Let Us Go Up…

 Numbers 13: 25-14:24

A sermon preached by Charles J. Tomlin, DMin;

July 18^th, 2021,   Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Series: The Way of God’s Justice 15/20

 

 

Numbers 13:25–14:24 (NRSV): The Report of the Spies

25 At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. 26 And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large; and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea, and along the Jordan.”

30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” 31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we.” 32 So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. 33 There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

 

The People Rebel

14 Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. 2 And all the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron; the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become booty; would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 So they said to one another, “Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt.”

5 Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the Israelites. 6 And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes 7 and said to all the congregation of the Israelites, “The land that we went through as spies is an exceedingly good land. 8 If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. 9 Only, do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land, for they are no more than bread for us; their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.” 10 But the whole congregation threatened to stone them.

Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the Israelites. 11 And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? 12 I will strike them with pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.”

 

Moses Intercedes for the People

13 But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for in your might you brought up this people from among them, 14 and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people; for you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go in front of them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. 15 Now if you kill this people all at one time, then the nations who have heard about you will say, 16 ‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land he swore to give them that he has slaughtered them in the wilderness.’ 17 And now, therefore, let the power of the Lord be great in the way that you promised when you spoke, saying,

18 ‘The Lord is slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,

forgiving iniquity and transgression, but by no means clearing the guilty,

visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children

to the third and the fourth generation.’

19 Forgive the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have pardoned this people, from Egypt even until now.”

20 Then the Lord said, “I do forgive, just as you have asked; 21 nevertheless—as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord— 22 none of the people who have seen my glory and the signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have tested me these ten times and have not obeyed my voice, 23 shall see the land that I swore to give to their ancestors; none of those who despised me shall see it. 24 But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me wholeheartedly, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.

 

         In this series of messages on Pursuing Justice, I’ve divided this discussion into three sections, following Micah 6:  Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.  

We are now in the third and final section, considering the spiritual foundations of extending God’s justice and love in the world.  Through Old Testament characters and stories from the foundational books of Gods law, the Torah, we want to try to answer more fully, how do we walk humbly with God in our lives today?  

In this message, we are looking closely at the biblical character named Caleb, one of the spies Moses sent to help calculate how and when the Israelites should enter the promised land.

 

HE HAS A DIFFERENT SPIRIT... (14:24)

         I just read to you this interesting story from the book of Numbers, telling us how the 12 spies sent by Moses to survey and spy out the promised land came back with a two-sided report.  The good news was that the land was just as God had promised.  It was described as very resourceful, described as a land flowing with milk and honey.  

But there was also bad news.   This land belonged to someone else: namely, the Canaanites.    Before Israel could inhabit the land, they had to seize, fight for, and take the land.  But that wasn’t the real problem for these well-trained military men.  

The real problem was that the people living in the land were like ‘giants’ compared to the Israelites.  While the Israelites had barely been surviving in the wilderness, these Canaanite peoples had lived on a diets high in protein.  Their size and strength made even these well-trained soldiers tremble in their sandals, feeling like ‘grasshoppers or insects, who could have easily been squashed by their enemies.

         Before we can look closely at Caleb’s unique response toward this Israel’s problem, it’s imperative that we stop to reflect briefly upon our own moral problem with a biblical story like this.  Since we are talking about pursuing justice and loving mercy, we must note that here is a story celebrating one people about to conquer and seize the land that belonged to another group of people.  How can a story like this be part of a human journey toward being just and merciful?

         Well, the bare ‘faced’ truth is that you can’t take a story like this at face value.  You shouldn’t be able to make fit.  This was their world, not ours.  If we tried to justify what Israel did based on our current understandings of justice, fairness, mercy, or righteousness, it would be like trying to put a round peg into a square hole.  You just can’t.  We can’t.  No one can.   We live beyond that world.  

I don’t have time to go into great detail in explaining all this, but it goes against common sense to attempt to justify how people lived then by our own understandings and life-situation today.  We can’t and shouldn’t try to live our lives backwards. 

Even with the Bible in hand, and perhaps especially with the Bible in hand, since it is so ancient, we can’t live or justify what it says backwards.   You can, and should look back to the good but like Lot’s wife, the moral and spiritual truth becomes ‘stone cold’ morally if you live the truth backwards.  Remember, Lot’s wife looked back.

However, we certainly can, and we must learn from the past, or we’d be doomed to repeat it.  Much of our learning comes from what we did wrong, as what we do what we did right, right?  That’s also we shouldn’t  dare justify what Israel did then, just like you can’t always justify what our own forefathers have done.  We aren’t them.  They weren’t us.  You can and should look back, but you can’t live backwards. 

Isn’t this part of the difficult learning going on in our own culture, with questioning about Christopher Columbus, the question of reparations being paid to descendants of enslaved African Americans, or The Civil War statues?   As a society we are learning  that we can’t celebrate Columbus as a moral hero or perfect example on our terms; nor can we justify private or public enrichment based on enslaving or mistreating African Americans, nor should we ever want to go back to relive the Civil War.  No, if we try to live backwards, we can only make matters worse.  

For the same reason that we must learn from our failures, we also  must neither try to live in the past nor completely ‘cancel’ or deny our human flaws and failure or forget the good in the past or the good that flows out of the past either.  We need to adjust our thinking, our believing and our living from what we have hopefully learned from these flaws, successes and experiences, but we must keep living forward, only looking back to keep moving in the right direction, so we can continue to grow and mature and not repeat the past.

         Just as this maturing comes from learning what is most important and good in life, this looking back and learning also comes in an even greater and grander way through Scripture.  The Bible gives us a much longer and larger perspective of life which isn’t only historical, but it’s also inward, spiritual and theological too.   The Bible is about reestablishing our connection with God, our creator, sustainer, and redeemer in life, who leads, guides and shepherds our steps on right paths in right directions. 

In making life choices we can still get lost and freeze in fear of what might or what does lie ahead.  This is what the Israelites were about to do.   On the way to their promised land, they were about to ‘freeze up’ and ‘lock down’ in fear, rather than to accept the challenges of victory.  But to do this, they had to trust God’s power and presence to keep moving forward with them toward the promise.  Israel needed learn to look at life’s challenges with spiritual eyes of faith and not only with the physical eyes that can become frozen in fear.   

Indeed, this ability to ‘see’ and to ‘trust’ is the attitude of spirit that is being especially noted in this biblical story.  Had it not been for Caleb’s very unique, believing and very different spirit, the people would have never entered and conquered and taken the land.  

Now, again, don’t get sidetracked by the moral problem in this story.  I’m not negating nor lessening it, but I’m acknowledging we from this story we can still learn what it means to face the fears and challenges we also encounter in life.  

Yet, with value of having faith, we must not use their understanding of God, nor our own, to justify immoral attitudes because this can lead us wrong to do evil, not justly.   Last year, a leader of a cult finally met justice and went to prison because he used religion as a cover for sex trafficking.  In a similar way, it wasn’t true faith but Islamic extremism that Arab terrorists used to justify a ‘holy war’ against the United States, bringing down the Trade Towers in New York. 

In a similar way, morally and politically, Palestinians today question whether Israel has a legitimate right to the land.  Now, I’m not arguing anything political here, but I only want to point out how the arguments for or against Israel’s right to the land can be made on religious, biblical grounds, but this can end up as an argument either for or against.   On the one hand, God gave them the land, but on the other hand, however, God took the land away from them through the Romans back in 70 AD.  In other words, as one Jewish legal historican has said, there must be a ‘statute of limitations’ here.  Neither Israel nor Arabs have any sole right to the land based on the past, because they all must come together and live in the present.  Now, that’s the kind of reconciling biblical and Christian truth that could move everyone forward!  (Quote From ‘The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Historiographic Essay, by Melissa Thiel  at TWU.edu).      

 

DO NOT FEAR THEM... (14:9)

         So, with this understanding we can look back and see this ‘different’ attitude or spirit in Caleb; what was it?   How did Caleb rise above and stand out from the other spies, who all observed the same ‘fortified cities’ and ‘giants?   They all became and only became afraid, while Caleb responded with a very different spirit of trust and faith?

         This is what should challenge us in this story, isn’t it?   We still face our own giants and ‘walled-up’ situations too.   And when we face these situations, it’s so easy, as the other spies and people did, to allow ‘fear’ to dominate and control us, rather than trusting God and relying upon our faith and belief in God’s promise and purpose. 

Folks, even if this Bible story wasn’t true, (but it is true), we’d still need it.  We need to hear about Caleb’s faith that enabled him to face his fear, because we still have many fortifications and giants standing between us and where we need to go, to live, to survive, to thrive or to get to where God and where life is leading us.

         When I think about facing our fears, even in the most ordinary way, I remember the smallest little thing that was a very big thing in my own growing up.  Do you recall learning to ride a bicycle?   I recall this particular challenge because I was younger than most of my young friends.  This made me so intimidated that I became afraid and didn’t master it until age 6, when my Dad gave me confidence as he pushed me down the hill.  

I tried the same strategy with my own daughter but it didn’t work.  She wasn’t afraid, however, she did get frustrated when I tried to push or help her.  Still at 3 years old, just before her 4^th birthday, she begged me to remove her training wheels and she wanted me to leave her alone and let her go.  I did and watched her keep falling down one afternoon, until she mastered it all on her own.   I still reflect on what she was able to accomplish without any help, simply because she had no fear.

More than 80 times in the Hebrew Bible alone, God tells his people not be afraid.   God tells his people that, but we still have a lot to be afraid of, don’t we?   There are terrorists loose in the world.  There is crime on our own streets and protests that get out of hand.  There is food that ‘s not safe and drugs that aren’t proven.  There’s also rules that are unfair and politicians that aren’t looking after us, like they say they are.  There’s of course, the other driver, and there’s our own minds and bodies that can play tricks on us.  How can we not be afraid, when there’s so much that we can and should be afraid of?

         We also know that some people can deal with their fears pretty well, or they have ways to be distracted, but we also know that having too many or too much fear can paralyze a people and a life too.  And when it comes to our greatest human fears, what do think you they are?  On the Psychology today website, it lists the 5 most basic human fears and each one of them deal with some kind of loss; loss of life, limb, freedom, relationship or sense of self.   In most every situation fear is not so much about getting hurt or having pain, but it’s the loss that comes to that is the greatest hurt, pain and fear of destruction, which threatens to steal the life we have and our promise of hope.

 

WE ARE ABLE TO OVERCOME (13:30)

     Caleb is remembered as one of the great heroes of biblical faith because he overcame his own fear and he also challenged the people of Israel to overcome their fears too.   Even when the people turned against his challenge an attempted to stone him and Joshua, Caleb stood firm, unafraid of what the people could do to him. 

         Fortunately, for Caleb, and for the people too, Moses interceded his life was spared.  Caleb’s courageous, fearless faith became a gift of hope and encouragement for the people.  They looked back and remembered that even in times of fear and doubt, they could overcome the challenge of achieving victory through faith.

There are probably many reasons that Caleb had decided for faith over fear, but the primary reason, one Rabbi explains, is that ‘God commands that we not fear!’   Those 80 times God tells his people not to be afraid aren’t suggestions, they are all commands.  In Rabbi Harold Kushner's own words: "God commands us to not be afraid. Not because there is nothing to fear but precisely because the world can be such a frightening place.   God realizes that we can never fulfill our potential as human beings if we are paralyzed by fear."

Underscoring this message facing our fears with faith is what the entire New Testament confirms over and over; and it is expressed most clearly in the very Jewish Christian book of Hebrews, where the writer reminds his readers over and over that is ‘by faith’ that God’s people are able to achieve God’s better way and God’s better promise of hope.   I find it interesting that the writer of Hebrews does mention the spies and Moses, but he never mentioned either Caleb nor Joshua.   Hebrews quickly moves through the ‘cloud of witnesses’ to get to Jesus, who is the ‘pioneer and perfector’ of our faith.          

I think this implies something that is very important for us to understand too.  Caleb was no ‘giant’ of the faith like Abraham or Moses.  However, Caleb’s faith, even as one of the ‘little guys’ is remembered in the Bible’s great story because the story of redemption and conquest would not have moved forward without the living, firm faith of this little guy Caleb, who had a ‘different’ spirit and challenged the people saying,  Let us go up...we can overcome! (13:30).   

 

 IF THE LORD IS PLEASED WITH US (14:8)

Now, let’s mention one more thing: Caleb gave a great challenge to the people of God because Caleb had a faith that enabled him to overcome his own fear, rather than to give into it.   But how did Caleb develop this kind of faith?   How did Caleb become the one man out of those 12 spies who was able to face his fears and overcome them with conquering faith?

I think this text gives us one especially important clue.  Do you see it?  It comes in one line, where Caleb explained his faith and hope for victory to the people.   He told them, “The land...is exceedingly good” (14:7); in other words, its worth the challenge.   But what Caleb says next is what truly reveals heart of hearts: “If the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us to the land and give it to us...Only do not rebel against the LORD; do not FEAR...THE LORD IS WITH US...DO NOT FEAR THEM (14:8-10).

         What we must finally take from this story isn’t so much that Caleb was able to get rid of his fears; he didn’t; and we can’t either.  Besides, fear isn’t all bad, at least not all the time.  In fact, fear can be good for you too.  It work like a normal, healthy dose of castor oil.   We might not like how it feels, but it does the trick.  Fear can make us careful, alert, and aware of what is happening or about to happen.  It can make us better drivers, better stewards, better workers, and better people too.

         But we all know too, that just as there is an upside to fear, there can also be a downside, if we allow fear rule everything, shutting down our hope and closing out our faith.   How do we keep fear from doing this?  

         Well, the obvious answer from Caleb is that he didn’t get rid of all his fear, but he has ‘displaced’  his fear by putting something else in his life that was stronger than his fear---his faith in God’s promise and presence.   This is what Caleb meant when he said, “If the Lord is pleased with us...”  (14:8).   Caleb ‘fear’ of not pleasing God was greater than he fear of the Canaanites.  But this ‘fear’ of God wasn’t a fear of what God might do to him, but of a fear of not trusting God enough to move forward ‘with’ God, fully knowing, like Caleb challenges us, to trust in faith that God is, and will be ‘with us’ 14:9.

 

Most of you have heard of The Flying Wallendas, the world-famous acrobatic troupe, who were best-known for their "human pyramid." The pyramid was begun with two men on a tightrope holding a pole between them; atop that narrow pole were perched as many as ten other performers, members of the Wallenda family and friends.

And all this without a safety net!

Every circus buff has heard the story of the day the human pyramid fell. The Wallendas were performing in a small Midwestern town. Two members of their troupe were killed and two others injured for life.

For several days, the Wallendas did not perform. Then the announcement went out that they would step out on the high wire again and the climax of their act would be the human pyramid!

It all went off without a hitch and that night a newspaper reporter cornered Karl Wallenda, the leader of the group, as he walked to his trailer. "Mr. Wallenda," he asked, "what made you go back after the accident?"

Wallenda seemed surprised by the question. But then he looked the reporter in the eye and said, "To be on the wire is life; all else is waiting."

         For a Caleb, and for one who follows walks with God by faith on a daily bases,  faith comes more natural than fear.  It doesn’t mean that a believer doesn’t have fears, it only means we have developed a more natural, or should I say, ‘supernatural’ feel for faith.  

Why does having faith come to feel more natural?  Well, as Will Roger the Texas humorists used to say, “Sometimes you have to go out on a limb because that's where the fruit is.”  

The greatest proof of Christianity for others, said the writer T.S. Eliot, is not how far we can logically analyze our reasons for believing, but how far in practice we will stake our lives on our beliefs.

Caleb’s minority faith report still provides us a sure foundation for doing justice and loving mercy in this world, doesn’t it?   There are so many ideas, opinions, forces, and powers loose in the world right now.   We all feel it, and we can become paralyzed in our own fears because of all these negative powers too.  

What I think Caleb teaches us well, is that having faith, walking close with God is what keeps us from being frozen or overcome by it.   Keeping Faith is especially important for pursuing justice because only faith enables us to keep doing justice; even when others shy away from it or misuse it.   Keeping faith is what enables us to keep loving mercy, even when others abuse it or try to abuse us. 

To do what needs to be done, and what must be done in this world, requires that we obey God’s command to not be afraid, by having the kind of faith that walks and talks with him, each and every day.   And when we walk with him, we can know that he is with us’ because we are trusting in him, and we know him, our daily life and practice of faith.   Amen.