The Long Way Around Ex 13:17-22

Exodus 13: 17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. ^[a] The Israelites went up out of Egypt armed for battle.  19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the sons of Israel swear an oath. He had said, “God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place.” ^[b]  20 After leaving Succoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. 21 By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people. When I was a little girl, I lived in Northern Indiana.  In many ways, it was like the central valley of California as it was a rich agricultural area.  The big difference was in what we grew.  In Indiana, I can look at a field and know exactly what is growing.  It is either corn, soybeans, wheat or hay.  I can smell the difference between the diary farms and the hog farms.  Occasionally there is a turkey farm which is quite a bit smellier!  But it’s nothing like the variety of orchards, fruits, vegetables and nuts grown out here. One of the jobs nearly all of my friends did during their early to mid teenage years was to detassle corn.  They’d be brought to a field of corn when the “tassle” or the part that has the pollen has just come out, and they took that off so the corn would not be fertilized.  Because I was pretty allergic to pollen, I got out of this particular job – but it permeated the culture of the place enough for me to know quite a bit about it. There were a few important rules to follow.  Use sunscreen.  Drink plenty of water.  Always work where you can see at least one other person.  Never take a short cut through the corn. It is very easy to get lost in a corn field. Corn grows about 8 feet high.  It grows pretty close together.  There is foliage all the way to the ground.  It all looks exactly the same.  It is really, really easy to get lost in there.  Sound and light have a tendency to bend in such a way that is very disorienting.  If you can see another person, you can keep your orientation and have some sense of direction. This time of year, many farmers plow corn mazes.  Along with the pumpkin patch and the harvest festivals, the corn maze is a lot of fun.  They literally cut down the corn in a pattern to create a maze – a path to get lost and found in.  A corn field is perfect for a maze because it all looks exactly the same.  All you can see is a little bit of sky, dirt and lots of green leaves. It is important to never take a shortcut through a field of corn.  The fields are huge – a single field can cover dozens of acres.  A farm out there can be 10,000 acres.  Out here, my brother-in-law’s 75-or-so acres of peaches seems tiny in comparison.  But back east where the farms are so big, it seems like it would be much quicker to walk through the field to get to the other side.  It looks like a good plan to just cut through the middle of the field.  It looks like you could see over the corn and that someone outside the field could see you if you were in it.  But none of this is true.  It could take quite a bit longer than just walking along the paths around the outside of the field – at least that way you won’t be walking in circles as you get disoriented.  When Pharoah let the Hebrew people leave Egypt, God did not lead them on the shortest path.  God led them toward the red sea through the dessert.  And you might remember from the story of the Exodus that it took them forty years to make it through the dessert.  This was certainly not the most direct path. God knew that people would want to take the shortcuts, but God knew the consequences of that too.  The long, tiring road was not the way that the Hebrew people thought they should go.  It looked like a better deal to go straight through the Philistine country – but God knew they’d get lost – distracted by war and ending up back in the oppressive context they had just been freed from. The good news is that God led the way – along this round about way that was counter-intuitive.  God was there in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to lead the way.  Not only did this allow them to travel by day or by night as the scripture points out – but they were led in the direction God had for them. So all of this gets me to wondering.  Where might God be leading us?  What are our pillars of cloud and fire?  What short-cuts are we tempted by that will distract us and keep us from the path that God wants us to take? Some things I am hearing from you is a desire to grow, to own your own building, to attract and provide services for families and children, to welcome visitors, to let the world know we are here, to invite our neighbors, to be a vibrant witness to this community. Maybe this is where God is leading us.  It will probably look different than you or I can imagine it right now.  God probably has a surprise or two for us.  Because the world continues to change, it will probably not look like the church that many of you remember when Mr. Baird was pastor here.  Mr. Baird retired over fifty years ago.  The world has changed and God has new plans for First Christian Church. The challenge is how to resist the temptation of the shortcuts and wait for the path that God has for us to be revealed. We could start right now to implement all sorts of changes that individually sound like great things to do to work toward this goal that we think we want to reach.  At the Elder’s meeting this week we came up with five of six really great ideas for changes we could make.  The challenge is, some of these ideas conflict with each other.  Some require us to make other changes to accommodate the new ideas.  It feels like we might be tempted to walk right into the middle of a corn field, getting lost in the implementation of changes and losing track of our goal of a final destination on the other side. If God is truly calling us toward a promised land of vitality, mission and witness to this community – the path will be illuminated. Of course, we need to work to discover that God has for us.  This is why we are meeting every Wednesday at 11am for our Wednesday conversations.  Lots of great ideas come out of these conversations – just talk to the 8 folks that come this first week!  The creativity that is emerging suggests to me that God is active and at work with us right now.  So come!  And if you can’t come, still read the book with us and share your ideas with me or really anyone in the congregation.  God may be revealing something to you that we all need to hear. I think it is also time to begin a list of all the creative and amazing ideas that are emerging.  I am surprised and pleased with the ideas that you are coming up with for making changes that could make a big difference to our future.   This may sound funny coming from someone known to be inclined toward action – but we need to wait.  We need to hear lots of ideas and continue to listen and watch for God’s leading.  We need to make sure we don’t stumble into the cornfield only to get lost.  Or, to use the imagery from our scripture today – to make sure we do not take the Philistine road, even if that is shorter.  For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.”  This church cannot afford to try something, give up hope and return to this place. There will be lots of surface and procedural changes that we can make.  But if we make them without making the underlying changes to how we interact, how we understand church, how we integrate new people into ministry, how we do ministry in the twenty-first century — we will get lost in the corn. We need to wait for the path to become clear.  We need to be looking for the path – to watch for our very own pillar of cloud and pillar of fire.  For God will be with us.  God will lead us.  God will guide our way to the promised land if only we are faithful, willing to work toward God’s goals, committed to making the journey and careful not to get lost. We are on a journey together.  It is a hopeful journey.  A little bit scary journey.  A journey where we don’t know the outcome.  A journey that requires faith.  A journey that avoids shortcuts but takes the long way around in order that we do not get lost, we are not tempted to turn back, and we are on the clear and uncluttered path toward the promised land.