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Today’s lesson scripture finds us once again with Moses on the brink of Israel’s crossing the Jordan.  This time it’s after the all the generation that refused at first to cross over have died (except Joshua and Caleb).  And . . . once again . . . there are those who don’t want to cross the Jordan.  The tribes of Reuben and Gad don’t say it’s because they’re afraid, but they ask to be given land for their cattle on the near side of the river.  Moses responds:

6 But Moses said to the Gadites and to the Reubenites, “Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?
7 Why will you discourage the hearts of the Israelites from going over into the land that the Lord has given them?
8 Your fathers did this, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land.
9 When they went up to the Wadi Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the hearts of the Israelites from going into the land that the Lord had given them.
10 The Lord’s anger was kindled on that day and he swore, saying,
11 ’Surely none of the people who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not unreservedly followed me—
12 none except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they have unreservedly followed the Lord.’
13 And the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord had disappeared. Num 32:6-13 (NRSV)

Moses thought that the people of Gad and Reuben were repeating the same mistake that the people had made a generation earlier: refusing to cross over the river into Canaan for fear of failure . . . for lack of faith in God’s plan.  In the verses following today’s scripture, the tribes of Reuben and Gad come back to Moses and submit that they don’t wish to discourage the others, they simply desire the lush pasture lands to the east of the Jordan for their cattle.  They propose, and Moses accepts, that they be allowed to leave their families and livestock east of the Jordan – that they be given this land as their inheritance – and that their men march in the vanguard with Israel as the conquest of Jordan moves forward.

Often times we look at this chapter and the preceeding chapters (and those that follow) as a story of conquest in the name of God with which we are uncomfortable in today’s society.  Of course, it wasn’t too many years ago that the concept of “Manifest Destiny” would have made these verses seem much closer to the heart’s desire of Christians.  But both could very well be wrong: the 19th century Christians for believing that the Bible was justifying the conquest (and extermination) of a people already in possession of the land) and the 21st century Christians for ignoring if not outright rejecting these passages.  The early church fathers considered the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God.  Christ preached from and said he came to fulfill these scriptures.  The work of the Church – of all Christians – is to discern with the help of the Spirit and each other – what God’s Word has to say to us.

As the title of today’s lesson implies, the point is not about conquest – it’s about following the will of God without reserve.  What do you hold in reserve when you promise to follow God?  When you pray, “thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”, do you mean to really pray, “thy will be done – with the following exceptions as noted in Appendix A annexed hereto – on Earth as it is in Heaven – with the proviso, that we’re still not exactly sure how your will is exercised in Heaven, and so we reserve the right to revoke this prayer for non-conforming expectations and for breach of implied warranties of blessings and happiness”.

Before we criticize the people of Israel for failing to follow the Lord we need to look carefully in the mirror and see how easy it is for us to abandon our reserve.