Wet Feet...

 

Wet Feet…

 

Joshua 3:7-17
3:7 The LORD said to Joshua, "This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so that they may know that I will be with you as I was with Moses.
3:8 You are the one who shall command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, 'When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.'"
3:9 Joshua then said to the Israelites, "Draw near and hear the words of the LORD your God."
3:10 Joshua said, "By this you shall know that among you is the living God who without fail will drive out from before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites:
3:11 the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going to pass before you into the Jordan.
3:12 So now select twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe.
3:13 When the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan flowing from above shall be cut off; they shall stand in a single heap."
3:14 When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were in front of the people.
3:15 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,
3:16 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.
3:17 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.

 

Watch out for those Girgashites! Sounds like a great rallying cry, to me! Who were they? (Or who were ANY of the seven groups Israel expected God to “drive out from before” them, for that matter?) From what we can deduct from the Bible, the Girgashites were the fifth ethnic group out of Canaan. Does that help? Of course not. How about this—on a really whacked-out website from a fundamental Bible college, I read that the “Girgashites” is a name the author gives to one of the “seven evil spirits” that may inflict themselves upon us. And they were real NASTY ones, too! “Earthy,” fixed on things of this earth, and “analytical.” Sure sounds evil to me! Unless you are a farmer or an accountant. Where do people GET these ideas? And who is gullible enough to buy them? There must be a bunch out there, as a whole Bible college full of them exists!

 

Speaking of coming back to Planet Earth…we don’t fare much better when we read in other Bible texts that God’s people are “commanded” to totally wipe out these seven groups. The world in 2023 is dealing right now with a war between Hamas and the nation of Israel, with both sides pledged to wipe out the other. Who said the Bible was outdated? It’s the Girgashites who had better watch out! God is going to “drive you out,” but since God doesn’t have a driver’s license, God will just ask Israel to “drive Ms. Daisy” so Israel may “inherit” the “land flowing with milk and honey.” Remember, history is written by the winners. I wonder what we would hear from the Girgashites? We can imagine an interview with Fred the Girgashite:

 

Interviewer: We’re here today with Fred the Girgashite, who just had his family wiped out by an army of Israelites. He lost his land and his animals, too. Fred, what happened?

 

Fred: Well, I was minding my own business, doing some farming and tending to my animals, when this band of marauders rode through. They burned down my house, murdered my family, killed many of my animals—maybe took a few—and stormed off.

 

Interviewer: How did you survive, Fred?

 

Fred: Well, I jumped into a watering trench, and one of my cows that was killed by the invaders fell over top of me. 

 

Interviewer: Did you have any warning of this attack, Fred?

 

Fred: No, not at all. The ones who attacked us said they were doing God’s bidding, though. I don’t get that? My people have been on this land for hundreds of years. I can’t speak for “God,” but if this was THEIR land, maybe God might have said something to us back when we settled here then? Why would any God want to give people permission to pillage and plunder our land?

 

Interviewer: What will you do now, Fred?

 

Fred: Well, I’ll have to find some inconspicuous spot to bury my family, and then I’ll move on and look for new land, as this Israel bunch is now going to settle here, I guess. I don’t understand why they just didn’t ask us if they could share the land? We might have been able to work something out.

 

Sorry for the little drama, but I’m still puzzled, as was our mythical friend, Fred. Did God really encourage Israel to just TAKE the land they would call “the Promised Land”? Again, remember that history is written by the winners—even Bible history. Enough of my moralizing; we just have to push past what seems like a tremendous injustice perpetrated by “God’s people,” and hope that God would never really use them as God’s hand to “drive out” (pillage, plunder, and slaughter) OTHER people whom God created and loved, too.

 

So, pushing past…Let’s see if we can extract a more positive message from this lectionary passage from Joshua, today.

 

We begin with an Indiana Jones moment. The Ark of the Covenant is involved. Is it a “radio transmitter for talking to God,” or is it a religious talisman symbolizing God’s presence among God’s people? I’ll vote for the latter. Does Jesus become the “Ark of the New Covenant” in the New Testament? An interesting question! Think about the parallels: you touch him, power goes out, as the woman with the issue of blood found out; he has much power over water, as the disciples in the boat during the storm on the Sea of Galilee found out; and he doesn’t destroy the law of God, but “fulfills it” (contains it?), like the Ark does the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Go a little further: what was in the Ark along with the tablets? Manna—the “bread of life” for Israel in the wilderness. Jesus proclaimed himself the “Bread of Life” in the New Testament. Coincidence? I think not!

 

In this passage from Joshua, when the feet of the priests bearing the Ark touch the Jordan, its waters “pile up,” allowing Israel to cross. This is a popular Bible magic trick, and one that Jesus parlays in the New Testament, both by walking on the water and then by calming the storm. He also does the thing with the fish in the nets and the tax payment in the mouth of a carp, but that is for another sermon and another day.

 

There are a lot of things that happen in the Bible at what we might brand as “the last moment,” meaning just before they NEEDED to happen, such as this priests getting their feet wet so that the waters would part. What is that all about? Is God a lousy planner, conjuring up the remedy at the very last moment? I know my wife would NOT be happy with this “last minute” stuff; she likes to have lots of notice and lists full of steps before we head out the door on a journey of any kind! Is this an act of faith, the priests dipping their toesies in the Jordan. Probably.

 

Imagine the scene: millions of Israelites on their way to the “Promised Land,” sleeping in their tents along the Jordan. Joshua sends word that they are to leave their tents, pack stuff up, and get ready to cross the Jordan. They are all lined up, but wondering how wet everything will get, and just how deep the river is this time of year (answer: very, and it was flooding, to boot). The priests carrying the “charged” Ark of the Covenant (I say charged, because we know what happens when the wrong people touch it, even by accident) move toward the water, while all of the folk are watching. The priests know what “power” is somehow “contained” in the Ark, and now they are going to step into the water. While electricity wouldn’t be “tamed” until Ben Franklin came along, these guys must have been at least a LITTLE ambivalent about stepping into the muddy, flood waters of the Jordan with this giant “Aladdin’s Lamp” on their shoulders. But step they do, as like all good priests, pastors and rabbis, they trust God. Besides, it’s what they get paid the “big bucks” for, isn’t it? The waters part, Israel again walks across a body of water on dry ground, blah, blah, blah…

 

So, what’s in this for us? We have bridges, ferries, and boats to get across large bodies of water, in our day. Theatrics are not a requirement for portaging. But maybe we DO have to “get our feet wet.” God seems preoccupied with which directions our steps take us: step forward in the direction of what God is leading us to do, and things may happen to create new, dry, and lighted paths for our journeys; step back in fear, hoping for some “advance” trick to prove God is preparing the way, and nothing happens. Time to again pitch our tents on the wrong side of the river and hope God figures something ELSE out. We have tons of churches with such encampments, and only a handful that got their feet wet on faith. 

 

I know, there will be some who will try to say that the disaffiliating churches were the “faithful” ones with wet socks, and the others are the “stay behinds,” but I would argue quite the opposite. Which of the two were looking to do a new thing? Where the disaffiliating churches “went” is old ground. In fact, they were quite proud to label themselves “traditionalists.” The real soggy socks crowd are those people and churches willing to step out on faith and open the doors of our churches to people heretofore shunned or locked out. Which of the two parties actually had a vision of the future of the church? 

 

OK, I’ll get down off my disaffiliation horse…what does the “wet feet” thing mean for the individual Christian disciple? Stock answer: we must be willing to “step out on faith,” get our “feet wet,” and trust God. These are not bad things, at all. In fact, they pretty much come with the territory, at least the territory inhabited by Yahweh. But is there more to the “get your feet wet” story? Maybe.

 

Poor people often have wet feet because they spend a lot of time in unsheltered spaces, their shoes or boots leak, and they rarely have the luxury of settling in a place they can call their own. Our wet feet may help us literally find some common ground with them, and that may be a necessary first step in helping them find dry ground on which to cross into a better place. I buy my socks from the people at Bombas. They make a good, warm sock, and with each pair I buy, they donate a pair of socks to someone in need. In my fantasy, these donated socks are going to someone with wet, cold, feet who will be greatly comforted—and maybe even empowered—by having a new, dry pair of socks to put on. It’s a start. Of course, I can’t vouch for their being much truth to my fantasy, but I at least am comforted by the fact that Bombas donates socks, and that won’t happen if I get mine at the Walmart.

 

Refugees fleeing dangerous and/or tapped out countries often arrive in a new land with wet feet. They are people who most often truly “step out on faith” that they can find a new land for themselves and their families, aren’t they? The greatest threat to a potential new future for them are the “dry sock” folk on the other side of the border who see them as a threat. I’m not saying that all objections to “open borders” may not have some merit, but the politicly-charged opposition to immigration and receiving refugees in our nation is not only anti-Gospel, it is unsustainable. If “dry sock” people only had ANY IDEA what life would cost them if they were ever successful at closing our Southern border like they want to, they would freak out! Where I live, almost 100% of the landscapers, roofers, and “handymen” are persons of brown skin who speak Spanish. And I’m in Yankee territory! Down South, the farmers and ranchers who grow our food and textile crops would just fail without such laborers, and many (if not most?) of them are “illegals” in the parlance of the “dry sock” folk, or “undocumented” in the vernacular of the Bombas folk. Either way, we need them. They and their wet feet stepped out on faith and now we have the “laborers in the vineyard” we need. Get them some dry socks and help them find a “promised land” of their own. Joshua would be happy with you.

 

I remember when I would start to get my kids ready to bed at night, and we took off their shoes, how many times they had wet feet. I don’t know why, but I guess when kids play hard, either they find puddles to romp in, or their feet sweat like crazy. I would rub those little, wet feet, and put on some dry socks before I tucked them into a warm bed. Again, our “wet feet” may keep us in solidarity with the “little ones” of the world, whom Jesus commanded be freed to “come unto me.” Children are of utmost importance to God, and people of faith are called to love them, protect them, comfort them, provide a future for them, and help keep their feet warm. 

 

I’ll bet you can think of many, many others whose “wet feet” are an inseparable part of their experience? They may be people LIKE us, or NOT people like us, but they are all children of God! Those of us with multiple degrees, dry homes and offices, and reliable transportation that doesn’t involve slogging through water are challenged to find common ground with the laborers, the outcasts, the refugees, the poor, and the children. Get your feet wet, from time to time and see how you like it. And then, what you do to sooth your own feet, do unto the least of these.

 

“Greater love has no one than that they lay their life down for a friend.” Jesus said that. Laying one’s life down means sacrifice, but not necessarily DYING for them. The priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant got wet feet on behalf of all of Israel behind them. So it is with the first ones to step out on faith when God beckons us to go forward. Wet feet people are almost always laying their life down for SOMEONE, even if it is just in that moment. Was it worth it, slogging ahead with wet feet with that heavy Ark on their backs, for those priests? I’m guessing, YES. Were they showered with praise by the throngs who followed, and who benefitted from their first steps of faith? I’m guessing, NO, at least the texts we have doesn’t make mention of it. So often the servants of all are not recognized for their unselfish, obedient servanthood. No one notices, but God does. Who do you think has the ultimate power to make the last, FIRST, and the SERVANT of all become the GREATEST of all. Who among us hasn’t at least sampled what it means to intentionally NOT want something for ourselves, but for another, and yet, we wind up with such an unexpected blessing? This is “wet feet” living at its best, friends! 

 

No wonder Jesus washed the disciples’ feet…Amen.