Scripture: Numbers 10: 11-28
Sermon: Moving Forward, Flying Upward
Topics: wilderness, travel, unity, grumbling
Preached: June 13, 2021
Rev. Mike Abma
Numbers 10: 11-28
In the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth day of the month, the cloud lifted from over the tabernacle of the covenant. 12Then the Israelites set out by stages from the wilderness of Sinai, and the cloud settled down in the wilderness of Paran. 13They set out for the first time at the command of the Lord by Moses. 14The standard of the camp of Judah set out first, company by company, and over the whole company was Nahshon son of Amminadab. 15Over the company of the tribe of Issachar was Nethanel son of Zuar; 16and over the company of the tribe of Zebulun was Eliab son of Helon.
17 Then the tabernacle was taken down, and the Gershonites and the Merarites, who carried the tabernacle, set out. 18Next the standard of the camp of Reuben set out, company by company; and over the whole company was Elizur son of Shedeur. 19Over the company of the tribe of Simeon was Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai, 20and over the company of the tribe of Gad was Eliasaph son of Deuel.
21 Then the Kohathites, who carried the holy things, set out; and the tabernacle was set up before their arrival. 22Next the standard of the Ephraimite camp set out, company by company, and over the whole company was Elishama son of Ammihud. 23Over the company of the tribe of Manasseh was Gamaliel son of Pedahzur, 24and over the company of the tribe of Benjamin was Abidan son of Gideoni.
25 Then the standard of the camp of Dan, acting as the rearguard of all the camps, set out, company by company, and over the whole company was Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai. 26Over the company of the tribe of Asher was Pagiel son of Ochran, 27and over the company of the tribe of Naphtali was Ahira son of Enan. 28This was the order of march of the Israelites, company by company, when they set out.
Philippians 2: 1-4
If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God
WILDERNESS 1980 AD
Just over 40 years ago, I was a graduating senior at a small Christian high school in London, Ontario, Canada. That high school was staffed by a bunch of rather young idealistic teachers. Most of the male teachers had rather long shaggy hair and long shaggy beards. In a word, they were …..kind of “Christian hippies.”
The high school had started a tradition for the seniors:
* the senior girls went camping with the female staff members;
* the senior boys went camping with the male staff members.
That year, the male staff members decided to take us boys to Algonquin Provincial Park for a canoeing and camping trip. Now Algonquin Park is massive – 3000 square miles of wilderness – that is not much smaller than Connecticut. At the time I was not very aware of what an organizational feat it was to make sure
* there were tents for everyone
* there were canoes for everyone
* and that there was food for everyone.
All I knew was that by the time all the canoes were in the water,
we were a small flotilla of 18 canoes,
paddling into the wilderness of northern Ontario
and we would not see any signs of human civilization for days.
WILDERNESS C. 1450 BC
Just under 4000 years ago, the tribes of Israel were also getting ready to venture into the wilderness. Theirs was a desert wilderness. They also needed to get organized. Part of getting organized was knowing
how they would march when they finally got moving,
and how they would camp when the stopped moving.
The Book of Numbers spells out the order of things very clearly.
They would march in 4 groups of 3 tribes.
Here is a slide to show you the marching order.
Notice Judah leads, with Issachar and Zebulun,
Then Reuben, with Simeon and Gad
Then Ephraim with Manasseh and Benjamin
And finally, Dan, with Asher and Naphtali.
What I would like you to notice in this slide is the role of the Tabernacle.
It is actually the Ark of the Covenant,
the Ark of God’s Presence,
that leads everyone.
Then after the first group,
here come the Levites clans with the Tabernacles tents and poles.
Then after the second group
here comes a different Levite clan with the Tabernacle furniture.
Then come the last two groups.
It is almost as if God’s presence and the Tabernacle not only
lead them, but also hold them together.
This is perhaps even more clear in how Israel camped when they stopped marching.
Here is another slide showing how they camped.
Notice we have those same 4 marching groups
now camped in 4 quadrants
on the east and south,
west and north
sides of the Tabernacle.
But it is the Tabernacle that is at the center of everything and everyone.
In other words,
the Tabernacle,
the presence of God
not only led them and guided them as they marched,
it also gave them unity and a central focus as they camped.
WILDERNESS 1980 AD PART 2
Anyone who has ventured into the wilderness knows that things can get….tough.
When our high school group set off in our canoes, we were enthusiastic.
It was warm. It was sunny. It was great.
But the deeper we paddled into the wilderness,
the darker the sky became.
By mid-afternoon it was raining.
By late afternoon, it was pouring.
We were forced to set up camp in the rain.
Some of the boys started to complain,
especially Frank and Eddy
who were the slowest canoers,
the most reluctant campers,
and truthfully the most persistent whiners.
Frank and Eddy kept asking the same basic question:
“Whose bright idea was it
to take us all out into this ….wilderness death-trap?”
Even the youngest, and fittest staff member,
our Phys Ed teacher,
started nodding his head
saying, “Yup, those boys have a point.”
The other staffers, not exactly impressed,
were mainly shaking their heads, saying little
and simply getting on with the work of setting up camp.
It turned out that our Math teacher,
who was not the best at teaching anyone Algebra,
was a fantastic outdoorsman.
He was the one who got a fire going in the pouring rain.
He was the one who helped get most of the tents set up.
He was the one most responsible for us being able to
crawl into relatively dry sleeping bags
with relatively full and satisfied stomachs.
WILDERNESS c. 1450 BC PART 2
Things went about the same way for the tribes of Israel.
They set off into the wilderness with enthusiasm.
But in no time at all, people started complaining:
It was too hot.
It was too dry.
They were too hungry.
They were too thirsty.
Some of the biggest grumblers started asking the same kinds of questions:
“Whose bright idea was it
to lead us into this death-trap desert wilderness?”
OUR WILDERNESS and PAUL’S WORDS
That is always the challenge, isn’t it?
When things get difficult,
when the unexpected happens;
when things suddenly get much harder than we anticipated;
when the very things that we thought
would bring us joy and happiness,
in fact bring us grief and misery,
then, how do we get through that?
How do we hold together?
How do we keep moving?
Much of what Paul writes to the churches of the New Testament
addresses just these very questions:
both how to stick together,
and how to work through the challenges we face.
In our New Testament lesson from Philippians 2,
Paul writes that it is no longer the Tabernacle
that binds us together.
Now it is Christ who is our center;
Now it is the Holy Spirit who binds us together and leads us.
Paul insists that this needs to take shape
in a community of believers
who have the same mind,
who share the same love,
who work together for the same goals.
That is the only way to travel through the wilderness of this world.
But that is easier said than done.
Take the wilderness of this past year?
We all know how many things there were that divided us,
that caused us to bicker, to complain,
that tempted us to go our own way.
At such a time as this, how do we live as a community of believers,
having the same mind, sharing the same love, pursuing the same goals?
MURMURATION
We live on a corner lot on Hoyt Street.
We have a hedge that borders two sides of our property.
In the winter, this hedge is home to hundreds of sparrows.
There are so many sparrows that our neighbors refer to our house as “the bird house.”
There is one thing that everyone notices about these sparrows.
When you walk by our hedge,
and when all these sparrows suddenly take flight upward,
they do not scatter here, there, and everywhere.
No, the sparrows fly upward in a cloud.
They fly in formation.
They whoosh here, then there, in a type of aerial ballet.
Amazingly, in the blink of an eye, they can all suddenly change direction.
This phenomenon of hundreds, even thousands of birds flying as one is called murmuration. For centuries, for millennia really, we have noticed this phenomenon of hundreds, sometimes even thousands of birds,
flying as one body,
as if guided by one mind,
and animated by one spirit.
Only recently have scientists studied how these birds do it, how they make it work.
It turns out a flock of birds is able to fly and move as one
as long as each bird pays careful attention
to the 7 birds right around it.
As long as each bird pays more attention
to the 7 birds around it,
than to themselves,
the cloud stays intact, and all the birds fly as one.
Isn’t there something almost biblical about this?
These birds stay together when they are focused on one another.[1]
That is more or less what Paul is saying in our New Testament lesson:
“Look not to your own interests,
but to the interest of others.”
We stay united in Christ
we move together in the Spirit
when we keep our eyes on each other
and when we keep our hearts open to each other.
That is how we move forward, together.
That is how we fly upward, together.
CONCLUSION
Let me go back to that canoe trip.
Our second day was almost a déjà vu of the first day.
It started sunny and pleasant.
It ended in rain, pouring rain.
We were headed to an island to camp that night,
and we all wanted to get there as quickly as possible.
Canoe after canoe finally arrived.
But there was a problem — Frank and Eddy’s canoe was missing.
Somehow in the rain,
and in the race to get to the campsite,
we had lost them – or they had lost us.
We were worried.
Two teachers volunteered to go back and look for them.
Before leaving, we huddled in a circle and prayed.
A long time later, as it was getting dark,
we finally saw two canoes paddling towards us.
There were cheers and high fives all around.
Frank and Eddy had been found.
It turned out that Frank and Eddy had somehow lost a paddle
and got hopelessly behind.
From then on we stuck together tightly as a group.
From then on, we paddled our canoes in formation,
never losing sight of each other.
The sad truth is, the weather never got better on that trip.
If anything, it got worse – still wet, but then even colder.
By the time we finally made it back to base camp and the bus,
we all were shivering with blue lips and blue hands,
and no one had a single piece of dry clothing.
So we piled into the bus,
drove to the nearest town,
stopped at the first laundry mat we could find,
and everyone threw at least one set of clothes in the dryer
so that we would have something dry to wear home.
The funny thing is that,
while in the laundry mat
we were not silent, or somber, or subdued.
No, we were actually laughing,
and smiling,
and at one point even singing,
because we had made it.
We had made it out of the wilderness….together.
And now, together, we were on our way home.
Amen
PRAYER
As we travel forward, O Lord,
We pray that your Spirit may bind us together
And that your Son, Jesus our King, might lead us onward and upward
Now and always.
Amen
- See NPR “Swooping Starlings in Murmuration” Jan. 4, 2017 for a laypersons explanation and George Young et.al. “Starling Flock Networks Manage Uncertainty in Consensus at Low Cost,” in PLOS Computational Biology, Jan. 31, 2013, for an academic explanation. ↑
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