New People for New Times 9/19/43

Scripture: Joshua 1: 1-9

Text: Joshua 1: 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan.”

A man with a great deal of experience, Dr. W. E. Garrison, who recently became a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, pointed out that this text, taken from ancient history, or even from the earlier or prehistorical times, has definite contemporary implications for us. It is an exciting text for those who are interested in today and tomorrow. It mentions Moses and Joshua; but it means you and me and all of us.

The story is familiar to all who have read the Old Testament. Israel had left the bondage of Egypt and resolutely set out through the wilderness for a promised land of its own. On that long march from Egypt, with stern years in the wilds to teach a people long enslaved the self reliance and self discipline fundamentally necessary to a free people, they had at last come to the Jordan. By that time, Moses and all his generation were through. It was time for the younger people to take up the responsibilities of their movement.

Jehovah seems to say: Moses is dead. He was a good man in his time. He brought you out of your desperation and the degradation of slavery and brought you where you are now. But his work is done and his time is past. Now it is your turn. You are in a dangerous spot. You cannot return across the desert whence you have come. There is a river before you that Moses could not cross. Beyond that river lies a land that is to be your home - a land yet to be explored. You can make it your home only under new leadership, and by taking action which you have not tried before.

Therefore you, Joshua, and you other strong men who have learned all that Moses could teach you, go on over. You have learned by Moses’ success and by his mistakes. You have powers of your own, just coming to fullness. You have the vigor and drive of youth. With all of your fresh energy and resourcefulness and with the help of God over you, leave Moses and yesterday behind, “Arise and go over this Jordan;” and get on with the work of tomorrow.

This is the word of the Lord to each new generation, and to every generation day by day. The Joshua story is a kind of parable, illustrating a large truth in oversimplified from, as parables usually do. The transfer of leadership, for instance, is seldom as sudden or dramatic as this. It is finally inevitable, but it is usually accomplished gradually. The persons involved are not always as great as Moses or Joshua, nor can they always be compared in other ways, except that there are always those who are ending their share in a piece of work and others who are beginning theirs. The total enterprise - and all living for that matter - is a kind of relay race.

Conscientious and responsible leaders in every generation have this tendency; they want to carry progress in their enterprises to the point where the future will be secure for all time. Sometimes they think that security consists in digging in and setting up barriers against change. But always they hand on to their heirs and successors work that is incomplete, not a guaranteed security. They hand on some accumulated resources of knowledge and experience, some tested methods of procedure. The methods may, or may not, be applicable to new conditions. And a multitude of problems, some of them new and some old ones that an earlier generation had neither time nor capacity to solve, appear for the attention of each succeeding group of people.

We have received a world with such problems from the hand of those who preceded us. A generation from now, we will have handed over to our successors a world - much improved, I hope, but still beset and bedeviled with problems that are not on our agenda. Every succeeding generation, every new leader within a generation, must take over the world, the job, as it is, with all its assets and liabilities. That is the burden and responsibility, and it is the glory of the new people for every new time.

History goes on - but how? Someone in this congregation gave our children three Mexican jumping beans this summer. The whole family has been interested in the animated antics of those beans. Whenever placed in the sunshine to warm up, they began a series of aimless, spasmodic, explosive movements altogether unexpected in most vegetable specimens. Well, is history like those movements - just a series of jumpings around on the part of people who might be compared to the worm in the bean? I claim it is not. Nor does it go round and round in endless circles, getting nowhere like an amiable pup chasing his tail. History goes on and on, to something different that may be better.

A century ago our nation was convulsed over the problem of slavery. Tension over the issue mounted until it erupted in war between the states. The result of the war settled some legal aspects of the situation. Them some grievous bungling raised new problems that became a nightmare for the South and a vicious political influence for the North. The bitterness and sectionalism which resulted, and the racial issues which persisted, are still far from solution. But there has been progress, and the future holds hope.

Someone suggests that the Europe of the gay nineties, and the following decade, must have been better - Europe so lovely to visit, with its music and art, its galleries and cathedrals, its friendly villagers and happy peasants. A fellow who had bicycled over a great deal of Europe during that period, and who enjoyed its art, its culture and its scenes, said that this travel was by far the best part of his education. Then he made one rapier-like thrust at complacency when he remarked, “Happy peasants? Why do you suppose so many of them came to America, as they did by millions? Mostly because of hunger. And the underlying causes of the First World War were building up, unseen, like storm clouds so low on the horizon that an occasional flash of lightning from their thunderheads seemed only to accentuate the beauty and the peacefulness of the scene.” Europe had a tremendous accumulation of problems without being prepared to make the adaptations necessary to solve them. The backfire of progress sometimes creates new problems faster than the current generation can solve them.

But I am thankful that we have had passed on to us a faith in the possibility of progress. I am glad to live in a country that believes in progress - and not only for itself but for the world. Granted all the dangers, seen and unforeseen, we do have faith in a better world!

And I think most people are level headed about it. It is not true that we believe in the inevitability of progress. Darwin had no illusions about evolution, and he ought to have known about it. He did not wait for knowledge of evolution to evolve automatically, but toiled and drove himself like a slave to collect his facts.

A man splitting a length of log doesn’t expect it to fall apart at his wish. But he does expect the grain of the wood to respond to the blow of his axe if he is working with the grain.

History goes on and progresses as people put their intelligent effort into it. It does not go of its own accord. It requires intelligent leadership and devoted followership and well chosen objectives. And each new day requires its own leadership. It is lost if it find not those who are willing to work into their place in its endeavors.

When our forebears tamed a wilderness and built cities, planted fields and homes, and raised us, when they built churches and schools and colleges, when they founded research laboratories and symphony orchestras and libraries and art galleries, they were saying to themselves and to each other and to the world. “This country has a future! Humanity has a future!”

It was that faith that made them the men and women of strength that they were.

Some three or four months ago Aldous Huxley was quoted by the press as saying: “The thing that strikes me most about this country is its hopefulness. It is this quality that distinguished your continent from Europe, where there is hopeless depression and fear. It makes for a comfortable atmosphere and from a practical point of view, it is sound.”

Never mind, then, how many the problems, or how great. So long as there are new people, willing to take their new places in every new day there will be progress. For new problems will be met with new ideas, new methods and new enthusiasm.

Our life, however, is not like a hundred yard dash so much as it is like a relay race. Its success depends upon the runner and what he receives from the previous runner and carries forward with him. There are some things which all new people must carry forward from those who have had earlier experience. Some things must be carried across the river. It was so with Joshua. The Ten Commandments were not left behind. Not everything that is old is obsolete. There are some sound principles and some great traditions in our heritage. Those principles are now proving our strength in the present world upheaval - and the downfall of those who thought they were obsolete and ignore them!

They are our resources. But tomorrow’s task is a new one. We must be new and renewed creatures to meet it. It is tremendously worth doing and can be done. Now, therefore, arise, go over this Jordan.

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, September 19, 1943