Back Forty

Deuteronomy 8:2-10 (NRSV). 2 Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.[a] 4 The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. 10 You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.

+++ +++ +++

In Matthew’s account of Jesus in the wilderness after his baptism, being tempted by Satan, he is famished and the devil points out that as the Son of God he can turn stones to bread simply by the Word. Deuteronomy 8:3 above is Matthew’s source of Jesus’ retort “It is written,” which begins Jesus’ life of reliance on scripture. Other than his brief exchange with John the Baptist at the river (Matthew 3:15) this is effectively and significantly, to us from Matthew, the first thing Jesus says: “It is written.”

From my second silent retreat, Deuteronomy 8:2-10 was my spiritual director’s parting shot at me as something to hold on to throughout the rest of my +Time. Episcopalians do not claim a “life’s verse” as do many protestant, evangelical and pentecostal Christians, but this may be a good one for me anyway. Looking inside, I divide my life into forty-year segments, each half completely different, with the second forty being wilderness time in every imaginable and unimaginable way, including flowers in the desert. And as I’ve been told both inwardly by the Sound of Sheer Silence and outwardly by two very different spiritual directors, it’s time to slow down and give thanks by relaxing and enjoying.

BTW, I have started noticing that, more and more, in any gathering, I’m the oldest. Not senior, not wiser, oldest.

TW+