Sermons

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Stones and Stories
October 17, 1999
Pastor Dan Baumgartner       
Joshua 4:15-24 

“What do we do now?” Joshua had heard the question many times before, but it had never been his problem. Joshua hadn’t been the leader of God’s people Israel, Moses had. But Moses was gone now, and Joshua was leading the people. 

And Joshua had been obediently listening to God, and they were on the way to a land God had hand-picked for them, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” The people followed behind the ark, the box that represented God’s presence. But they had come to a river…the Jordan River. It wasn’t a huge river, but it was flood season, and so the river was deep and wide and fast. And rumor had it that there were strong, hostile tribes on the other side. The uncertainty and fear made this river seem as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon. 

“What do we do now?” Joshua heard the questions. But he also heard God, and so they moved ahead. The priests went down the bank first, carrying the ark…and as their feet touched the water, it happened…the water stopped. It just stopped. To the left, it roared away downstream.  To the right, it piled up upstream, and the place where the priests stood quickly became dry ground…holy ground. And a hush came over the Israelite people, for they knew that God was there. All of the people crossed over to the other side. And Joshua called upon twelve leaders to grab a stone from the newly dry riverbed, and take it with them to the other side.

Joshua 4:15-24

Our family LOVES stories. Since our kids were little, we have told them countless stories…bedtime stories, camping stories, stories at dinner, true stories, slightly embellished stories, totally fictional stories. And the thing is…our kids REMEMBER stories. For a LONG time.

Long, long ago when I was in college, I lived in an apartment with Bethany member Charlie Allen. It may not be hard for you to imagine that I accumulated some great stories from that experience. And when the kids were young, I started sharing with them a few “Charlie and Dan” stories. 

Their favorite is about the time that Charlie and I lived on the fourth floor of an apartment building. As bachelors are prone to do, we were living very busy lives, staying up late and being pretty exhausted in the morning when we had to go to work or school. Well, one December morning, just for something to do, I woke up early, snuck into where Charlie was sleeping, and put a record on the turntable. (Do you remember what those were?)

 It was none other than Andy Williams, singing “White Christmas.” I put the volume way up loud, hit “play,” and snuck out of the room. When Andy started belting it out, Charlie just about hit the ceiling. The next morning, of course, Charlie returned the favor to me. This went back and forth until the morning he turned up the volume ALL the way, at 5 a.m.

 When that music started blaring, I guess I lost my head. I bolted out of bed, snatched the record off the turntable, opened the sliding balcony door, and Frisbee-d Andy off the fourth floor balcony…never to be heard from again. To this day…my kids will periodically say, “Dad, tell us the story about you and Charlie and that CD-thing!” They know the story better than I do. It’s become a part of them.

Now, ancient cultures were oral cultures. That is, the history of a people was passed from person to person, generation after generation, by speaking. People told and retold the important stories until they were imbedded inside of them…memorized beyond any chance of forgetting.  We have been systematically losing that in our modern world. Today we have such a vast amount of information bombarding us, it’s hard to sort out what’s important. We do less and less storytelling, and therefore less story-remembering. We throw a few facts onto a computer screen, hit the e-mail button, and presto…we can instantly forget even the little bit of information we just sent.

Joshua knew about stories. He’d grown up with them. But in his day, the memories of the Israelite people often grew dim. Despite the fact that God had saved them from slavery in Egypt, brought them across the Red Sea, provided them with manna from heaven to eat, and water from a rock to drink…OFTEN the people would almost immediately begin to complain and moan. “Doesn’t God care about us? Won’t He take care of us?” They would always come to the next fork in the road, and the first words always seemed to be, “God, what have you done for us LATELY?”

Then here…in this story…as the people are poised to enter the land that God has prepared for them, as they stand fearfully on the east side, wondering how they’ll ever make that last 100 feet…God does something big. Really big. He dams a river. He not only gives them safe passage, as he had at the Red Sea…but in doing so, again says to them “Don’t be afraid. I’m right here with you. Keep walking ahead.”

But. God wants them to remember. So he has Joshua choose one person from each of the twelve tribes to pick up a stone from the dry riverbed…a big rock that normally was underwater…and carry it to the other side.  And then stack them there all together.

It seems strange, at first. Just a stack of rocks. Why not build a commemorative statue of Joshua, to remember his leadership? Or why not duplicate the Tower of Babel, to remember what human ingenuity could accomplish? Or how about a soaring cathedral, right there at the edge of the river…an architectural wonder.

Not here. Just a pile of rocks. A pile of rocks for just one purpose…so that the story of GOD would be told…and remembered, deep down inside…and never let go of.

“Dad, Dad, tell us the story about these rocks piled here by the river! C’mon Mom, tell us, what are they for? What do they mean?”

 “Oh, yes, let me tell you that story. It was right here that we crossed the river…ON DRY GROUND. It was right here that your Dad and I suddenly knew we were in the presence of God…a mighty, powerful God who cared about us. We saw it with our own eyes…God gave us a highway -- no, a freeway -- into the land…JUST LIKE HE PROMISED. You see, kids, God is faithful. Don’t ever forget.”

To this day, the Jewish faith has a wonderful way of remembering the story of God’s faithfulness. On the night of the Jewish seder, the Passover meal, as they eat their bitter herbs and unleavened bread, it is the role of the youngest child to ask the question:

“What does this meal mean? Why do we do this?” And the father then tells the story of the Exodus…God’s story. “We were slaves in Egypt…and God brought us out with a mighty hand.” They don’t want to EVER forget God’s story with His people.

But people do forget. We forget. We hide from God, or think our life will turn out well because of our own ingenuity. So we build skyscrapers and monuments and towers and think, “Now we’ve really accomplished something.” But they don’t amount to…a pile of rocks. And so God acted again…in many times and ways, but at one particular time, God came and gave every bit of Himself…gave His Son. He went beyond saving people from war, from enemies, went beyond finding them a new home. Went beyond even death, chose to come right here, right among us, in Jesus Christ. He came and said, “Oh, people, you’re missing it. You’ve forgotten me. Life is consuming you, and you’re far away. I’ve come to open a highway…a highway back to God through both life and death. I’ve done it on the cross…and I will never leave you.”

We need piles of rocks. Rocks that will chain us to the story. That will intertwine our story with God’s story. When our kids say to us, “Mom, Dad…Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle…what does that pile of rocks mean? Why do you wear that little cross around your neck?” we get to answer, “I wear it because this cross reminds me that God loves me so much, there is NOTHING he wouldn’t do…and He loves you like that too. Don’t ever forget.”

Rockpiles tie us to our past. They remind us of things that God has done. But it doesn’t stop there. When we remember something God has done, somewhere that God has met us…it builds our trust for the future. Each time we remember God’s faithfulness, our trust deepens, and we become a little more likely, the next time a challenge arises, to say, “Wait, why am I so scared? I know God will be with me through this. He has before…I can trust Him. And we realize that we follow after a God who didn’t just act thousands of years ago…but a LIVING God, present and active now. We need rockpiles to remind us.

In my desk drawer at home, buried under a pile of rulers and paper clips is a little envelope. And in that envelope is a $1 bill, and 2 quarters. That $1.50 is like a pile of rocks to me. I got it about seven years ago. It was 7:00 in the morning, and I was sitting down at the SPU cafeteria, reading before going into the office. 

Actually, I was pretending to read…but I was really worrying. I was worrying because Anne and I had become convinced that God was calling us out of business, out of a fair amount of security, and out of Seattle into full-time ministry in only God-knew-where.

I was worrying about money, because I was a businessman, and I was running cost-benefit analyses in my head, and the “cost” part kept coming out way ahead. How could we do it? How could we leave a solid job and head off to seminary for three years with three little kids? Wasn’t that irresponsible? How could we make it? 

And as I sat there worrying, lost in my thoughts, a woman I’d never seen before (or since) came up to my table and said, “Excuse me. You don’t know me, but I had the strongest sense that God wanted me to give you this.” And she plopped a little bag down on the table, and hurried off. I stared at the bag for a minute, and then opened it up. Inside it was the $1 bill and 2 quarters. Now, that wasn’t going to get us too far across the country, was it? But for me, it was a profound message from the Lord, at just the right moment, that we were going to be all right. And every time I look in that drawer, I’m reminded of how faithful God has been…it’s a pile of rocks to me.

Sometimes we need other people to act like a pile of rocks for us. We get so caught up in the events of life that we lose sight of where God has brought us…we need somebody to remind us, bring us our perspective, remind us that God has been faithful in the past, that things have happened that we NEVER could have guessed. Sometimes we just need somebody to remind us that God is STILL at work.

I had a friend years ago who EVERY, SINGLE time we were together for coffee or breakfast would look at me across the table and say, “So, Dan…what’s the Lord teaching you right now?” And I would have to stop and think about where I had seen or felt or heard God that week…and it was a reminder that our God is not just a God of history, but a living God who is active.

This week Anne and I went down to visit the new building that houses ECOM…Emerald City Outreach Ministries, the group that is doing such great work in the Rainier Valley. As we drove up Rainier Avenue, we could see the little tiny cramped brick building that housed the ministry for several years. And then, right next door, the spacious modern building that was brand new. It was an obvious contrast. And when we went inside, we could see the ministries that God had faithfully raised up. A computer lab, job training, parenting classes, marriages seminars… great stuff. As we drove away, I took a good look at those two buildings… not because of the buildings, but what they represented…God being faithful, God growing this ministry, God being trustworthy in new ways.  A pile of rocks.

There are piles of rocks all over this church, as well. Bethany folks on the mission field, people that God has called in impossible circumstances, and has been faithful to use in ministry. There are folks sitting beside you in the pew that are rock piles (note: you don’t need to call them such!)…people who have quietly lived out their faith day by day, year by year, following Jesus, telling His story. And we look at them, and we are reminded that God is at work. And we can only say, “Thank you. Thank you that you won’t let us forget the story. Thank you that you persist after God…it reminds me that I want to too.” And I would encourage you to tell those folks thank you, as well.

Friends, the past has everything to do with the future. The piles of rocks remind us of how God has BEEN faithful, and they tell us He is faithful still. God does not always act in the same way, nor in the way we necessarily expect. But he WILL act. 

The Lord has given us Himself in his only Son, Jesus Christ. And no matter how deep the waters may roll back and resume their course…we are different people as we learn to trust God. 

And then…there is the one pile of stones which cannot be shaken…not by earthquake or water…that is the cross of Christ. And this we MUST not forget. We must not take it for granted…and we do, sometimes. We must not let each other forget. We need to see this precious pile of stones and be reminded of the mighty, roaring, tender, mysterious, persistent love of God, shown in Jesus. 

And when OUR children (grandchildren, nieces, nephews, neighbors) ask us this question… “What about this cross? What does it mean?” Then for God’s sake…for our children’s sake…for our sake…let us be ready to answer. To tell of what God has done…to tell of what God is doing. Amen.