Joshua

Joshua was one of two people recorded in the Bible as having experienced being slaves in Egypt who also was allowed to enter the Promised Land.  Caleb was the other.  When others cowered in fear over the armies they would face in the new land, they stood faith.  They were fully confident that if God was leading them, they would prevail.  He had already experienced incredible acts of God before he became Israel’s new leader, replacing Moses.  Under his leadership, Joshua watched as God parted the waters of the Jordan River during the rainy season.  Pretty amazing.  He called for people to consecrate themselves to God before attempting to take Jericho.  That consecration was circumcision for all males in Israel.  The fact that they subjected themselves to this says a little something about their commitment to God, and also says a lot about their trust in Joshua as God’s chosen leader.  As they were sharpening their swords and working on their “shouts”, Joshua was certainly full of faith.

God was with them, for sure.

Then he had a really surprising conversation with an apparent angel – the commander of God’s army, no less!  Not realizing initially that he was addressing an angel, he asked a simple question of this stranger.  Are you friend or foe?  Read it for yourself:

When Joshua was near the town of Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and demanded, “Are you friend or foe?”
“Neither one,” he replied. “I am the commander of the Lord’s army.”
At this, Joshua fell with his face to the ground in reverence. “I am at your command,” Joshua said. “What do you want your servant to do?”
The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did as he was told. (Joshua 5:13-15)

I don’t know about you, but if I were Joshua, I wouldn’t be comfortable with the angel’s reply to my question.  Up to that point, I would have been completely confident that God was with me and my people, and therefore we would have nothing to fear.  The angel’s reply, however, would change my thinking, I think, because it has now, some 3500 years later.

Historically, we human beings have always been wanting God on our side.  Why do you think people started sacrificing stuff in the first place?  They wanted to appease the gods.  If things were going well, it was a clear indication that God was not pleased with us and needed to be won over again with more signs of our commitment.  In our history, we went so far as to sacrifice our children.  In modern times, our confidence that God is with us has provided a carte blanche pass to do whatever we think we need to do – damn the consequences.  If a few people need to be killed for their apostasy, so be it.  If a lot of people need to be killed, genocide may even be necessary.  Hitler was convinced of this.  In recent years, a well known conservative pastor, convinced that God is on the side of the United States, was suggesting to whoever was listening we should nuke Iran.  Because God is with us, and not with them.  God is on our side, not theirs.

We validate our position with the Bible itself.  God called Abram to be God’s chosen, right?  God’s “with-us-ness” was with Abraham’s line all the way through the end of Genesis.  When we meet Moses in exodus, God displays his favoritism for God’s people and for God’s leaders, too with great acts of power.  Joshua went on to defeat the enemies of Israel time and again.  To this day, especially conservative Christians and Jews are certain that the Jewish people are still God’s chosen people – mess with them and you’ll eventually be toast.  Because God is with them.  Translated into personal experience, we can get to such a place of confidence that God favors us that we can assume that our dreams are God’s dreams, our likes are God’s likes, our opinions are God’s.  Our biases,prejudices, hatred, anger, etc. – all are God’s, too, because we are God’s. 

Joshua’s exchange with angel brings us to a full stop, however, because of one word: No.  Many translations use the word “neither” as above, but the literal answer to Joshua’s friend or foe question was simply “no”.  No?  What do we do with that?  The angel doesn’t qualify it, either.  I’m not on your side any more than the other side.  Commentators quickly skip over this nonsense, pointing out that God miraculously conquered Jericho in the very next scene.

But the “no” is deafening to me, and I love it.  The angel goes on to note that the ground was holy, which required a different posture. No shoes.  Humility before God. 

I think we human beings have a very natural tendency to assume that the way we see the world is the right way, the true way.  And, since our way of seeing things is right and true, I think we naturally assume that God probably sees things the same way, since God is the source of all things right and true.  For trivial matters, this doesn’t really matter.  But for things that impact the state of our planet and the health of the people who inhabit it, it matters as much as anything can matter.  In a time when it feels like political polarities are normative, I see this as very dangerous.  Our government in recent years has sunk to a new low, where it appears that honoring party lines is more important than finding a solution.  I wonder if they are a reflection of our culture, or if they are influencing our culture to buy into their partisan ways.  We all suffer when we choose to cling to our polarized position.

I get concerned over current international affairs.  When we believe that we, the United States, are right and true, it is difficult to entertain dialogue with those who strongly oppose us.  When we urge other countries to give just one percent of GDP to combat extreme poverty, we don’t back it up with our own sacrifice, and neither do they.  People die because of our indifference, because we assume we are right, and that God is on our side.

I wonder if what God was trying to communicate to Joshua that day with his surprisingly negative response was simply that God has a much higher, more noble, and infinitely more beautiful agenda than our puny, short-sighted, usually self-indulgent dreams.  It’s not that God was reneging on God’s desire to broadcast God’s hope and grace through one particular country.  I think the angel was simply wanting to remind Joshua of a truth that was being talked about when Joshua went to press.  A truth that the prophet Isaiah penned (Is. 55:8-9):

My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.  For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

If this great insight is true – and I think it is – it requires something different of me.  It requires that I – we – take on a different posture toward God.  And life.  It requires a barefoot approach toward both.  Vulnerable. Humble.  Choosing to not be arrogant.  Intentionally wondering how limited our view might be.  Recognizing that we are inherently arrogant, which leads us to a great many mistakes.


As we who claim to follow Jesus find ourselves facing very complex problems that we can address, may we have the wherewithal to follow the advice of another prophet who would remind us to pursue justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God through the holy ground we tread.