Enjoying the Water

There is nothing more relaxing to me than a day on the water. I’m not sure there is anything better than being at the front of the boat and feeling the cold spray of the waves as the boat flies across the surface of the water. I’ve never been on a sailboat, but I have been on a boat that wouldn’t start, and I’m not sure there is anything worse than realizing that there is nothing you can do but get the oars out and row yourself back to land.

As God led the Israelites out of Egypt, they were sailing with the wind in their hair and the cold spray on their faces toward the Promised Land. As they got close, God commanded Moses to send 12 men, one from each tribe of Israel, to spy out the land of Canaan, which is God’s promised land to the people of Israel. So, Moses sent the twelve to appraise the situation in Canaan. I love that the NRSV translates Moses’ directions as “Go up into the Negeb yonder,” up into the hill country and see what Canaan is like – is it inhabited by a lot of people, or just a few, are they relatively weak or strong, is the land good or bad, is there wood, are they living in tent encampments or fortified cities, and bring back some of the fruit of the land.

When the twelve returned, they brought back grapes and pomegranates and figs, and the news that “the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large, every area is claimed by a different group. There’s really no place for us. And all of a sudden, instead of sailing, they were rowing their boat.

Joan Gray in her book Sailboat Church: A God-Powered Adventure describes the difference between a church powered by God and a church powered by human effort. She writes, “The bedrock reality of life in the rowboat church is that God has given a basic agenda (for example, to make the world a better place, save souls, help the poor, and spread Christian truth) and then left it up to them to get on with it. The dominant attitude in this congregation is either “We can do this.” or “We can’t do this.” The church focuses on circumstances like the money it has or can raise, the available volunteers, the charisma and skill of the leaders, and the demographics of its community. The rowboat congregation acts as if its progress depends on its own strength, wisdom and resources. It’s all about how hard and long people are willing to row.

In contrast, the dominant attitude in a sailboat church is, “God can do more than we can ask or imagine” (Eph 3:20). Its members know that what they have or lack in human and material resources is not the decisive factor in what they can accomplish as a church. They look on church as a continuing adventure with a God who guides and empowers them to do more than they could ever have dreamed…”

The majority report of the spies who returned from Canaan was a rowboat report, “we can’t do this.”
Except, Caleb spoke up. Caleb had faith that God would keep God’s promise and give them the land, “Let us go up at once and occupy it; for we are well able to overcome it.” He and Joshua tried to convince the people to lift their sails and trust God to fill them. But, the other spies believed that the people who occupied the land were stronger, so they described their glimpse into Canaan again this time embellishing a bit, “The land you sent us to spy out is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people we saw in it are of great stature. We seemed like grasshoppers compared to them.”

And so began 40 years of wandering in the wilderness for the Israelites until those 10 spies and all their generation except for Caleb and Joshua died. God would not bring them into the Promised Land because they had not been willing to trust him.

President Franklin Roosevelt wisely said, “There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.” The only way that the Israelites were not going to move into the land of Canaan was to not take it – to not go into it – to not even try. They didn’t believe they could do it on their own, and they were right, they couldn’t do it on their own. But, they didn’t try to do it with God…and with God, it was not only possibly, it was promised.

40 years later, after wandering in the wilderness, after Moses and all the others who had escaped Egypt with them died, Joshua would lead their children and their children’s children into the Promised Land. And Caleb, at 85 years old, would finally fight the Anakites to settle in Hebron.

The Anakites hadn’t left or gotten any smaller or left powerful. But this time, Israel trusted God’s promise. They went into battle, where before they preferred to stay where they were in the wilderness or even to return to Egypt. Before, they had no chance to overcome because they decided not to try.

Life is like that. You can’t succeed if you don’t try, and there are very few possibilities that come without risk. Almost all of our most important decisions are made on faith. Rev. Gary Redding proposes that most of the time, we don’t have enough information to make a rational decision to move forward. He says, “We weigh things too much. We measure the possible results of all the alternatives. And if we look for it, we’ll always find enough to scare us out of making any decision at all. Risks go with decision-making, but risks are usually too hard for people who think too much.

The really important decisions though, often have to be made without certainty. If we get married, we do it without a guarantee that we’re making the right decision, without any certainty that it’s going to last, not knowing at all how difficult will be the challenges we will face along the way. If we have children, we have them without knowing how they will turn out. When we decide to be Christians, we do it on faith, sometimes fighting recurring doubts….” Getting married, having children, professing that we are Christian all require a leap of faith. They all require putting down our oars and hoisting the sail.

None of those who believed they had to make it on their own ever made it into the Promised Land. When we focus on our risks and our doubts, on our own ability to row ourselves back to land, instead of our possibilities and our hopes, we never set sail.

Take just a minute and think about your life. Do you feel like you have been enjoying the water, with the wind in your hair, the cold spray on your face, soaking in the warmth of the sun? Or do you feel like you have been rowing for far too long and getting nowhere? What hopes has God placed in your heart? What dreams? My friends, God invites us to hoist our sail and let the wind of the Holy Spirit fill it. May your faith set sail. Amen.