The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for July 30, 2006

Texts: Exodus 16:2-15/Matthew 20:1-16

Title: “Boot Camp”

              The swearing in was a proud moment.  It is not everyday that a person raises his right hand, vowing to serve his country.  I stood in the Minneapolis courthouse with a room full of other inductees on that April day in 1968 little appreciating the significance of the step I was taking.

              The induction ceremony complete, we were treated to a catered lunch in a nearby hotel.  No longer civilians, yet not really military either, we ate the lunch and passed the afternoon occupying ourselves with conversation back and forth, a book, or a nap,  awaiting the trip to the airport and the flight to our training station, Fort Campbell, Kentucky.  My only memory of the flight was flying over the Gateway Arch in St. Louis; the rest of the experience is permanently lost in the haze these passing years have produced.  What are, however, very retrievable for me over the last thirty-eight years intervening years are the events that occupied the first twenty-four hours of military life.

              The plane was coasting to a stop when a sign, “Welcome to the U.S. Army” came into view.  Until that point I don’t really think I realized the magnitude of the step I had made.  In the next minute that realization met me square in the face in the person of a six foot four drill instructor, starched, pressed, and breathing fire.

              His welcome to the U.S. Army bore little resemblance to the welcome extended to us at the induction center.  After fifteen minutes of his uninterrupted harangue, neither me, nor any of the other unfortunates who stood before him maintained any fantasies about what we might expect during the next ten weeks of our lives.  That initial experience of Army life resembled in many ways the military movies I had seen growing up, only this time it was real life.  I can tell you, I much preferred the movie version.

              Boot camp is what they call it.  Going in I didn’t understand the significance of the boot part. The boot, I came to understand, referred to the boot that connected with the trainee’s backside any time he offended Army protocol by moving too slowly, marching out of step, or allowing a crease to break the contours of his bunk covering.

              For many of us who experienced it boot camp conjures up memories of a life turned upside down, and given a good shake.  Those who write about life in Washington’s Continental Army describe the boot camp experience as being little different than what I experienced in sixty-eight.        

              Times have changed, but the single objective of the boot camp experience really hasn’t changed. The objective is to turn the uninitiated boy into a man capable of bearing arms in the nation’s defense.  Now that objective is not always met, but I can tell you the good people in boot camp give it their best effort.

              Boot camp is tough, and it’s meant to be.  Persons are deconstructed through physical and mental challenges so that he, or she, might be reconstructed into a person capable of withstanding the stress and strains of unexpected situations. Discipline is the watchword.

              Boot camp is the extreme example, but generally speaking discipline is for most of us something to be endured rather than embraced.  We would like to build muscle, play a musical instrument, write a short story, yet very often we are reluctant to commit the necessary effort to achieve those goals.  We could fill several gymnasiums with equipment collecting dust in the attics or basements of persons who, with every good intention, set out to get in shape but lacked the necessary discipline to see the task through.

            We’re all human, we’ve all surrendered before some challenge that loomed too large for us to handle.  The popularity of personal trainers, dieting, and other self-help clubs, bears witness to the fact that personal discipline is difficult to maintain.  In fact, there are thousands of people who now voluntarily subject themselves to boot camp like experiences in order to achieve personal goals.

              Though the boot camp experience is demanding, there is definitely and upside to enduring one.  Those of us who submitted to ten weeks of boot camp in Kentucky during spring and summer of 1968 emerged from that experience different people than those who entered the experience.  We were not merely more physically fit, we were more personally aware of our strengths and weaknesses, more confident in our overall approach to life.

              I have used military boot camp as my point of reference, but boot camp presents itself in many forms.  I think of the experience one member of our congregation endured as cancer made a series of grueling demands on her and her spouse.  Chemotherapy, radiation, and the interminable waiting that are involved in the cancer treatment regime, make for a rigorous boot camp. A rebellious child who persists in self-destructive behaviors can subject the parent to a stressful boot camp.  For still others boot camp is the daily struggle to overcome depression. Some days you throw up your hands and say, “enough, I want this to be over.”  Though important life lessons are undoubtedly learned in the rigors of boot camp, the price for such experience is many times more than we are willing to pay. 

              Israel had many lessons to learn as she made her way out of Egypt, only the nation failed to appreciate how costly the learning would prove to be.  Forced to endure unrelenting oppression under the Egyptian pharaoh, the door to freedom at last swung open. Yet no sooner had it opened than Israel faced her first test.  Pharaoh, you see, had second thoughts about his decision to permit Israel to leave.  He dispatched his army and chariots to intercept Israel in flight.  The plan, of course, was thwarted in that well-known episode at the Red Sea.

              A spike in Israel’s confidence it must have been to watch the mighty Egyptian army engulfed by the waters of the Red Sea.  Yet shortly after that episode Israel found herself up against it again.  The grumbling all began over water. An angry delegation was sent to Moses demanding that he intervene.  Didn’t he understand that the people were perishing, that they couldn’t subsist without water?  The water problem solved, soon the issue of food asserted itself.  The people were hungry, man, were they hungry.  In their desperation the people implored Moses for help, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

              Boot camp.  The people were up against it, and they complained. It is a harsh discipline, a life and death discipline, to live without the basic necessities of life.  Pray God that none of us will ever be challenged with such a discipline.  Yet our lesson characterizes Israel’s cry for help---who wouldn’t cry for help?---as an offense against God.  Boot camp, indeed.

              What an extraordinary discipline it would have taken to endure without complaint what Israel was forced to endure.  What an extraordinary act of faith to see some purpose hidden in those trials.  Yet is it not through the trials of life, the boot camp experiences, that we acquire the discipline and faith to place our lives in God’s hands?  The travails of Israel may certainly be an extreme example, but in the experience of many of us there is to be found an event or events that sent the tap roots of faith out in all directions searching for nourishment.  Israel’s trials came by way of a physical test.

              It would give me great pleasure to say that Israel emerged from her trials in Sinai a stronger, more faithful, nation that the tap roots of faith she sent our found their way to a deep reservoir from which she might draw.  The lesson, however, gives me no grounds for saying that.  Instead, God in his compassion gave food to the people, not to reward their steadfast faith, but to demonstrate his abounding mercy.

              It was boot camp and the complaints of the people rose to the ear of the Lord.  What lessons, would Israel take from this experience?  Was their faith in God strengthened?  No, it was not the faith of Israel, but the mercy of God that is most observable in our lesson, the mercy of God providing a foundation upon which faith could be built.  God stood with Israel through all her trails.

              Boot camp experiences, though demanding, also reward us. While I, and the other recruits, left boot camp a much stronger, more mature and resourceful group than the one that entered, it was the people I met in the experience that left the most lasting impression.  First sergeant Green, newly arrived at Fort Campbell from Viet Nam, was to my mind a poster-worthy model soldier.  Dedicated to making us “all that we could be,” the sergeant was strict, often, at least to our minds, unreasonable, and, yes, profane.  He was a taskmaster, but under his stern eye our company set records as the best training company in the battalion.  Sgt. Green led by example.

              Moses was the commanding figure in Israel’s boot camp.  He was the person to whom that whole company of Israelites looked for direction and support.  A strict and imposing figure, Moses was the messenger upon whom God called when anything important needed to be done.  Moses was God’s right hand.  He stood tall.  He was dependable.  He wouldn’t let you down.  When you are up against it in life you want to have a Moses, a sergeant Green, on your side.

              “Moses, we’re dying of hunger out here.  Do something.”  What a burden to find food for thousands.  Moses, with a big boost from God, came through.  The quails were the first course.  The second course? The ground was covered with a blanket of white stuff.  “What is it?” they cried.  “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.” Moses responded.

              The Sinai boot camp would be an experience spanning forty years.  But in that time God never failed to make provision for his people.  “What is this?” the people exclaimed.  The people were clueless.  They turned to Moses for the answer.  “It is the bread that the Lord has given you.”  God sent Moses to brace his people.

              “What is it?”  “How will I endure this?”  “Where will I turn?”  Life doesn’t yield ready answers to those questions.  There are even times in life when we may feel that the answers to those questions have been deliberately withheld.  Then the truth of a saying one of my seminary professors shared with us is demonstrated, “Life under God is strenuous, yes, but life under God is not grim.”

              Boot camp and boot camp discipline.  There is a boot camp experience in the background of each one of us. Some of us have faced greater challenges than others.  Oh yes, life is strenuous.  We know strenuous, don’t we?  We have experienced the grief of loss, illness, and the uncertainty spawned by the storm. But life is not grim. We have each other.  We have mentors and guides like Moses.  We have the faith.  We have the resurrected Jesus to walk with us, and to pray with us.  We ARE in good hands.

              As they looked out at the blanket of white the people wanted to know, “what is this?”  “It is the bread that the Lord has given you,” Moses declared.  This would not be the last time that the people struggled under God’s discipline, but through it all, God was near.  Yes, life is strenuous.  But remember this; the God we worship is strenuous too. His hand is capable of reaching into any extremity we shall face in living.  This current setback we have experienced will pass, God opening new doors, ever feeding us with the manna of his grace.   AMEN.     

PRAYER

                 Source of all goodness and light, God of gods, it was upon you that Israel relied during her desert trials.  Liberating her from Egypt you led her on a difficult journey into the Promised Land. When her confidence wavered and her faith in you crumbled on that difficult passage, you did not reject her but you fed her, and announced to her through Moses that you would go with her wherever she went.  Even as we face our own struggles in life you offer us that same assurance. 

              O God, we see so little of what there is to see.  Events occur that shake us, discourage and dismay us.  We are captive to fears and hasty to conclude that we have been forgotten, abandoned.  It is called the human condition, and our humanity is often exposed.  There are times when we feel stymied, empty, at a loss for direction.  There are times when our field of vision is so narrow that we see only obstacles rather than opportunity.  O God, adversity is a cruel opponent, and in these last several months we have experienced it cruelty with special force.  Even as you counsel us to trust you, O God, the fragility of our faith is exposed time and time again.  You gave our forbears manna in the wilderness to fortify them, as so you fortify us with the manna of your word, and the fellowship we enjoy as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ.

              Our focus is directed to the day to day responsibilities that come with living, the immediate challenges that must be addressed, but the world continues to press in upon us. And so today we witness the anguish of our friends in the Middle East who are exposed to violence, destruction and death. In your mercy, O God, hear the cries of the innocent, the pleadings of the distraught, the cries of the anguished. Each day brings new reports of violence, the body count of the injured and the dead steadily rising. Hope has been displaced by despair.  Raise up leaders who are willing to risk negotiation, women and men of peace willing to voice their dissent with the prevailing ideologies.

              Holy Spirit, ever seeking access to the human heart, we would be accessible, we would be open to your intercessions and guidance.  Mold us into vessels of your delight, people through whom your light may brilliantly shine. 

              In thanksgiving we recognize one who has lent his special gifts to our faith community for an entire decade.  We thank you for Leonard and his long-standing commitment to our church.  A partner in ministry, but also our friend, his departure saddens us, but confident that distance will not sever the ties that have been established, we bid him farewell and Godspeed. May your favor rest upon him as he accepts new challenges and pursues new opportunities.

              O God, you have been faithful to this church for many, many years, may we respond to that gift by living faithfully.  Charged to use the gifts we have been given responsibly, help us to fulfill that calling.  Where we are slack or withhold there challenge us to new levels of commitment.  Where we come to you exhausted by the exertions we have made brace and refresh us.

              O God, giver of every good gift, author of hope, pronounce a special blessing on all who worship here today, that all may leave this place renewed for the challenges and opportunities awaiting us in the coming week.  These things we pray in the name of Jesus, using the prayer he taught us.