“Are we there yet?” “Well, is the car still moving?” “Yes.” “Well, then we’re not there yet.” “Well, I just don’t know how I’m ever going to make it!” the 5 year old says in exasperation.   His parents up front try not to laugh at the siblings in the backseat, and then change the subject or hand back another game or snack. We’ve all asked it, you know you have. I even heard adults ask it on the 12 hour drive for the Mission Trip. I’ve asked it on 15 hour flights, during final exams in graduate school, and in the middle of a long run with friends in better shape than I am. 

“Are we there yet?” It’s what I call the universal whine. When we’re traveling, it’s the whine that exudes from our mouths when we feel trapped by seatbelts, boredom, and bottom fatigue. We’d rather be anywhere than where we are. Outside the car, it’s the whine our hearts might feel when we’re overloaded, out of breath, and overwhelmed. We don’t like being stuck where we are…Have you ever wanted to ask God, “Are we there yet?” 

The Israelites sure did. “Are we there yet?” is exactly what the Israelites asked Moses wandering in the wilderness before they reached the Promised Land. The Israelites became impatient with God, rebellious against Moses; they were tired of eating only manna and tired of feeling lost, helpless, and hungry for something better. They just didn’t know how they were ever going to make it, and they wished they could be any place than where they were. Then, we’re rather taken aback by God’s response of sending snakes among the people that bit them and caused death. It’s a pretty harsh response for just some grumbling, isn’t it? But was it more than the grumbling that got folks into trouble? 

After all, God provided for the Israelites, manna, a bready substance that was just enough food and sustenance for each day. They were going to be ok; they were going to get to where they were going; yet, they complained, became impatient, and instead of turning to God, they cry to Moses, “Moses, do something about this!” 

Isn’t that what got humanity in trouble in the first place? Remember the garden? God had provided a way, but Adam and Eve thought they wanted something more; they thought they had a better way. They took the fruit they were forbidden to eat, and ate it, and thus alienated themselves from God. The Israelites refused the food they were granted, they took matters into their own hands, and alienated themselves from God. For that is the very essence of sin, a human striving for perfection and power outside of God, that which alienates us from God, that which allows our souls to fail, to look inward upon themselves instead of outward toward God and God’s ways.   

But Moses once again prayed for the people. God once again listened, and showed mercy.   Paradoxically, God used the snakes, the very thing meant as divine judgment, to show divine mercy. Anyone who was bitten by a snake as judgment against their rebellion, could choose to look upon the bronze serpent and live. If the Israelites choose to look in the face the very thing that was killing them, they will have life. Despite the failing of the Israelites, once again, God restores, God redeems, God offers healing and life, if only the Israelites choose to act according to God’s ways, not theirs.

Baseball season is upon us; I’m so excited. I’ve been enjoying a novel by David James Duncan entitled, The Brothers K. “K” as in the letter K. K as in the symbol of a strikeout, a failure for a batter in the great game of baseball. K is also the initial of both names of Kade Kincannon, from whose childhood perspective the novel is written. Kade’s story tells of growing up with baseball, with a small town church community, and with his family, who is, frankly, a mess; some might even call his family a failure. At one point in the novel, Kade defines K for the readers: “to strike out, to fail, to fizzle; or to fall short, fall apart, fall by the wayside, or on deaf ears, or hard times; to come unglued, come to grief, come to blows, come to nothing.”[1] K. Strikeout. Failure. Which is exactly how Kade might describe his father at one point.

Kade’s father was also a lover of baseball, was once a pitcher, and once loved his wife and family. Then a mill working accident wrecked his thumb, wrecked his pitching career, wrecked his spirit, and was beginning to undo his family. Kade gets so tired of seeing his Dad wish he were anywhere but where he was…not present with his family, not happy with life’s twists and turns, not happy with himself—a failure. Kade even as a young boy, boldly gets in his Dad’s face about it all.   He enrages his father, and his father’s response: to hit Kade, hard. 

In a moment of wild apology, of utter gut wrenching shame for what he realizes he just did to his son: “Kade, I’m so sorry! But what is it with you, what do expect of me? I’m a mill worker, Kade. Mill workers are the people who can’t be who they wanted. Do you understand that?... Tell me what you and your brothers think I should be doing different, and if it’s in my power, if it’s possible at all, I swear I’ll try to do it.” 

Kade pauses for a moment fearing that he’ll sob, or choke if he speaks. Then the words well up inside him: “I know you hate the mill, Papa. I know you love baseball, and aren’t doing what you want… All I want is for you to fight, Papa. To fight to stay alive inside! No matter what.”[2]

Kade’s Dad felt he had failed, fallen short, and fizzled out, and the honesty of a young child makes him stare his life’s reality in the face. Ultimately, that becomes the beginning of his father’s redemption.

I wonder if that’s what God hoped of the Israelites? The Israelites knew, God was providing and leading; yet, their human desires to be in control were taking away their true life in God. Would they continue to be the people who can’t be who or where they wanted? Or would they turn and remind themselves that they are God’s people? Would they fight to stay connected to God in spite of their human-ness? In this season of Lent, this season of repentance, reflection, and confession, we’re especially reminded that we’re just so human. We fail; we strikeout; we fall short. We get up, we try again, we fall again. Our spirits fail, our bodies fail, we fail each other. We strive for perfection and power outside of God, just as Adam and Eve did, and we fail…but will we fight to stay alive inside, no matter what?   

Anyone been to the grocery store lately? I’ve gotten to the point where I want to avoid magazine aisles at the grocery store, mainly because I get so tired of them telling me I’m a failure and this is how I fix myself. The magazines alluringly scream at you, 10 Tips on how to have the perfect body, the perfect guy, the perfect marriage; or, the perfect child, kitchen, or car; how to have the perfect retirement account, the perfect Prom dress, the perfect health. 10 Tips to tell ourselves, “God, this life is mine, this body is mine, and this is how I make it perfect.” Yet, we fail; we strikeout; we fall short. 

We’re just so human. Our bodies fail us. They grow old, they grow tired, they become sick. People we love and trust fail us. Sometimes intentionally so, sometimes not, but they fail us. Our best laid plans for the future fail us. Jobs fall through, dreams fall through; our hearts grow heavy, our spirits grow tired, and we can’t help but cry out, “Are we there yet, God? I just don’t know how I’m ever going to make it!” 

We were dead, we were mired in the muddiness that is the very essence of our humanity, we were alienated from God by sin, we were strikeouts, “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which God loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.”[3] It is by amazing grace that we have been saved from our human failure. It is by grace that our lives can be turned from looking inward at our selves and rather can be steered toward loving God and loving others. “It is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”[4] Our lives here on earth are not the essence of our true life. It is in the life of Christ that we live and move and have our being. Christ reminds us, “In me, you are a new creation. You will fail, but in me, you are not a failure.” 

The Residents were meeting in our Youth Center Chapel for our Pastoral Seminar this week…we’re studying spiritual disciplines…and as we talked about discipline, my mind wandered. Go figure. But my eyes kept focusing on a picture on the wall of these hands [reference printed cards with copy of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam”]. It’s a magnified print of a scene from the Sistine Chapel ceiling where Michelangelo portrays the strong, intentional hand of God reaching to the limp, languid hand of Adam. Adam is physically alive, but God is about to touch Adam with what makes human beings truly alive: the spirit, the soul, the intellect.[5] Just as when God became incarnate in Christ, God’s hand once again reaches out toward our muddy, tired, and failing humanity, and gives us life, even as we nail that hand to a cross. 

Thanks be to God, that even more so than a serpent on a stick, when we were dead through our trespasses, our failings, God made us alive together with Christ. Christ calls to us during this season of Lent; Christ reaches out and within us and redeems our fallen humanity. Christ gives us life above and beyond our own failings of mind, body, and spirit…both those failings that we control and repent of and those failings we have no control over and must find life in spite of. It is up to us to open our hearts to receive such a gift.

Look at these hands, and imagine. Imagine the hand of Christ reaching toward your limp, languid, hands, reaching to give you life that is not your creation or doing. As a Lenten reflection by Henri Nouwen reminded me in this season, remember that Jesus calls us out of our human voices of despair; “Jesus comes to open our ears to another voice that says, ‘I am your God, I have molded you with my own hands; I [know your thoughts, I know your actions, and I] love what I have made… Come back to me, not once, not twice, but always again. You are my child. How can you ever doubt that I will embrace you again, hold you again, I am your God—the God of mercy and compassion…Let my love give you life and may you see clearly in the light of my mercy.’ This is the voice Jesus wants us to hear. Not the voice of failure, but the voice that calls us always to return to the one who has created us in love and wants to recreate us in mercy.” [6] Thanks be to God for such a rich gift, of life. Amen.