Sermon

20th September 26

Four of the first five books of the Old Testament (known to Jews as ‘The Law’) are dominated by the story of Moses.  That begins in the Book of Exodus, where we learn of his birth, his abandonment, his rescue by Pharoah’s daughter from the banks of the Nile, his conflict with Pharoah, culminating with God sending increasingly nasty plagues on Egypt until Pharoah finally relents and allows the Hebrew slaves to escape.  After the events of the Passover, comes the Exodus when God parts the waters of the sea to allow his people to escape.

We then read of the forty years they spend wandering in the wilderness.  God gives them, through Moses, the laws that are to govern them: most famously the Ten Commandments, but many more besides.  They have been promised a land in which to live, the Promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey: the land then known as Canaan, modern Israel/Palestine.  That great pilgrimage ends, as we heard in that Old Testament reading, on the top of Mount Nebo.  It’s a great location.  Standing there, you can see the Dead Sea down to your left and, if you look to the right, you see the River Jordan which has flowed down from the Sea of Galilee, passing the city of Jericho on the Canaan side, before it flows into the Dead Sea.

Having seen that view of that Promised land towards which he has led the people for decades, out of Egypt and through the wilderness, Moses learns that he will never get there himself as he is to die that day.  His job as leader is done.  A new leader, a different type of leader is required, a military leader who will lead the people into battle to conquer the land, beginning with the Battle of Jericho.  And, as we heard in that reading, that man is Joshua.

When I was thinking about what I should say to you this morning, on the last Sunday of the interregnum, I looked back over the sermon I preached here on Easter morning in 2018, eight and a half years ago, at the end of the last interregnum.  I was talking about a televised pilgrimage that had been shown that Lent about a group of celebrities on the Camino, the pilgrimage to Santiago di Compostella.  I concluded then, as I conclude today, that we are on a pilgrimage through life, through death, to our promised land: to our final destination in heaven.  (I have put that sermon on the sermon page of the website and on the Church WhatsApp group.)  

And, on our pilgrimage journey, from time to time, God sends us a new leader.  It won’t be a clone of the previous leader, rather someone who will bring their own unique set of skills.  We pray for Fr James as he prepares to lead us on the next stage of our pilgrimage through this life towards our place in God’s heavenly Kingdom.

Amen.