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When I think about people today, there’s a word that comes to my mind: overwhelmed.
I sense that people are just overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the demands placed on them. Their time. Energy. Attention.
It is true, our senses are overwhelmed, our brains are overwhelmed. We can’t even sit still: our phones demand our attention.
But I think there’s a deeper force that leads people to feel overwhelmed. It’s that the anchors people rely on are crumbling.
In Canada, we’re going through a huge change.
For our entire lifetimes, the United States was our anchor. Our identity as Canadians was closely tied to the United States, whether we like it or not.
We liked to say that we’re not Americans, but even saying that reveals just how closely tied we were to them.
They were our economic anchor. They were our security anchor. We could live safely, peacefully and prosperously because we had a strong, rich, friendly neighbour to the south.
But all that has changed in just two months.
Canada is very alone and vulnerable right now. We cannot rely exclusively on the United States for our economy.
But it will take time to diversify our trading relationships. Even geographically we are isolated – the only neighbour we have is the United States.
I have concerns about the future; I don’t know what will happen.
Today’s passage is the final speech of Moses to the Israelites.
It begins this way:
When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you… (Deuteronomy 26:1)
They are still in the wilderness.
In the wilderness, the Israelites had no anchor. Their only thing they knew before freedom was their life in slavery.
That’s why even though they were free in the wilderness, many times the people complained to Moses. They would say that at least in Egypt we had food to eat!
In the wilderness, they had absolutely no anchors but God.
They had to learn how to trust completely in God. They trusted God for everything: food, water, shelter and where to go.
It took a whole generation. Over 40 years. The first generation all died in the wilderness. A new generation was born.
But finally, by the end, they knew their anchor was God. They became God’s people.
Our identity is always in connection with something or someone else.
I am not just Simon. Even my name is not from me – it was given to me by my parents. I am their son. I am Joonie and Abby’s dad. I am a pastor of St. Timothy.
I am always someone in relation to someone or something else.
For me, the most important part of my identity is that I am a child of God. God is the unchanging anchor that I pin my identity to.
That was the main outcome of the Israelites in the wilderness: they became God’s people by pinning their identity to God. They and God became one.
My friends, in these times, we feel no true anchor in this world. Anything can change. And that can be overwhelming.
But we HAVE an unchanging anchor.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. God is steadfast, unchanging and forever faithful.
That is who we pin our identity on.
If your identity as God’s child is clear, steadfast and unchanging, then you can get through ANYTHING in life!
That’s how important your identity is. You are a child of God. You are God’s.
If you know who you are, if you know whose you are, then you will withstand anything that comes your way.
Moses’ main concern was whether the people would maintain their identity.
Their time in the wilderness was coming to an end. A whole generation had passed away, and a new one emerged. They would enter a new environment filled with new challenges.
Would they remain attached to God, or would they attach themselves to other things?
That was the great question and concern in Moses’ mind. Who would they be?
That’s the question for us.
In today’s passage, Moses institutes spiritual practices so that people would maintain their identity as God’s people.
That is what today’s passage is all about: how the people maintain their identity as the people of God in new and changing environments.
Those practices are just as relevant for us today.
When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.’ (Deuteronomy 26:1-2)
Moses instituted the first fruit offering. This is where we get our practice of tithing from.
Give to God before you take anything for yourself
What does this achieve?
It affirms your connection to God. It acknowledges who gave you this fruit in the first place.
You may have been the one to harvest the land, but it was God who gave you the land in the first place.
There’s an old Korean custom I learned growing up. When you start a new job, you give your first paycheque to your parents.
It’s an acknowledgement of their hard work and sacrifice to help you get to where you are. It’s affirming your relationship with them. I think it’s a beautiful custom.
Giving your first fruit to God: that is affirming your identity as a child of God.
That is something that was instilled deeply in the first generation.
During COVID, when we could not meet in person, people would deliver their offering envelopes in person. When they miss a week at church, the next week they bring two weeks of offering.
We need to learn from these things.
Giving of your first fruit is a tangible, concrete expression of your relationship with God.
When presenting the first fruit, the people were to say this:
Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.’ (Deuteronomy 26:1-2)
After that, this was his instruction:
When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, you shall make this response before the Lord your God: ‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.’ (Deuteronomy 26:4-10)
While giving their offering, they remember all that God has done. Not just that, but especially how God came in their darkest moments and helped them.
My friends, we are here because God has been with us. God has helped you.
All of you have faced great challenges. Overcome great difficulties. Many of you still are dealing with great challenges.
But God has been with you. God has brought you to this point. God is carrying you now.
Sometimes when we look back, we don’t know how we made it. But we realize that it was God who did.
When I really look back, there were so many dark, difficult moments. I don’t know why or how God helped me. But somehow, God did.
I am so blessed now – I don’t deserve any of them. When I think of how God has been with me, it brings tears to my eyes.
In that sense, it is nothing to give the first fruits to God. Of course God deserves that first portion. God was everything when I was nothing.
That’s the attitude we bring to offering. By reciting the past, God once again becomes center in the present.
You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 26:10)
Our offering song was simple and beautiful. “We fall down, we lay our crowns, at the feet of Jesus. We cry Holy Holy Holy is the lamb!”
That is our worship. With thanksgiving, we give to God and fall down in worship.
That is what we do.
Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house. (Deuteronomy 26:11)
After worship and thanksgiving, there is a celebration! Levites were the priests. Aliens are the strangers in their midst.
So with the pastors and people from all over, we celebrate!
That’s what happens in our Fellowship Hall.
I know it can seem intimidating to go into a hall full of people. It’s hard for introverts.
But from a spiritual perspective, our fellowship time is a great celebration of the God who has been with us. Everyone is a part of that celebration.
These were practices that Moses left so that Israel could affirm its identity as God’s children.
This is not just a one-time thing.
God has given us the gift of the Sabbath. A weekly rhythm of rest and making life blessed again.
Sabbath is a day of rest. But rest is not doing nothing.
Rest is recentering your identity. Coming back to who you really are. Coming back to God and resting in God’s presence.
On the Sabbath day, we worship God and affirm once again who we are – beloved children of God.
You are God’s children. We have an unshakeable anchor in God.
No matter how much the world changes, our God does not. How wonderful that is!
Know who you are. Know whose you are.
That identity be your anchor to get you through anything that life throws your way.
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