“Common Plain”                                                                                          Vance L. Toivonen

READING                   Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." Then the LORD said to Moses, "I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites, 'Draw near to the LORD, for he has heard your complaining.'" And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. The LORD spoke to Moses and said, "I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the LORD your God.'" In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.

READING       Margaret J. Wheatley, Finding Our Way:

                         Leadership for an Uncertain Time

America has embraced values that cannot create a sustainable society and world We organize too many of our activities around beliefs that are inherently life destroying. We believe that growth can be endless, that competition creates healthy relationships, that consumption need have no limits, that meaning is found in things, that aggression brings peace. Societies that use these values end up, as do all predators in nature, dead…I also know that this is not who we want to be, so how did we get here?...It’s a gradual and nearly invisible process where values quite contrary to those we treasure seep in and grow in power as we do our work. As these contrary values are used in more and more decisions, higher principles recede into the background and have little influence. We may still think they matter, but they aren’t guiding our behavior…I’ve begun to invite people I meet into conversation by asking, “What is it that you love about America? What things must be protected at all costs?” This question leads to wonderful explorations. People are energized to talk about what they love…what they’ve learned about freedom, imagination, the human spirit, creativity, democracy…it’s very difficult to look truthfully at these times. It’s painful to acknowledge that these ideals are no longer vibrant…It’s even more difficult to acknowledge that we must stand up and do something if we are to prevent further deterioration. It takes patience and trust in one another before we dare venture into the darkness.

SERMON

It’s usually in those weeks leading up to Christmas that we at some point hear the echoes of the prophet Isaiah’s voice in our ears. The music of George Frideric Handel accompanies the announcement that an alternate reality is just around the corner. Advent is a reflection upon the season that anticipates the coming of Christianity’s Messiah, Jesus. Historically both Judaism and Christianity have fostered apocalyptic visions of a better world to come, and a Messiah who will invoke that new reality.

The tenor sings out the hopes of the world, the desires of all the oppressed peoples of the planet earth, “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and
hill made low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain.” This is a vision of a great leveling. The mighty will be brought down to the level of everyone else. The poor and disenfranchised will taste life as if for the first time. Everyone will live on a common plain, together, and in harmony.

The story of Israel’s flight into the wilderness is prescient of this new reality. We know the story of the Israelites in Egypt. In the first reading today we fast forward to the grumbling and complaining of those who left Egypt to free themselves from slave labor, a bondage they would now gladly invite back into their lives in order to have the food they so freely ate together with the labor. The Israelites are actually pining here for life the way it was, a sort of, ‘if we knew then what we know now’ attitude.

This is indicative of just how much we are willing to sacrifice in order to have our creature comforts. In Faustian fashion we will sell our souls in order to satiate ourselves, to have a little privilege perhaps, and to be independent. We want to be in total control of as much as possible so that we can have things the way we like them. When things are not to our liking, what do we do? We complain.

It’s interesting that the word complain is a conjunction of the two words in today’s title, common plain. This suggests to me that when I complain I am bumping up against the notion that there is equity among humankind. I complain when I lose sight of the fact that equity means not getting everything I want just the way I want it. I complain when I fail to understand that my neighbor has a different way of seeing things. When I complain I am usually thinking of just one individual – ME!

If we extrapolate this out from the individual into a community of individuals – a congregation of individuals, if you get my drift, we will discover that much dissension results from our unwillingness to live on a common plain with one another. We look to the way things have been and wish it were still so. We pine for life “back there” in the Egypt of our minds, when what we need to do is live fully and freely in the present. There is much that is no longer the same. We are in the wilderness, on a journey, traveling together. Will we survive together in this new land? Or will we destroy each other and ourselves by insisting upon our own way, determined to move backwards and to avoid the adjustments and changes that we need to make in this new environment?

We can take this out into the larger culture as well, the United States. This culture feeds our insatiable appetite for everything, convincing us from very young on that we have a right to get everything we want just the way we want it. By the time we are able to retire we are so thoroughly ensconced in this ideology that we spend our days trying to manipulate the culture of family and society, churches, and schools, and local and national politics to fit our own preferences. Even if this results in tremendous social and economic inequity we will continue our quest to have it our way. As long as I have what I want and need it’ll be alright with me if someone else is left wanting and needing. Oh sure, I will throw a few charitable dollars on to the pile. But don’t ask me to change my lifestyle, my religion, or my politics in order to facilitate equity and justice.

Back here at Hope I am aware that we live in this tension, and I am as much a contributor to this tension as anyone in the room. In my 3.5 years here I have slowly, gradually made adjustments in order to accommodate many of the individual whims, preferences, and desires that are represented in this room. But at some point we must all sit together, listen to the tremendous diversity of those individual preferences, and understand that each of us needs to let go of something in order for the larger community to journey together.

The metaphor for this comes in the wilderness story of Israel when Israel is asked to make a shift in its focus. This is a shift from themselves to the one who is entirely other, the one in whom we all find life and being. The Israelites are asked to cease complaining and to turn to God. How many times do we stop ourselves in the middle of our whining and complaining, in the midst of our fear and anxiety, and ask God, ask the wisdom of the universe, what it is that is best not just for our selves, but for everyone?

Here at Hope we need to stop asking ourselves what we can do to please everyone so that we can all be happy and have everything we want just the way we want it, and start asking God and the universe what is best for the community as a whole. In our lives in the larger culture and in the world we need to stop asking ourselves how we can control and manipulate our social and political systems so that we can continue on our merry way with life as we wish it to be. We need to stop declaring what we think God says, using God as a scapegoat for our personal preferences, and start listening with an open mind and an open heart.

In the wilderness story the metaphor is the manna – the bread in the morning and the quails in the evening. Everyone got the same things to eat. Everyone got only what they needed. And everyone was dependent upon the same source. For the first time in their lives the Israelites experienced what it means to live on a common plain. They did not need to be in bondage and slavery in order to receive what they needed. All they needed to do is give up their notions of how things once were, their ideas of how things should be, and replace their personal preferences with choices that were beneficial to all.

We must let go of the notion that any one individual priest or politician will deliver us from having to put up with life being other than that which complies with our personal preferences. Here at Hope we must continue to challenge ourselves to ask the deeper questions of what God, or the universe might have as a preference. We need to look to a power greater than ourselves, a power that has the best interests of all in mind. Perhaps we begin by listening to each other and hearing the myriad possibilities of our future together. Not with an eye toward placating those personal ideologies, but rather with an eye toward the probability that we are held together by a greater wisdom, a greater knowledge, and a greater vision than any one of us can generate by ourselves, including yours truly.

Life in the wilderness will take patience. Generating hope here at Hope will take humility. Our egos must take a back seat to our better selves. But if we can muster this more profound way of being in community, we will survive in the wilderness and have our faith restored in one another, in humanity, and in the one who places us all on a common plain.

Margaret Wheatley closes her chapter from which the second reading was taken by first quoting T.S. Eliot from his Four Quartets. He writes,

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without

love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Then Wheatley, whom I shall give the last word, concludes as I also wish to conclude. I will quote her, and make her words my own.

This is how I want to journey through this time of increasing uncertainty. Groundless, hopeless, insecure, patient, clear. And together.