It was the beginning of the story of a long journey, a journey where the Lord would bring the people of Israel into the land of the Canaanites. God always leads people to particular places for important ministry. This was a journey into a promise of many generations, a promise that was a long time in comin= g. It was 40 years from Egypt, and more years than that when Abraham had left Haran and sojourned in the land of Palestine before the Hebrews had become slaves in Egypt.

God chose Moses and Aaron to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt, on a great adventure of freedom and finding a new way to live and serve God. It was a journey that would form the Hebrews into a cohesive and meaningful communit= y. They were to become a blessing to the nations of the world, one day bringing the nations into peaceful community. The entire biblical drama, from Genesi= s to Revelation is about this journey, a portion of which has now been placed in= our hands under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The journey of the Hebrew people could have been one of 40 days, but it didn’t happen that way. It took forty years for the community to be formed, and meaning to be discovered in their relationship with God. You se= e, living is in the process. Meaning is in the journey, not the destination. T= he Hebrews could not skip from Egypt to Canaan in forty days and have any idea= at all about who they were!

In our fast paced culture, we believe that intelligence, cleverness, technology and lure of financial reward will get us any place we want to go in a great hurry; bypass the journey and get right to the destination! The journey is = an annoyance! The truth is we never become anything in the process.=

When God sent his son to journey with us upon the face of the earth, the prepara= tion for the journey was intentional and carried out with great care and purpose over many generations. In fact, the journey of the Hebrews was part of the preparation for the journey of the Son of Man. And then at one point there = was this brash and noisy appearance of John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, preparing the people through repentance of sin. There was Jesus’ bapt= ism and his anointing with the Holy Spirit, affirming his call in a public appe= arance.

Then Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days, sifting through the options for= his own journey and ministry. Important decisions were made in relationship to = his early religious and theological training and deep and abiding relationship = in the Father. He never skipped any part of the journey. With great patience, prayer, and obedience to the Father, he paced himself through the journey.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He could have speeded it up. He co= uld have changed stones into bread and fed the hungry of the world. He could ha= ve taken the power of all the nations of the world. He could have been the ultimate miracle worker like the cheap imitation television evangelists, and could have saved every human being from hurt. Or could he? That’s a t= opic for some lively discussion some day! But he knew that life is journey; that coming to terms with life is a life-long process; and to skip any part of it would be to miss the growth, the adventure, the wisdom, the redemption and healing that the journey offers.

So how do we keep the story of alive to inspire and inform our own part of the journey? The Hebrews had this= great insight that Holy Conversation kept the story alive and allowed the people = of God to discover what the journey was in their place and time. You live the story and the new generation asks, “What does this mean? Why do we do these things?” Then we tell the story; we have conversation with the story in the presence of each other and conscious of the presence of God. A= nd in sacred conversation we find our story for our own place and time. Obviou= sly the Hebrews couldn’t take the story and burn it on a CD, or even put = it in a book. But there is always and still the medium of conversation; asking questions; exploring ideas. It is still the best way to keep the story alive and to find our place in the story!

Our conversations next week will be sacred because they are about our understan= ding of who we are as a faith community in this particular place. Who are we? Wh= at is God calling us to do in this place at this time? Who is our neighbor to whom we are= to be blessing? What does our faith mean, living in a global community, touching = the lives of so many people with different faith traditions?<= /p>

So we invite you to join us in important structured conversations next Sunday. Conversation with shape and purpose, but allowing for spontaneity and creat= ive thought. Hopefully there will= be enough spaces and times of reflection to allow the hand of God to reach into our lives and change us. We will have conversations because strategic plans= on paper do not change people, the sharing of ideas and convictions change peo= ple and congregations and set them off in new directions. You can see all the graphs possible about trends in a congregation. They mean nothing at all un= less we have a conversation about them. Conversation makes the difference.<= /o:p>

We want these conversations to be positive. We want to be able to identify the strengths inherent in the life of this congregation. We want to experience = the gifts that people can bring to our life together. We want to explore the opportunities that are ours because of who we are, where we are, and what

God is calling us to become. How can we seize the opportunities that are unique= ly ours and grow into them? Leave your complaints and impossible issues at hom= e!

But do consider the past, and say, “Yes, God, you have restored and prote= cted this people of faith through all kinds of hurt and unhappy things. You have= led this people through experiences of joy. You have often made a way in the wilderness. You have not abandoned this people nor left them to their own devices. They have traveled together as a people, as on a winding road, thr= ough many things. With joy and hope they have welcomed other travelers to share = life and the journey. They have learned from each other. They know that life is a series of hellos and goodbyes. They have said goodbye to many and welcomed those who have newly arrived. There are those who have moved ahead of them = in death. But in all of this they have celebrated your goodness. We affirm your Spirit’s presence in this new journey, and we know we= are heading home!