Bishop Michael Rinehart

Joshua 5:9-12 — After the Israelites cross the Jordan, the disgrace of Egypt is over, the manna stops and the people eat the bounty of the land.

Psalm 32 — I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’, and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 – We once saw Christ from a human standpoint, but no longer. If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. God reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. So we are ambassadors for Christ. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 – The Lost Sheep and the Lost Sons

Sing Guide Me Ever, Great Redeemer. The third stanza alludes to Joshua: “When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside; death of death and hell’s destruction, land me save on Canaan’s side. Songs and praises, songs and praises I will raise evermore…”

Sing Amazing Grace, which ties to the younger son: “I once was lost, but now am found…”

Lent C

Return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.
– Joel 2

March 6 – Ash Wednesday: Dust. Ashes. Mortality. Repentance. Fasting. Don’t show off your piety.
March 10 – Lent 1C: First fruits for the Levite and alien. Jesus is tempted by Satan in the wilderness.
March 17 – Lent 2C: Abram’s call. Faith reckoned as righteousness. Jesus laments for Jerusalem.
March 24 – Lent 3C: Repent, for there is only so much time left for the fig tree to bear fruit.
March 31 – Lent 4C: Lost sheep. Lost sons.
April 7 – Lent 5C: I am about to do a new thing… Mary anoints Jesus’ feet.
April 14 – Palm/Passion Sunday: Jesus entry into Jerusalem as an anti-triumph.

The Prodigal God

If you would like some reflections on the story of the Lost Sons (Prodigal Son), the entire season of Lent 2013 was devoted to this parable. We used Timothy Keller’s book The Prodigal God: recovering the heart of the Christian Faith, study guide, DVD:

Lent 1 – Chapter 1: The People Around Jesus
Lent 2 – Chapter 2: The Two Lost Sons
Lent 3 – Chapter 3: Redefining Sin
Lent 4 – Chapter 4: Redefining Lostness
Lent 5 – Chapter 5: The True Elder Brother
Palm Sunday – Chapters 6 and 7: Redefining Hope

Joshua 5:9-12 – Crossing the Jordan to the Promised Land

When Joshua and the Israelites crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, they were told to get twelve stones out of the Jordan, one for each of the twelve tribes, and place them in their camp, as a memory. Think Stonehenge, on a smaller scale. This kind of standing stone memorial was common all over the world, even dating back into the Neolithic era (10,000-2500 B.C.). Standing stones are used to commemorate important moments, divine appearances, and battles. They are the precursor of our gravestones.

The Israelite men in Egypt had been circumcised. The males born during the 40 years in the wilderness had not been circumcised. Most of the original slaves had died during the 40 years. So, once Moses died, Joshua and the people crossed the Jordan into the promised land, and made camp, Joshua ordered all the men (600,000?) to be circumcised. (See Joshua 5:1-8.) If all these assumptions are correct, this would have a been a huge, bloody, dangerous event.

Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago professor Ralph Klein invites us to imagine 600,000 foreskins piled up. This wouldn’t have been easy. It had to have been painful for older men, and without sterile conditions and antibiotics, infection was a real, life-threatening danger. The text says they remained in the camp until they healed. These men couldn’t have been happy campers. They called this camp Gilgal. It is at this point that our text for the day starts.

Gilgal (Hebrew: גִּלְגָּל) means circle. The plural, circles, is gilgalim. The camp was possibly named that way because of this circle of standing stones. In a play on words, YHWH says to Joshua, “I have rolled away (Heb. giluthi) the shame of Egypt.” I would not explore further circular plays on words implied here.

The shame that is rolled away is not just the shame of slavery, but also the shame of a foreign, can I say, pagan, society. An uncircumcised society. Circumcision came to be the mark by which the people of Israel distinguished themselves from the societies around them. It was the sign of their covenant with God.

For Christians this cannot help but evoke images of rolling away the stone, which rolls away the shame of sin and death.

While in Gilgal, they celebrated Passover, their Independence Day. They ate the crops of the land, and stopped eating manna and quail, which had been given them in the wilderness. Ralph Klein tells us that the Israelites kept a jar of Manna in their sanctuary, as a kind of relic, so that future generations would recognize that their ancestors had survived in the wilderness only because of Yahweh’s providential hand (16:32-34). Food is not to be taken for granted.

What relics or icons do we need so that we recognize God’s providence? We have moved from a society where 60% of the country was in agriculture, to one in which less than 6% is in agriculture. How do we stay connected to the earth and to our food sources, in urban and suburban areas?

15% of Texans live under the poverty level ($17,000/year for a family of two). Unemployment in 2018 was 3.8% in Texas. The majority of the poor are working, busting the myth that poverty is caused by laziness. There are hungry people, even in Texas, but there is no shortage of food. The problem is $8/hour jobs, with no benefits. Many of these “working poor,” work two and three jobs, worrying about how they will feed their children, or pay their medical expenses. Food pantries, run by so many of our churches are critical. If you don’t have one, what food bank might you support?

God has provided enough for the entire world. We don’t have a supply problem. We have a distribution problem. What relics or icons do we need to not take our own food for granted? How do we see food as both gift and trust? The preacher can use this as a jumping off point for addressing the stones to bread issue raised in the Lent 1 Temptation Story.

If you are preaching on the Lost Sons (Prodigal Son), there are plenty of connections. The lost people of Israel are welcomed to the Promised Land by YHWH. The shame of their past is wiped away in circumcision. They feast on crops, leaving behind the manna of the wilderness. Likewise, the lost son returns home after journeying in his own wilderness. The shame of his past is forgiven in the embrace of his father. They feast on the fatted calf, leaving behind the pig slop of his former existence. God does the same for us.

We can also consider, in the crossing of the Jordan, the possibility of an allegory for death and resurrection. Just as the Israelites passed through the waters of the Jordan from slavery in Egypt and the wilderness into the Promised Land, so by the cross of Christ and through the waters of baptism, we will one day pass from the slavery and wilderness of this world into the promised land of eternal life.

Ralph Klein suggests the great hymn, Guide Me Ever, Great Redeemer. The third stanza alludes to Joshua:

When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside;

Death of death and hell’s destruction, land me save on Canaan’s side.

Songs and praises, songs and praises I will raise evermore.

I will raise evermore.

2 Corinthians 5

For thoughts on the epistle text, see https://bishopmike.com/2016/05/22/reconciliation-2-corinthians-511-21/

Luke 15: The Lost Son