The Wild Places Bible Guide – 12

Tuesday, March 26

II Chronicles 36:11-23 (CEB)

¹¹Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. ¹²He did what was evil in the Lord his God’s eyes and didn’t submit before the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke for the Lord. ¹³Moreover, he rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, despite the solemn pledge Nebuchadnezzar had forced him to swear in God’s name. He became stubborn and refused to turn back to the Lord, Israel’s God.¹⁴All the leaders of the priests and the people also grew increasingly unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations. They polluted the Lord’s temple that God had dedicated in Jerusalem. ¹⁵Time and time again, the Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers because he had compassion on his people and his dwelling. ¹⁶But they made fun of God’s messengers, treating God’s words with contempt and ridiculing God’s prophets to such an extent that there was no hope of warding off the Lord’s rising anger against his people.

¹⁷So God brought the Babylonian king against them. The king killed their young men with the sword in their temple’s sanctuary, and showed no pity for young men or for virgins, for the old or for the feeble. God handed all of them over to him. ¹⁸Then the king hauled everything off to Babylon, every item from God’s temple, both large and small, including the treasures of the Lord’s temple and those of the king and his officials.¹⁹Next the Babylonians burned God’s temple down, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, and set fire to all its palaces, destroying everything of value. ²⁰Finally, he exiled to Babylon anyone who survived the killing so that they could be his slaves and the slaves of his children until Persia came to power. ²¹This is how the Lord’s word spoken by Jeremiah was carried out. The land finally enjoyed its sabbath rest. For as long as it lay empty, it rested, until seventy years were completed.

²²In the first year of Persia’s King Cyrus, to carry out the Lord’s promise spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord moved Persia’s King Cyrus to issue the following proclamation throughout his kingdom, along with a written decree:

²³This is what Persia’s King Cyrus says: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the earth’s kingdoms and has instructed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Whoever among you belong to God’s people, let them go up, and may the Lord their God be with them!

Points of Interest

The two part book of Chronicles retells the story of Samuel and Kings from a different vantage point. Samuel and Kings were written earlier, during exile, trying to make sense of the end of the nation. Chronicles is written after Israel is reengaged in developing a collective civic and religious life, in a rebuilt temple. In Kings, the temple is Solomon’s, in Chronicles it is God’s. The Bible doesn’t have a single angle on many things. Authors, though inspired by God, are influenced by their times, their culture, and their perspective. God lets God’s children tell the story.
One thing that can be helpful or challenging for readers of Chronicles is the author’s insistence that a just God is orchestrating all events. King Zedekiah was godless and didn’t listen to the prophet or keep his promise to his international colleague. The leaders and the priests assimilated to the faith of surrounding cultures, messed up Jerusalem’s religious practice, and wouldn’t listen to God’s warnings. Therefore God gets angry and uses a bigger country to wipe them out. The black and white clarity and a certain kind of justice proposed are encouraging from one angle – the world is not chaotic or nihilistic; there is order and justice. Everything happens for a reason. On the other hand, the idea that an angry God set in motion mass killing, raping, destruction, and exile is difficult for most of us to swallow. Is this consistent with a faithful God of love? Was this really necessary?
All we can say is that the authors of Chronicles thought so, and this gave them comfort. God lets God’s children tell the story. Part of faithful Bible reading is to question what we read, ask if it is consistent with what we know of God revealed in Jesus Christ, and to draw our own conclusions.
There’s a bit of ecological justice woven into the story. God’s people needed a timeout of sorts, but the land did as well. As crop scientists know, land needs rest, not just people.
The Jewish Bible orders some books differently than do Christians. This is the last chapter in Jewish Bible. There’s a hopeful ending here, a fast-forward to the time when Jews were commissioned to restore their temple and nation, and an invitation to all God’s people to worship and do the work of God in our time.

A Direction for Prayer

Pray for your church, that each time people gather to worship, they will honor and love God with their whole hearts, and be inspired to hope and to do God’s work in their time.

Spiritual Exercise of the Week

Growing Hope – This week, the exercise will vary slightly from day to day. Each day, though, you’ll be invited to grow hope in your own wild place of exile – a loss that you or your culture has suffered, a dream that has died, some way that you don’t belong, don’t fit, or aren’t understood in your current context.

The temptation in exile is to a death of faith or a loss of hope. Today, follow the lead of this passage, and look for signs of hope in your life or your generation. Make a list of what gives you hope for the future; consider sharing this list with a friend.

The Wild Places Bible Guide – 11

The Wild Places – Day 10

Monday, March 25
The great wild place of the Old Testament is ancient Israel’s exile into foreign lands. The two halves of the divided kingdom were defeated by regional superpowers in the 8th and 6th centuries B.C. In exile, people questioned their faith and had to come to grips with failure, loss, powerlessness, pain, and doubt. This week we’ll read some of the narrative texts of exile, and next week some of its poetry.

II Kings 25:1-21, 27-30 (CEB)

¹So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem with his entire army. He camped beside the city and built a siege wall all around it. ²The city was under attack until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. ³On the ninth day of the month, the famine in the city got so bad that no food remained for the common people. ⁴Then the enemy broke into the city. All the soldiers fled by night using the gate between the two walls near the King’s Garden. The Chaldeans were surrounding the city, so the soldiers ran toward the desert plain. ⁵But the Chaldean army chased King Zedekiah and caught up with him in the Jericho plains. His entire army deserted him. ⁶So the Chaldeans captured the king and brought him back to the Babylonian king, who was at Riblah. There his punishment was determined. ⁷Zedekiah’s sons were slaughtered right before his eyes. Then he was blinded, put in bronze chains, and taken off to Babylon.

⁸On the seventh day of the fifth month in the nineteenth year of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan arrived at Jerusalem. He was the commander of the guard and an official of the Babylonian king.⁹He burned down the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all of Jerusalem’s houses. He burned down every important building. ¹⁰The whole Chaldean army under the commander of the guard tore down the walls surrounding Jerusalem. ¹¹Then Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard exiled the people who were left in the city, those who had already surrendered to Babylon’s king, and the rest of the population.¹²The commander of the guard left some of the land’s poor people behind to work the vineyards and be farmers. ¹³The Chaldeans shattered the bronze columns, the stands, and the bronze Sea that were in the Lord’s temple. They carried the bronze off to Babylon. ¹⁴They also took the pots, the shovels, the wick trimmers, the dishes, and all the bronze items that had been used in the temple. ¹⁵The commander of the guard took the fire pans and the sprinkling bowls, which were made of pure gold and pure silver. ¹⁶The bronze in all these objects—the two pillars, the Sea, and the stands that Solomon had made for the Lord’s temple—was too heavy to weigh. ¹⁷Each pillar was twenty-seven feet high. The bronze capital on top of the first pillar was four and a half feet high. Decorative lattices and pomegranates, all made from bronze, were around the capital. And the second pillar was decorated with lattices just like the first.

¹⁸The commander of the guard also took away Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank, and the three doorkeepers. ¹⁹Of those still left in the city, Nebuzaradan took away an officer who was in charge of the army and five royal advisors who were discovered in the city. He also took away the secretary of the officer responsible for drafting the land’s people to fight, as well as sixty people who were discovered in the city. ²⁰Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard took all of these people and brought them to the Babylonian king at Riblah.²¹The king of Babylon struck them down, killing them in Riblah in the land of Hamath.

Points of Interest

There are too many names and dates to worry about in a day’s reading. Instead, picture the scene: there is a small country whose capital is besieged by the attacking army of a much larger country. Famine strikes so that the royalty is still eating, but everyone else starves. The army breaks through the wall. The defending army flees, abandoning the people, and then when the army is pursued, they abandon the king. Said king is tortured and exiled, his sons killed. How do you feel, left to live in the ruins of this city?
Later, the conquering army returns and burns down your city. Many of the people who didn’t die in the famine or the invasion are scattered; those that remain are carted off to become slaves. The few officials who try to hide out are kidnapped; word returns that they’ve been killed in a faraway land. The most beautiful building, your people’s grand temple, is looted and then destroyed. If you are any one of these survivors, how do you feel about your life? How do you feel about the God of your country, the one you used to worship in the temple that is no more?
The short paragraph, “Judah was exiled from its land” is the conclusion to this whole tale, the last chapter in this book. The nation is scattered. The dream is over.
The books of Samuel and Kings tell a four-part history of the rise and fall of ancient Israel, including its southern kingdom of Judah, the last portion to remain independent. The story begins with an ascendant monarchy that the author thinks is a bad idea. A few kings, despite their significant faults, are given positive reports. Most are disappointments. And then four hundred years later, the last king of all the dynasties lives a life of luxury as a sell-out in the employ of his people’s conqueror. The people’s story ends with a betrayal. The people suffer, while their king eats well in their oppressor’s service. This must have been a maddening story to read – so unjust, so unfair.

A Direction for Prayer

Perhaps some of your friends and family have experienced loss – the loss of homeland, the loss of loved ones, the loss of a dream. If so, pray that they have God’s help to survive and to find a next chapter beyond this loss.

Spiritual Exercise of the Week

The temptation in exile is to a death of faith or a loss of hope. Today, follow the lead of this passage, and honestly name to God and self the exile that most strikes you. Confess without shame your own temptation to a death of faith or a loss of hope.

The Wild Places Bible Guide – 10

The Wild Places – Day 9

Friday, March 22

Numbers 13:17-33

¹⁷When Moses sent them out to explore the land of Canaan, he said to them, “Go up there into the arid southern plain and into the mountains.¹⁸You must inspect the land. What is it like? Are the people who live in it strong or weak, few or many? ¹⁹Is the land in which they live good or bad? Are the towns in which they live camps or fortresses? ²⁰Is the land rich or poor? Are there trees in it or not? Be courageous and bring back the land’s fruit.” It was the season of the first ripe grapes.

²¹They went up and explored the land from the Zin desert to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. ²²They went up into the arid southern plain and entered Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of the Anakites, lived. (Hebron was built seven years before Tanis in Egypt.) ²³Then they entered the Cluster ravine, cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and carried it on a pole between them. They also took pomegranates and figs. ²⁴That place was called the Cluster ravine because of the cluster of grapes that the Israelites cut down from there.

^\25They returned from exploring the land after forty days. ²⁶They went directly to Moses, Aaron, and the entire Israelite community in the Paran desert at Kadesh. They brought back a report to them and to the entire community and showed them the land’s fruit. ²⁷Then they gave their report: “We entered the land to which you sent us. It’s actually full of milk and honey, and this is its fruit. ²⁸There are, however, powerful people who live in the land. The cities have huge fortifications. And we even saw the descendants of the Anakites there. ²⁹The Amalekites live in the land of the arid southern plain; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the mountains; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”

³⁰Now Caleb calmed the people before Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of it, because we are more than able to do it.”

³¹But the men who went up with him said, “We can’t go up against the people because they are stronger than we.” ³²They started a rumor about the land that they had explored, telling the Israelites, “The land that we crossed over to explore is a land that devours its residents. All the people we saw in it are huge men. ³³We saw there the Nephilim (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We saw ourselves as grasshoppers, and that’s how we appeared to them.”

Points of Interest

Wild places are often transitional places, and in between the known past and the unknown future. These times, what are called liminal spaces, are where most transformation and growth occurs, with that catch that they are also times of uncertainty and risk. But seen this way, our wild places of uncertainty and confusion can be great gifts to us, if we are humble and curious and patient.
Perhaps you’re troubled by the hints of violence in this passage – the question at hand is how to “take possession” of someone else’s land. Well, there are different opinions on this, but scholarly consensus is that the generation after Moses did not literally destroy the cities and residents of ancient Canaan. There are several theories regarding the ancient origins of the people of Israel, but they are all less violent and more complicated than that. Therefore, we’ll read this passage as it was likely meant to be read – as a metaphor for many other situations in which the future is potentially bright but full of risk and uncertainty.
I see three parts of our relationship to an unknown future. The first we’ll call “Investigate the Future.” A team of spies walk through the land and inspect its fruit. This time is marked by curiosity and hope. Perhaps in all wild spaces, even the wilds of old age and approaching death, God calls us to curiosity and hope. We can never control the future, or the outcomes of our present moment, but we can examine our future possibilities with curiosity – why not? – and dare to have a posture of hope.
The second part we’ll call “See the Promise and the Risk.” The curious, hopeful team sees milk and honey – the land of their dreams – just as they see powerful people and huge walls that stand in the way of the dream. To note the promise and the risks of our hopes and dreams is good sense. To examine both the promise and risks of anything we think God might lead us toward is part of a response of faith.
The third part is of our relationship to our unknown future is a binary choice: “Take Possession, or Abandon the Dream.” The advance team is divided, between the one who says they can do it and the many who say it is impossible. One says we are more than able, the rest see themselves as grasshoppers. This is the difference between a growth mindset (with effort and help, we can change and grow) and a fixed mindset (change and improvement is unlikely). It is the difference between hope and cynicism, between faith and despair.

A Direction for Prayer

For any in your faith community – yourself included – that see themselves as grasshoppers, pray that God births the hope that they are more than able. For any that lack vision of life beyond the wild places, pray that God grows curiosity, hope, and strength to imagine and take possession of a better future.

Spiritual Exercise of the Week

Encounter and Discovery in Nature – This week, each day if you are able, spend a few minutes of quiet in a natural environment. This could be a patch of woods, a park, or even leaning against a single tree. Be creative with what’s available, or try a single, longer trip at one point during the week. (The ocean of Revere Beach, Boston Harbor, or the beaches of Dorchester Bay, and the woods of the Arnold Arboretum, Franklin Park, and more are all available via public transportation.) Quiet your body and mind for a few minutes, and see what you notice or discover. Is there any way you differently encounter yourself, your life, your world, or God in this setting? Is there any perspective you take in?

The Wild Places Bible Guide – 9

The Wild Places – Day 8

Thursday, March 21

Exodus 33:12-34:9

¹²Moses said to the Lord, “Look, you’ve been telling me, ‘Lead these people forward.’ But you haven’t told me whom you will send with me. Yet you’ve assured me, ‘I know you by name and think highly of you.’¹³Now if you do think highly of me, show me your ways so that I may know you and so that you may really approve of me. Remember too that this nation is your people.”
¹⁴The Lord replied, “I’ll go myself, and I’ll help you.”
¹⁵Moses replied, “If you won’t go yourself, don’t make us leave here.¹⁶Because how will anyone know that we have your special approval, both I and your people, unless you go with us? Only that distinguishes us, me and your people, from every other people on the earth.”
¹⁷The Lord said to Moses, “I’ll do exactly what you’ve asked because you have my special approval, and I know you by name.”
¹⁸Moses said, “Please show me your glorious presence.”
¹⁹The Lord said, “I’ll make all my goodness pass in front of you, and I’ll proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord.’ I will be kind to whomever I wish to be kind, and I will have compassion to whomever I wish to be compassionate. ²⁰But,” the Lord said, “you can’t see my face because no one can see me and live.” ²¹The Lord said, “Here is a place near me where you will stand beside the rock. ²²As my glorious presence passes by, I’ll set you in a gap in the rock, and I’ll cover you with my hand until I’ve passed by. ²³Then I’ll take away my hand, and you will see my back, but my face won’t be visible.”
34 The Lord said to Moses, “Cut two stone tablets like the first ones. I’ll write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke into pieces. ²Get ready in the morning and come up to Mount Sinai. Stand there on top of the mountain in front of me. ³No one else can come up with you. Don’t allow anyone even to be seen anywhere on the mountain. Don’t even let sheep and cattle graze in front of the mountain.” ⁴So Moses cut two stone tablets like the first ones. He got up early in the morning and climbed up Mount Sinai, just as the Lord had commanded him. He carried the two stone tablets in his hands. ⁵The Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him, and proclaimed the name, “The Lord.” ⁶The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed:
    “The Lord! The Lord!
    a God who is compassionate and merciful,
        very patient,
        full of great loyalty and faithfulness,
⁷        showing great loyalty to a thousand generations,
        forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion,
        yet by no means clearing the guilty,
        punishing for their parents’ sins
        their children and their grandchildren,
        as well as the third and the fourth generation.”
⁸At once Moses bowed to the ground and worshipped. ⁹He said, “If you approve of me, my Lord, please go along with us. Although these are stubborn people, forgive our guilt and our sin and take us as your own possession.”

Points of Interest

I find these opening verses adorable. Moses expresses the fear and vulnerability that all leaders experience, and God offers presence and partnership. God knows and likes Moses and won’t ever abandon him or his work. Jesus taught the radical idea that God feels this way about all of us, that we’re all God’s favorites.
A moment when people in some way see or experience Divine presence is called – from God’s perspective – theophany, appearance of God. From the human perspective, it’s spiritual experience. Jesus and his first followers democratized these experiences, promising not constant but increasing felt, experienced sense of God with us.
Moses’ most intimate encounter with God occurs while he is alone, out on a mountainside in the wilderness. It also occurs while he is in the wild place of aging, fear, loneliness, and anxiety, just after a crisis in his community that tested his leadership. The wilderness – out in nature, apart from the busyness and idolatry of human civilization – has always been a rich place to encounter God. Our troubles and crises – unpleasant as they are – have also always been a rich crucible in which we can call out to God in our need and experience more personal, supernatural encounter than we are used to.
Whatever Moses saw or experienced on the mountainside as God passed by, there’s an attempt to put the personality and feel of God into words – compassionate, merciful, patient, loyal, and faithful. God is the personal source of all these characteristics, these qualities given pulse and personality.
In our very individualistic culture, many of us are troubled by the generational comments – punishing children and grandchildren and even great grandchildren for their parents’ sin. Is this fair? For one, there is counterpoint to this in the Bible, statements that God would not hold people accountable for others’ actions. Secondly, I like to understand this in less mystical terms. If God is the creator of all, then God is also the god of culture and genetics. We know that through both nature and nurture, we all do carry some of the faults of our recent ancestors. This is life, and it perhaps does reflect something of God’s sense of community and family and justice. Additionally, though, God is loyal enough to carry kindness and loyalty far longer – across a thousand generations. I think of one of the great spiritual icons and leaders of our time in history, someone like Martin Luther King, Jr., who has one young grandchild. I wonder what it may mean that God will be faithful to the hope and legacy of this man – not just through his one living descendant of the third generation, but through all African-Americans, and through all who strive for healing and justice – for many hundreds of years into the future. That is a future I hope for, and that is the kind of love and loyalty I hope God carries.

A Direction for Prayer

Pray for friends and family who struggle with difficult family legacies, that they will find the God of compassion and mercy patient with them, and kind and gentle with them in their struggles.

Spiritual Exercise of the Week

The Wild Places Bible Guide – 8

The Wild Places – Day 7

Wednesday, March 20

Exodus 32:1-14

32 The people saw that Moses was taking a long time to come down from the mountain. They gathered around Aaron and said to him, “Come on! Make us gods who can lead us. As for this man Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don’t have a clue what has happened to him.”
²Aaron said to them, “All right, take out the gold rings from the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” ³So all the people took out the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. ⁴He collected them and tied them up in a cloth. Then he made a metal image of a bull calf, and the people declared, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
⁵When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf. Then Aaron announced, “Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord!” ⁶They got up early the next day and offered up entirely burned offerings and brought well-being sacrifices. The people sat down to eat and drink and then got up to celebrate.
⁷The Lord spoke to Moses: “Hurry up and go down! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, are ruining everything!⁸They’ve already abandoned the path that I commanded. They have made a metal bull calf for themselves. They’ve bowed down to it and offered sacrifices to it and declared, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” ⁹The Lord said to Moses, “I’ve been watching these people, and I’ve seen how stubborn they are.¹⁰Now leave me alone! Let my fury burn and devour them. Then I’ll make a great nation out of you.”
¹¹But Moses pleaded with the Lord his God, “Lord, why does your fury burn against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and amazing force? ¹²Why should the Egyptians say, ‘He had an evil plan to take the people out and kill them in the mountains and so wipe them off the earth’? Calm down your fierce anger. Change your mind about doing terrible things to your own people. ¹³Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, whom you yourself promised, ‘I’ll make your descendants as many as the stars in the sky. And I’ve promised to give your descendants this whole land to possess for all time.’” ¹⁴Then the Lord changed his mind about the terrible things he said he would do to his people.

Points of Interest

Just after we read of the commandment to not trade in the living, passionate god for dead, controllable idols, people do just that.
Why the move to idol making when Moses has been missing? We get hints of fear, abandonment, loneliness, stress, and boredom – the conditions both then and now in which individuals and communities easily lose our path.
The people want “gods who can lead us” and Aaron, their priest, makes a golden bull calf. This might represent the Egyptian calf idol Apis, associated with royal divinity. It might also be a nod to the region’s fertility gods – the need for harvests and children and the fear of drought or infertility being the great anxiety of ancient agricultural societies in arid areas. Perhaps it’s good for humans to reach for the living God in these anxieties, rather than avoid our fears through idols.
Lest we put too much of a distance between our own times and these ancient religious practices, remember that the United States has our own actual golden bull idol – the popular New York City tourist attraction whose virility now represents wealth and fortune – the longing for abundance and the fear of scarcity being one of the great anxieties of our age. Perhaps it’s good for humans to reach for the living God in these anxieties, rather than avoid our fears through busy industry.
In last week’s passages, Moses was regularly stressed and fed up with people, while God was a calming and loving presence. Here Moses and God switch places – God is fed up and Moses calmly asks God to stay the course in steady, faithful love.
This passage reminds me that the God of the Bible, and the God Jesus embodied is not the unmoved mover of Greek philosophy, but a personal and passionate God, one who can experience weariness and frustration, as we do.
This passage also reminds me that humans can affect God. God has chosen to be connected to our story; prayer and love and human action move the heart of God. At Mount Sinai, out in the wilderness, God has some things to say to the people. The wild places, as it turns out, are a great time for re-centering, re-calibrating our life course. But first, a reminder of just who’s talking to them – the god who brought them out of slavery. It would be easy to hear this as a guilt trip, but I think it’s meant to clarify what’s going on here. God’s reminding them that the purpose of this whole journey through the wild places, and whatever spiritual or ethical journey these commandments take them on, is liberation.
There’s been centuries of debate about what to do today with these ancient commandments. Some people want them on the walls of public buildings, while others think they’re utterly irrelevant for modern life. I receive them as my own faith tradition’s oldest, most central ethical teaching, guideposts for living that promise more liberation.
The commandment against idol-making is tied to God’s passion. Idols – physical representations of unseen gods, be they religious statues or any other objects of devotion and control – are nothing if not dispassionate. God is clear that God is more alive than that – passionate in consequence perhaps but far more passionate in loyalty and love. God wants to be related to as a Person, not an object or idea.
The command to regular rest is liberating – there is more to life than work! It is also hospitable – it is for the immigrants, it’s even for the animals. Worth keeping in mind when we consider that the lowest pay and lowest status jobs in our own economy tend don’t have paid vacation times and often involve long or inconvenient hours and holding down two or more jobs to make ends meet!
Honor of parents is for liberation too – it’s for long, flourishing life in community.
Letting your neighbor enjoy their own life feels particularly liberating as well. Our consumer economy is predicated on wanting stuff and experiences that we think other people have. That wears me out and troubles me, whereas wanting and consuming less (in those rare moments I take this to heart!) brings me freedom and peace.
After all the words, the only thing the people pick up on is the fearsome smoke and noise. They witness an important moment in ethical and religious history while slowly backing away, telling Moses – catch us up later on whatever we missed.
If these commands are meant to be helpful – guideposts toward the good life – than sin is the word in this text for the life that loses course. Moses doesn’t want people running from God in fear, but in a relationship of awe that will keep them focused and inspired on the liberated way forward.

A Direction for Prayer

If it feels authentic to you, confess to God our city or our country’s idolatry – the things we do to distract ourselves from our fears and try to assert control where we are vulnerable. Our obsession with wealth and consumption might be a place to start. Ask God to patiently lead us all to a path of healthier vulnerability and a trust in the Spirit of God to care for us.

Spiritual Exercise of the Week

The Wild Places Bible Guide – 7

The Wild Places – Day 6

Tuesday, March 19

Exodus 20:1-21 (CEB)

20 Then God spoke all these words:
²I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
³You must have no other gods before me.
⁴Do not make an idol for yourself—no form whatsoever—of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. ⁵Do not bow down to them or worship them, because I, the Lord your God, am a passionate God. I punish children for their parents’ sins even to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. ⁶But I am loyal and gracious to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
⁷Do not use the Lord your God’s name as if it were of no significance; the Lord won’t forgive anyone who uses his name that way.
⁸Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy. ⁹Six days you may work and do all your tasks, ¹⁰but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Do not do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants, your animals, or the immigrant who is living with you. ¹¹Because the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them in six days, but rested on the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
¹²Honor your father and your mother so that your life will be long on the fertile land that the Lord your God is giving you.
¹³Do not kill.
¹⁴Do not commit adultery.
¹⁵Do not steal.
¹⁶Do not testify falsely against your neighbor.
¹⁷Do not desire your neighbor’s house. Do not desire and try to take your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox, donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.
¹⁸When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the horn, and the mountain smoking, the people shook with fear and stood at a distance. ¹⁹They said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we’ll listen. But don’t let God speak to us, or we’ll die.”
²⁰Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid, because God has come only to test you and to make sure you are always in awe of God so that you don’t sin.” ²¹The people stood at a distance while Moses approached the thick darkness in which God was present.

Points of Interest

At Mount Sinai, out in the wilderness, God has some things to say to the people. The wild places, as it turns out, are a great time for re-centering, re-calibrating our life course. But first, a reminder of just who’s talking to them – the god who brought them out of slavery. It would be easy to hear this as a guilt trip, but I think it’s meant to clarify what’s going on here. God’s reminding them that the purpose of this whole journey through the wild places, and whatever spiritual or ethical journey these commandments take them on, is liberation.
There’s been centuries of debate about what to do today with these ancient commandments. Some people want them on the walls of public buildings, while others think they’re utterly irrelevant for modern life. I receive them as my own faith tradition’s oldest, most central ethical teaching, guideposts for living that promise more liberation.
The commandment against idol-making is tied to God’s passion. Idols – physical representations of unseen gods, be they religious statues or any other objects of devotion and control – are nothing if not dispassionate. God is clear that God is more alive than that – passionate in consequence perhaps but far more passionate in loyalty and love. God wants to be related to as a Person, not an object or idea.
The command to regular rest is liberating – there is more to life than work! It is also hospitable – it is for the immigrants, it’s even for the animals. Worth keeping in mind when we consider that the lowest pay and lowest status jobs in our own economy tend don’t have paid vacation times and often involve long or inconvenient hours and holding down two or more jobs to make ends meet!
Honor of parents is for liberation too – it’s for long, flourishing life in community.
Letting your neighbor enjoy their own life feels particularly liberating as well. Our consumer economy is predicated on wanting stuff and experiences that we think other people have. That wears me out and troubles me, whereas wanting and consuming less (in those rare moments I take this to heart!) brings me freedom and peace.
After all the words, the only thing the people pick up on is the fearsome smoke and noise. They witness an important moment in ethical and religious history while slowly backing away, telling Moses – catch us up later on whatever we missed.
If these commands are meant to be helpful – guideposts toward the good life – than sin is the word in this text for the life that loses course. Moses doesn’t want people running from God in fear, but in a relationship of awe that will keep them focused and inspired on the liberated way forward.

A Direction for Prayer

Pray for any of your friends or family who could use more rest or any other liberation these commands speak to, that they’ll find guidance toward the most flourishing of lives.

Spiritual Exercise of the Week

The Wild Places Bible Guide – 6

The Wild Places – Day 5

Monday, March 18

We continue in our second week of Lent reading passages from the wilderness narratives that sit between Israel’s deliverance from slavery and their arrival in the Promised Land. The founding stories of this people of faith include rescue and promise, but also the chaos and confusion of wild places.

Exodus 19:1-9a (CEB)

19 On exactly the third-month anniversary of the Israelites’ leaving the land of Egypt, they came into the Sinai desert. ²They traveled from Rephidim, came into the Sinai desert, and set up camp there. Israel camped there in front of the mountain ³while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him from the mountain, “This is what you should say to Jacob’s household and declare to the Israelites: ⁴You saw what I did to the Egyptians, and how I lifted you up on eagles’ wings and brought you to me. ⁵So now, if you faithfully obey me and stay true to my covenant, you will be my most precious possession out of all the peoples, since the whole earth belongs to me. ⁶You will be a kingdom of priests for me and a holy nation. These are the words you should say to the Israelites.”
⁷So Moses came down, called together the people’s elders, and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. ⁸The people all responded with one voice: “Everything that the Lord has said we will do.” Moses reported to the Lord what the people said.
⁹Then the Lord said to Moses, “I’m about to come to you in a thick cloud in order that the people will hear me talking with you so that they will always trust you.”

Points of Interest

It’s striking how people so often encounter God away from busy economy and industry of human habitation. Certainly, the early Israelites’ primary places of encountering God are not in any human-constructed building. Bible scholar Wes Howard-Brook: “Moses encountered YHWH outside of Egypt, outside of empire, in the wilderness and at a mountain. These two sites are repeated places in which YHWH encounters Israel. It is where the authority of the state cannot reach.” (Come Out, My People, 143)
The image of the eagles’ wings is a beautiful maternal image for the Divine. God scoops up her young to hold and to treasure, and in time to represent God to the whole earth as well. Many Jews have historically understood themselves as a chosen people, to be specially loved by God and especially equipped to represent the love and justice of God to the whole earth. The New Testament (in the letter Hebrews) also appropriates this responsibility to all followers of Jesus – to experience unique communion with God and to represent the love and justice of God to all the earth as well.
Along with many other things, Moses passes on the eagles’ wings and holy priesthood news to the whole assembly, and the people shout out in unison: We’ll do everything that God says. I love that God’s response is to tell Moses: I think we should talk where they can overhear us, because I’m not so sure they understand. A funny moment in divine revelation.
A small but interesting note. God wants people to hear God talking to Moses, not so that the people will trust God more (although that’s probably also true), but so that they will trust and listen to Moses. This is pretty sweet backing Moses gets from God, and also maybe a note of realism in how hard leadership and group learning really is. No matter how eager people may be, it takes a lot of trust and a lot of time for communities to learn new things and to change in any way. Change is hard.

A Direction for Prayer

Pray for your faith community’s calling to ride on eagle’s wings and be a holy priesthood. Pray that your faith community will experience God’s love and protection and represent the love and justice of God to your city.

Spiritual Exercise of the Week

The Wild Places Bible Guide – 5

The Wild Places – Day 4

Friday, March 15

Exodus 17:1-7

17 The whole Israelite community broke camp and set out from the Sin desert to continue their journey, as the Lord commanded. They set up their camp at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink.²The people argued with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”

Moses said to them, “Why are you arguing with me? Why are you testing the Lord?”

³But the people were very thirsty for water there, and they complained to Moses, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?”

⁴So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What should I do with this people? They are getting ready to stone me.”

⁵The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of Israel’s elders with you. Take in your hand the shepherd’s rod that you used to strike the Nile River, and go. ⁶I’ll be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Hit the rock. Water will come out of it, and the people will be able to drink.” Moses did so while Israel’s elders watched.⁷He called the place Massahand Meribah, because the Israelites argued with and tested the Lord, asking, “Is the Lord really with us or not?”

Points of Interest

The trials of the wilderness continue, and again everybody but God is angry and stressed and up in arms. We’re not meant to stand apart, but see ourselves in this. The trouble and chaos of our wild places are not signs that our life has gone astray or is failing; they are signs that we are alive. Every life includes the chaos and hunger and need of the wilds.
God works through Moses and his leadership team to provide water, water reminiscent of the abundance of the Nile. Just as we long for refreshment in our wild places, God longs to refresh. The New Testament (I Corinthians 10 3:4) creatively, mystically represents God’s regular refreshment in this rock, imagining the water-flowing rock following the people of God, and naming that rock to be Christ. Whatever the nature of our faith in or connection to Jesus, it’s meant to feel like steady water in the desert.
Moses calls the place Testing and Quarreling (“Massah and Meribah”) because he remembers the stress of the arguments and the testing of his leadership. God calls this place The Mountain of the Sun (“Horeb” relates to the word for sun). A beautiful, mighty thing has happened here. Again, the power of perspective. What would it take for our very places of testing and quarreling be transfigured into seasons of beauty and light?
As we continue in the wilderness narratives, we’ll note that we skipped a verse that foretold it would be like this for forty years. (Exodus 16:35 – “The Israelites ate manna for forty years, until they came to a livable land.”) The journey from Egypt to Canaan is not that far – it’s a multi-day trip, not the voyage of a lifetime. There’s a great deal of meaning to this forty-year span, just as there can be a myriad of ways of seeing the symbolism of our forty days of Lent. The scholar Wes Howard-Brook notes, “This length of time is a round number symbolizing both a lifetime and a pregnancy…. Manna, in this sense, is akin to amniotic fluid and mother’s milk. It comes directly from YHWH’s (the Hebrew name for God, translated “The Lord”) ‘body’, i.e. creation itself, to feed Israel in utero and while nursing.” (Come Out, My People, 150).

Could the troubles and opportunity of your own wild place be a microcosm for your while life? What is the gift God wants you to know in your life? What is the lesson God wants to teach you for you to pass on?

Could your current wild place, with all its troubles, also be a season of preparation for new birth? What life is God growing and nurturing in you, currently unseen, that in time may be yours to share with the world?

A Direction for Prayer

Pray that by any of your friends and family that are mired in long, joyless quarrels. Pray that God shines into this dynamic by shining light and providing help in whatever not-enough feeling or experience is behind the quarrel in the first place.

Spiritual Exercise of the Week

Honest Prayer and Requests for Encounter, Discovery, and Rescue – This week, you are invited to name a place in your life where you are out of your element, beyond your resources, or out of control. Tell God about this. How is it that you want to experience God’s faithful love with you? What do you hope to learn in this season? How is it that you would like God to rescue you?

The Wild Places Bible Guide – 4

The Wild Places – Day 3

Thursday, March 14

Exodus 16:13-30
¹³In the evening a flock of quail flew down and covered the camp. And in the morning there was a layer of dew all around the camp. ¹⁴When the layer of dew lifted, there on the desert surface were thin flakes, as thin as frost on the ground. ¹⁵When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” They didn’t know what it was.

Moses said to them, “This is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. ¹⁶This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Collect as much of it as each of you can eat, one omer per person. You may collect for the number of people in your household.’” ¹⁷The Israelites did as Moses said, some collecting more, some less. ¹⁸But when they measured it out by the omer, the ones who had collected more had nothing left over, and the ones who had collected less had no shortage. Everyone collected just as much as they could eat. ¹⁹Moses said to them, “Don’t keep any of it until morning.” ²⁰But they didn’t listen to Moses. Some kept part of it until morning, but it became infested with worms and stank. Moses got angry with them. ²¹Every morning they gathered it, as much as each person could eat. But when the sun grew hot, it melted away.

²²On the sixth day the people collected twice as much food as usual, two omers per person. All the chiefs of the community came and told Moses.²³He said to them, “This is what the Lord has said, ‘Tomorrow is a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. But you can set aside and keep all the leftovers until the next morning.’” ²⁴So they set the leftovers aside until morning, as Moses had commanded. They didn’t stink or become infested with worms. ²⁵The next day Moses said, “Eat it today, because today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you won’t find it out in the field. ²⁶Six days you will gather it. But on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be nothing to gather.”

²⁷On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather bread, but they found nothing. ²⁸The Lord said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to obey my commandments and instructions? ²⁹Look! The Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore, on the sixth day he gives you enough food for two days. Each of you should stay where you are and not leave your place on the seventh day.” ³⁰So the people rested on the seventh day.

Points of Interest

The miracle of this wilderness begins with bread and meat, but especially bread. There’s more than enough for each person, a whole omer (which is about eight cups worth – that’s a lot of bread)! The root of this magical food means “what?” in Hebrew; I love that they name this bread “what-is-this.” So there is food for hunger of the belly and mystery and beauty for huger of the soul. Lest we forget, our stomachs and our hearts, our bodies and our imaginations both need feeding.
Another part of the magic of God’s food is how it interacts with space and time. Aggressive gatherers can’t overfeed, and folks that struggle to keep up – the physically disabled, the young, the old, the easily distracted – still have enough. And this food’s sell-by date is always today. It can’t be stored up for the future. How much of our life is robbed by our obsession with the future? God’s interested in nudging us back to today again and again. This is the day in which we’re alive. This is the day.
The other miracle of this wilderness is called the Sabbath, which means rest. Rest has got to be one of the least strategic activities in wild places. Out of control? Lost in the wilderness? Overwhelmed? In chaos, duress, or confusion? To not do anything, to simply rest seems counter-intuitive. But rest is part, maybe a seventh part, of what people in all places – wild places included – need. In this story, God bends the laws of biology and physics to make this point, and to invite people to walk into the gift of rest.

A Direction for Prayer

Pray that the people of your church will learn to be people who know how to rest, that in the middle of a stressed out, under-slept, over-caffeinated, busy world, you would all embody the joy of peace.

Spiritual Exercise of the Week

The Wild Places Bible Guide – 3

The Wild Places – Day 2

Wednesday, March 13

Exodus 16:1-12
16 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Sin desert, which is located between Elim and Sinai. They set out on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left the land of Egypt.²The whole Israelite community complained against Moses and Aaron in the desert. ³The Israelites said to them, “Oh, how we wish that the Lord had just put us to death while we were still in the land of Egypt. There we could sit by the pots cooking meat and eat our fill of bread. Instead, you’ve brought us out into this desert to starve this whole assembly to death.”

⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, “I’m going to make bread rain down from the sky for you. The people will go out each day and gather just enough for that day. In this way, I’ll test them to see whether or not they follow my Instruction. ⁵On the sixth day, when they measure out what they have collected, it will be twice as much as they collected on other days.”⁶So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “This evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt.⁷And in the morning you will see the Lord’s glorious presence, because your complaints against the Lord have been heard. Who are we? Why blame us?” ⁸Moses continued, “The Lord will give you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning because the Lord heard the complaints you made against him. Who are we? Your complaints aren’t against us but against the Lord.”

⁹Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole Israelite community, ‘Come near to the Lord, because he’s heard your complaints.’” ¹⁰As Aaron spoke to the whole Israelite community, they turned to look toward the desert, and just then the glorious presence of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

¹¹The Lord spoke to Moses, ¹²“I’ve heard the complaints of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat. And in the morning you will have your fill of bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”

Points of Interest

God’s newly freed people leave the oasis named after the god “El” and enter the desert named for the Canaanite moon-god Sin. (The connection to the English word for missing the mark or bad living is entirely coincidental.) The God of Israel proves again and again to not just be another tribal god. This Divine Mother/Father/Creator/Guide can be found everywhere and anywhere, even in places dedicated to or known for other gods.
It’s easy to get a little judgy about these stories of constant grumbling and complaining, unless we notice the time. It’s been forty-three days on the road, on foot in a hot, dry land without enough water or foot. I’d be pretty whiny myself!
In hard or confusing times, it’s easy to lose perspective. Forty-three days of trouble, and they wish they had died. That, or they wish they could return to what their life used to be; they fondly remember the occasional big, fireside meal, forgetting they were enslaved!
The hangry (hungry + angry) people lose perspective both in romanticizing their past and in blaming God. I think we see two temptations we all face in hard times – fantasy for a life we wish we had but that doesn’t exist, and fear that God or life or the universe is out to rob us of the good we wish we had, or that others have now. This loss of perspective only compounds our pain. The people aren’t just hot and hungry, they’re also alienated and bitter.
Once again, Moses is understandably, predictably stressed and defensive. God is not. God devises a rain-bread-from-the-sky and fat-birds-gather-at-twilight plan to address the hunger of the people God loves.
God attaches a learning opportunity to God’s provision. In hard times, God is interested in taking care of us, but also teaching us. We’ll examine this lesson more tomorrow, but it seems related to learning to live in the present, trusting that each day God will again give us what we need.

A Direction for Prayer

Pray for the most hungry and angry and lonely and tired residents of your city, that God will provide for them the relief they need this day. After this prayer, ask God is God would like to help gently reframe your perspective of your own life circumstances in any way.