Promises Made

 HOMILY, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY – PROPER 25, YEAR A

OCTOBER 25, 2020 

 

TEXT:                        Deuteronomy 34:1-12

 

 

In the first lesson, we have Moses’ death.  It is the end of the Moses saga.  He first appears in Exodus, and his presence permeates Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.  The first five books of the Bible are known as Torah, the Law.  They are also known as the Five Books of Moses.  The Sadducees of Jesus’ day accepted no other scripture as being divinely-inspired.  Not the prophets.  Not the wisdom literature.  Not the faith history books about Israel, Judah, and their kings.

 

Moses is standing in what is modern-day Jordan.  He is on Mt. Nebo, looking over at the Promised Land.  The view is spectacular.  The vast expanse of the Jordan River Valley and the Judean Hills stretch out before him.  Jericho, the city of springs and palms, is a tiny dot in the distance.  On a clear day, he could see all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.

 

But Mt. Nebo is as close as Moses will get.  He will not cross the Jordan into the land he had been shown. He dies and is buried there – short of his dream. He will forever be remembered as the Prince of Egypt, a Hebrew, who led his people out of bondage in Egypt.  But he will not taste the flavors of the Land of Milk and Honey.  For him, the promise was theoretical.  Just as it had been for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

 

Or was it?  

 

Is a promise deferred, a promise denied?  Does the fact that Moses did not walk the last few dusty miles into the Promised Land negate God’s abiding promise – made to him and multiple generations of patriarchs and matriarchs?

 

The thing we lose sight of in our highly individualistic culture is the notion of the corporate nature of God’s promises.  They are made to a people – first, the descendants of Abraham, then the Hebrew people, then the followers of the crucified rabbi, then the young, fledgling church, and over the centuries, the promise has been conveyed to the successors.  The ever-widening circle has included many races and nations.

 

Those promises – down through the millennia – have been to people… ever-broader groups of people.  We know those promises and blessings most fully as a community of faith.  And we come to know their timelessness, too.

 

That is because the blessings transcend our lives.  We are dust, and to dust we shall return. Yet the promise endures.  We may be like Moses, and never reach our dreams.  But as people of hope, we can always rest assured that the promise continues.