jeroboam, all the Kings of Israel followed his way. Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, all of them “walked in the way of Jeroboam and in the sins that he caused Israel to commit, provoking the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger by their idols.” More Kings made more gods. More priests made more spectacles. More prophets made more noise. And the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was drowned out. No one could hear the Word of the Lord. 

Of all the Kings of Israel, Ahab was the noisiest. Like the others, he “walked in the sins of Jeroboam.” Ahab and his wife Jezebel built a temple to Baal in the heart of the land, in Samaria. They raised poles to Asherah throughout Israel. And so they filled the land with noise. 

Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the Kings of Israel before him. 

The gods of Ahab and Jezebel were happy. The God of Israel was drowned out. Noise. But no one could hear the Word of the Lord. Noise without Word. 

And then, the Word of the Lord came to Elijah. The Word of the Lord declares a drought. On Mount Carmel, the Word of the Lord silences the prophets of Baal. Baal’s worship is a spectacle; but like all spectacles, it can deliver no fire. And so the Word of the Lord comes and rains fire, and then fires rain. 

On Mount Carmel, Elijah mocks Baal’s spectacle. Elijah’s words called down signs and wonders from the sky. Consuming fire rains down. Elijah’s words condemn Baal’s noisemakers. The Word is proclaimed. And the Wordless noise is silenced by the Lord’s Word. 

Or so it seemed. 

(The next day) Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not (silence you) by this time tomorrow.” 

The noise returns. The noisy gods declare vengeance. They are not satisfied with silencing the Word through noise, or stealing Israel’s history through mimicry. Now they must parody the Law of the Lord. And so, Jezebel vows to execute the law of noise. Noise without Word enacts law without Justice. 

Elijah despairs. The day after the consuming fire on Carmel, he flees for his life. He wanders out into the wilderness, out of the kingdom of the gods of noise, and collapses under a bush. He begs the Lord to take his life. He flees the land of noise, mimicry, and parody. He flees the law without Justice, and begs for mercy from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Better to die at the Word of the Lord than at the decree of the gods of noise. So he cries out: 

Enough! Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors. 

But the Lord withholds mercy. The Lord will not take his life away. The Lord will not let Elijah abandon his gifts, though they afflict him; though he is no better off with these gifts than his ancestors were with theirs. The Lord will not take back Elijah’s gift of life. He is harassed by the gift of life. And he is afflicted with the gift of prophecy. 

God will not take his life. Instead, God restores it. Angels bring him food. 

And Elijah got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Sinai, the mount of God. 

Elijah feasts on food from heaven, like the manna in the wilderness. And like the manna, which sustained Israel forty years, Elijah’s food sustains him forty days. 

Forty days, fasting. Forty days, trudging through wilderness. Forty days, back through the years to the site where God created Israel. Forty days, back to Mount Sinai, where God afflicted Elijah’s ancestors with gifts of Word, Worship, and Law.

Elijah retraces the journey of his ancestors. He remembers the Exodus, Moses, the encounter in the wilderness. Elijah returns. He finds a cave and collapses with exhaustion. 

Then the Word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” 

For forty days, he has staggered to the edge of his life. For forty days, he has fasted to his innermost thoughts. For forty days, he has remembered his story. And there, where the Word of the Lord meets him, he pleads his case. 

I was zealous, and yet… 

And yet, your people have forsaken your covenant. They exchanged your Law for parody – a law without justice.  

And yet, your people have thrown down your altars. They exchanged your Worship for spectacle – a worship without fire. 

And yet, your people have killed your prophets. They exchanged your Word for noise. 

“Shape without form, shade without color, 

Paralyzed force; gesture without motion.” 

Noise without Word. 

Ours is an age of noise. We exchange our history for comforting lies of other gods. We exchange our worship for spectacles. We exchange true justice for parodies, imitations, mimicry. We fill our lives with noise. We silence the Word of the Lord. 

Sometimes we expect God to cut through the noise. We look for the consuming fire of Mt. Carmel. If only God would upset our slumber with force – the rushing wind, the unsteady earth, the raining fire.  

The Word said to Elijah, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard the silence, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.” 

Much later in this story, the Word of the Lord came again.  

The Word became flesh, and made His dwelling among us. 

The Word ascended another mountain. And the Word gave another sign, feeding five thousand with five loaves and two fish. The Word descended the mountain heights, and worked another wonder, walking on water and calming the depths. 

And then, he delivered a teaching. And that teaching mystified the people. People living among parody and imitation and mimicry. People with eyes full of spectacle and ears full of noise. 

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. 

Eat my flesh. It is an odd teaching. It is an unsuspected teaching. It is a difficult teaching. And so, many left the Word who came down from heaven and returned to the noise.

So The Word, the bread that came down from heaven, turned to his disciples, and asked them a question: 

“Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” 

“Shape without form, shade without color, 

Paralyzed force; gesture without motion.” 

Noise without Word. 

Ours is an age of noise. We exchange our history for comforting lies of other gods. We exchange our worship for spectacles. We exchange true justice for parodies, imitations, mimicry. We fill our lives with noise. We silence the Word of the Lord. 

But the Word comes nevertheless, not in an earthquake or fire or rushing wind, but in this man, Jesus the Christ. And he offers himself to us; eat from me, drink from me. 

How odd. No spectacle of noisy gods. Just this peculiar sign, this unexpected wonder. 

“Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” 

And he turns to his disciples, and he asks: “Do you also wish to go away?” 

And we, with eyes full of spectacle and ears full of noise, despairing for our lives, afflicted with our gifts and our calls, like Elijah in the wilderness, respond: 

“Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” 

Be careful what you wish for.

When I was a boy, I wished for my father’s pen. Delicate but solid, just the sort of instrument a thoughtful man should carry. It was a black pen with gold accents. It composed sermons, paid bills, signed greeting cards. That pen was always near his hand.

Just as it began, Israel’s traverse through the wilderness concludes with a river crossing. Forty years after the Red Sea divided, and all of Israel walked through, God held back the Jordan River for His people to enter the promised land. For 40 years, a full generation, the Israelites wandered. They fed on manna from heaven. They forged an identity. That identity was founded, not upon their slavery, their oppression, but on their union with the God who brought them out of Egypt, who brought them across the Red Sea. The same God who Moses praised: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.” The same God conversed with the same Moses. The same God guided the same people through the wilderness, in spite of their grumbling.

And the same people came to the shores of the Jordan, but without the same Moses. In his place was his servant, Joshua, son of Nun, voice of the Lord. They came with an ark, designed by the same God. Expertly crafted. That ark, the ark of the covenant, was the footstool of the throne of the same God who parted the Red Sea.

And that ark was delicately, precisely handled by ones called by that same God. The handlers, the priests, like the gold and timber of the ark’s construction, were selected by God, called to this particular work. Their call, unlike ours, was handed down by birth – the Levites. But it was a call. It was a directive.

And in Joshua 4, we see these called-ones, these priests, spiritual leaders who go before God on behalf of the people, we see them. We see them, but we do not hear them. In a passage marked by orders, commands, and directives, by the leaders of the people, by Joshua, and by God, we hear nothing from the priests.

The priests, like the masses of people, remain silent, obedient. They make no remark; the are merely remarkable. Watch them.

Now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. So when those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, the waters flowing from above stood still, rising up in a single heap far off at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, while those flowing toward the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people crossed over opposite Jericho. While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan.

The call of the priests was exhilarating. The waters piled up! And so they passed into the middle of the Jordan. And there, they stop. They stand still “while the people hurried and crossed.” The people hurried. Imagine their descent, anxiety heightening, the far side nearing, the safety of the bank behind them growing further. Then, they reach a point, the middle, the point of highest vulnerability. And there they pass the priests. They leave them behind. And as they pass, they release a sigh of relief. “The people hurried and crossed.”

But the priests. Carrying the ark, they stood still on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan. While the water piled far beyond their sight, did they wonder how long it would be until the surge returned, more powerful at its release? How did the weight of the ark, the throne of God, feel on their shoulders? How great was the pressure to wilt under the weight, the weight of their call?

How often we feel this weight, this pressure to wilt under the call of God. When you heard the call of God to come to this place, wasn’t it exhilarating? Did you not find the courage to step out into the waters? And did you not witness marvels? Did you not wonder at the marvel of your call, the feel of this weight on your shoulders?

But maybe now you find yourself called to stand still, to stand in the middle of the Jordan and wait. And maybe you’re wondering whether or not the river is about to break around the bend and sweep you down river. Or maybe you are wondering how much longer you can hold up under this weight, the burden. Will it crush you? And maybe you’re learning this lesson: while it sounded glorious, exhilarating, to be the first one in and the last one out, maybe it’s better to be one of the ones hurrying across, whirring ahead toward the promised land. Service to this God is populated with such moments. The ones who look on in awe as the waters dry up at first contact with the soles of your shoes, they are soon speeding along, leaving you behind with the weight of your call.

But surely they will remember us. Surely, once they reach the far shore, they will remember the ones who stood still in the middle of the Jordan. Surely.

Then Joshua summoned the twelve men from the Israelites, whom he had appointed, one from each tribe. Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites, so that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the Israelites a memorial forever.”

“When IT crossed the Jordan.” IT crossed. But it was carried! What about the priests, the called ones, the carriers?

The Lord said to Joshua, “Command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, to come up out of the Jordan.” Joshua therefore commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.” When the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord came up from the middle of the Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet touched dry ground, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks, as before.

The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. Those twelve stones, which they had taken out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal, saying to the Israelites, “When your children ask their parents in time to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel crossed over the Jordan here on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we crossed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, and so that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”

Stones of remembrance, the mighty hand of the Lord, and silent priests. The stones cry out. They testify to the act of God, who crossed the Jordan enthroned upon the ark. The act of God. Seated upon that throne, bearing heavy upon the called-ones shoulders, passing through their bodies, God made contact with those stones. And so the stones are gathered.

Here we see the peril and the promise called-ones. The twelve come. They gather the stones at your feet. They heap those stones, stones of remembrance, stones your children’s children will ask about. But the names and the images of the called-ones are forgotten. They are wiped away like rough edges of stone in the bed of the Jordan. The priests are silent while the stones cry out.

Called-ones, could you wish for this?

Be careful what you wish for.

When I was a boy, I wished for my father’s pen. Delicate but solid, just the sort of instrument a thoughtful man should carry. It was a black pen with gold accents. It composed sermons, paid bills, signed greeting cards. That pen was always near his hand.

A few months ago, he took it from his table, reached out and asked me, “Do you want this?” “Seriously?” I asked. “Yeah, they gave it to me at my ordination.” He said it casually. Commonplace. No big deal. But it was a big deal. After years of labor, years of faithful service, years marked by moments of excitement, fruit, and moments of frustration, of maltreatment, last Fall he left the active ministry. To some minds, it was not a remarkable career. But he is remarkable. He stood still in the middle of the Jordan, for as long as God directed. And over time, as the Spirit washed over him, he came to peace with his legacy, with how and by whom he would be remembered.

“Do you want it?” he said. Casually. Commonplace. No big deal. He was at peace.

Do you want it?

Be careful what you wish for.

I’m a PK, a preacher’s kid. I’ve always thought of it that way, the son of a preacher man. In my mind, my father was first and foremost a preacher. He was, and is, great in the pulpit. The diction, the sensitivity, the transparency, and the power, all his foibles and fineries come together in the symbiosis of proclamation.

At my college we were “given the opportunity” to attend chapel three times a week. By “given the opportunity” I mean we were assigned seats while several of our more enterprising classmates were assigned “chapel checker” duties. Those duties were to sit in the balcony and note who was absent, who was tardy, who was sleeping, and who was generally disruptive. It was difficult not to feel the entire scenario a bit heavy-handed.

But I did, while wilting under the strong arm of that regime, hear a lot of preaching. And given that my assigned checker was particularly scrupulous (and, incidentally, the occupant of the dorm room next to mine), I became a listener. Many of the sermons I heard from my wooden unrest (those seats!) were quite memorable. And to be honest, others were quite forgettable. There were moments of transformation and moments of skepticism. And both kinds of moments swelled into my life outside the chapel.

I suppose, over the course of four years, I heard about every kind of preacher produced by North American Christianity. I can remember a particularly charismatic fellow dangling from the pulpit (although I don’t remember why). I also remember an African-American preacher singing the divine names (I remember why). I recall a beloved professor, witty as always, expounding Deuteronomistic history in ways that startled us all. I recall the missionary whose sermons brought me to my knees at the altar, and whose prayers over this kneeling teenager enlivened me for years to come.

Perhaps it was the environment, but I regularly felt the urge to pray at the altar. I spent a great deal of time on my knees then; the imprints remain on my heart to this day. I have often looked back on those days as days of preparation. God was using my scrupulous neighbor, in spite of himself, to fill my reserves for I-knew-not-what. What that was, it turns out, was graduate school.

Proclamation in itself has power. All preachers, the good and the bad, present opportunities for growth and encounter. On very rare occasions have I heard a sermon that should simply be dismissed or rejected. Much depends on our attitude, our preparation, our expectation.

But there’s something about those truly great preachers. My father was, and is, one of them. There is a certain union of instrument and message in these preachers, a union effected by supernatural grace refined by craftsmanship. I have heard gifted preachers and I have heard crafted preachers. The former sometimes grow wilted with time. The latter always age with power. And sometimes we catch those with both grace and work. These preachers, graced by the Spirit and faithful in their craft, confirm God’s extravagance.

A few weeks ago I was honored to introduce a great preacher and friend, Andrew Forrest, to a group of leaders in the broad Wesleyan movement. It was an opportunity to pause and reflect on what a preacher can do for a layperson like myself. I’m always surprised at the times Andrew shows up in my mind, my prayers, my faith. And so I concluded: “We carry our great preachers around in the corners of our soul. They wait there to surprise us. They wait there to revive us.” That seems right.

We layfolk must not underestimate the value of our preachers. And preachers, do not underestimate the importance of your work. We need you to read our lives, to discern them with the vision of God, to heal us through the proclamation of the Word. Those of us who are understanding recognize that this takes time. Practice patience with yourself, we will be patient with you. We need you to take the slow path, to take the time for reflection, contemplation, prayer, inspiration. We need you to become deep reservoirs of wisdom. We lay people know how long that takes. We need you to say “No” to us sometimes, so that you can say “Yes” to that work. Why?

Because we need you to guide us to our knees, to the altar, to humble hands that receive and feast upon the Word made flesh. Do not underestimate your slow, faithful, sometimes-plodding work. By your labors, you might store up your own treasures in heaven, but all the while you’re filling our warehouses here on earth.