2/16/20 “I Don’t Believe He Brought Me This Far To Leave Me” by Nancy E. Petty

Scripture: Deuteronomy 30:15-20

The Shadow. That was what my teammates called me all four years of my high school basketball career. They designated me “the shadow” because I was the only Caucasian on my basketball team for three of those four years. Those four years were some of the best years of my life. For one, from the time I could bounce a ball I ate and slept and breathed basketball. I loved the game then and I love the game now. But beyond my love of the game, the friendships I made with my teammates were some of the best friends I had in high school. Here was our after school ritual. The school day ended around 2:45. Basketball practice wasn’t until 4:00 because the boy’s basketball team got priority and they practiced right after school. In the hour we had before practice my teammates and I would often load up in our cars and head to my home where we would cook and eat dozen of eggs and anything else we could find in the refrigerator. Then we would head back to the gym just in time for practice. It was those car rides and sitting around my parent’s kitchen table eating eggs with my teammates and in the locker room that I learned the politics of ashy skin and black hair, and the role of African-American spirituals in pre-game preparation.

Before every game, the last thing we would do before taking the court was to sing a spiritual that my teammates taught me my first season playing high school basketball. The refrain went something like this: “I don’t believe he brought me this far…I don’t believe he brought this far…I don’t believe he brought me this far to leave me.” That song has been a north star for me throughout my life. When life gets too much, when faced with worries, when life seems more cursed than blessed, when evil outweighs good in this world I will find myself, almost unconsciously, singing this song. In the black church tradition, this song served as a reminder of a past that had been survived, of the present being lived, and of a promise for the future. It was our pre-game rallying cry.

Although it comes toward the end of the book, Deuteronomy 30, specifically verses 15-20, is Moses’ pre-game song. The chapter in its entirety is a reminder of the past that the people had survived, of the present they are living in, and of the promise for the future in which God is faithful to God’s covenant with all of humanity for generations to come…if only. But before I get into that if only, I want to name several theological concerns I have with the way some have interpreted and preached this text from Deuteronomy 30, especially in the Christian tradition.

Deuteronomy 30 is not a discourse setting up a prosperity faith or a prosperity gospel based on financial wealth. The prosperity that Moses preached is not one that equates God’s blessing with financial security. Quite the opposite. The prosperity that Moses speaks of is a prosperity of equality for all people. It is the prosperity of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all, the prosperity of a living wage for all, the prosperity of healthcare for all, the prosperity of food security and housing security and quality education for everyone. This is the prosperity of the prophets. It is a prosperity of community, of liberation, and kingdom living for all here on this earth. It is NOT a prosperity of privilege and financial wealth

My other theological concern focuses on the if/then framework of how the prophets spoke of God’s covenant. Again, the prophets understanding of the covenant language is not the same as how theologians and preachers have used it throughout history to control their subjects—me and you. It is not, if you pray hard enough, then God will heal your cancer. It’s not, if you live a good and moral life, then nothing bad will ever happen to you. It’s not, if you are the best and most qualified candidate to become the president of the United States, then you will win. And it is certainly not, if you claim to be a Christian, then you are. No, the if/then framework that the prophets spoke of is about one thing: if you love God with all you heart, mind, soul and strength, then your struggle for justice and liberation will be your peace; if you love God with all that you are and your neighbor as yourself, then justice will flow down on this earth like an ever-flowing stream; if you love God will all you heart, mind, soul and strength, then nothing in all of creation—neither hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword—can separate you from God’s love for you. (Softly singing…I don’t believe he brought me this far…)

While it might seem from a cursory reading that Deuteronomy 30 is about a choice between life and death, between being blessed or cursed, between evil and good, a more careful and deeper reading will unveil, and here’s the twist, that what Moses is really talking about is idolatry. “The Israelites are perched at the edge of the Promised Land listening to Moses, who has been delivering speeches for what amounts to thirty chapters. Throughout the book of Deuteronomy, he has reiterated the stipulations of the law, peppering it with frequent reminders that when they enter the land, the Israelites must not worship any other gods—something they had been susceptible to in the past. Remember that whole golden calf thing? These six verses [that Mark read earlier] provide the rousing rhetorical climax to all thirty chapters of [Moses’] talking [and preaching].” Service to God yields life, and service to other gods yields death. Service to love yields life, and service to money yields death. Service to justice yields life, and service to personal gain yields death. Service to the heart yields life, and service to the ego yields death. Moses is reminding the people and us today that the choice to serve money, personal gain and the ego is to choose death. The choice to serve love and justice and the leanings of an open heart–compassion, kindness, grace, humility, forgiveness—is to choose life. If we serve the idol of wealth instead of God’s love, the poor suffer and we suffer. If we serve the idol of consumption instead of God’s graciousness, the environment suffers and we suffer. If we serve the idol of fear instead of trusting in God’s generosity, both we and our neighbors suffer. The choice is whether we serve God, Allah, Eloheim, Love—or whether we choose to worship at the altar of our egos, our wealth, our privilege, our power, our accomplishments, our security, our institutions, and our nationalism. The choice is clear: serve God and have life, serve the ego and live lifeless.

In our nation and in our world, right now, we are in a mighty struggle as to whether we will serve Love/God and live as a people; or serve our egos, our fears, our insecurities and die as a people. And Moses is singing to us his pre-game song.

As one young theologian in this church writes of Moses’ sermon: I hear Moses call: don’t give up. Fight on! Keep hope alive. I hear the call of the indigenous mothers and elders asking us to remember seven generations back and seven generations forward. We have to fight for life now, and fight like hell and death are on our heels (because they surely are) or our great great great great great grandchildren won’t have a fighting chance at life. Moses is saying WAKE UP! This has never been about any one of us. It’s been about all of our collective futures. And no river, giant, kings or their armies will stand in our way.

That old black spiritual that my teammates taught me says it this way:

There will be mountains
That we will have to climb
And there will be battles
That we will have to fight
But victory or defeat
It’s up to us to decide
But how can we expect to win
If we never try

We just can’t give up now
We’ve come too far from where
we started from
Nobody told us
The road would be easy
And we don’t believe He’s brought us this far
To leave us

Never said there wouldn’t be trials
Never said we wouldn’t fall
Never said that everything would go
The way we want it to go
But when our back is against the wall
And we feel all hope is gone
We’ll just lift our head up to the sky
And say help us to be strong, oh

We just can’t give up now
We’ve come too far from where
We started from
Nobody told us
The road would be easy
And we don’t believe He’s brought us this far
To leave us

Oh, we know You didn’t bring us
Out here to leave us lonely, oh no
Even when we can’t see clearly
We know that You are with us so we can’t

We just can’t give up now
We’ve come too far from where
we started from
Nobody told is
The road would be easy
And we don’t believe He’s brought us this far
To leave us

The days draw on as our nation falls further into disarray—into the pit of an ego driven nationalism. The days draw on as the institutional church and those (and us) who call themselves Christian trends in the direction of serving the ego rather than serving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbors. The drum beats. Can you feel the beating in your heart? Nobody told us the road would be easy. But we can’t give up now, we’ve come too far.

I don’t believe he brought us this far…to leave us!