Joshua 24:25-33 | November 13, 2023

Context

This passage comes at the very end of the book of Joshua. This book serves as the intermediate section of the story of the people of God leaving slavery and entering into the promise land. Joshua is a book largely about conquest and military moves to claim land promised by God. Admittedly there are some pretty horrific things that take place over the course of twenty-four chapters. We shouldn't ignore that genocide was apparently an accepted tactic in war during this period. This serves as a good opportunity to remember that just because the Bible describes a thing - even a thing done by its heroes - it doesn't necessarily condone those actions. We should remember that often history is simply a recounting and not a recommendation. And such is the book of Joshua. A lot of things happen in this book, but as it comes to the end Joshua becomes philosophical and starts looking at legacy; what it would take for his people to continue on and not be consumed by all that is around them.

Who Are We?

The last couple of chapters of the book are focused on what comes next for the People of Israel. They've conquered the land and evenly divided it among the twelve tribes. What comes next? For Joshua the answer to that question comes in the form of another question - who are the People of Israel? From this comes some pretty famous statements by Joshua. The most famous and seen on just about every possible item at Hobby Lobby comes just ten verses before our passage in 24:15:

"But as for me and my family [house], we will serve the Lord."

Joshua is concerned that the People of Israel will be swayed by the culture around them and has made the declaration that choosing to follow the Lord is the only way to get it right. This concern has been part of the whole book, it's largely the reason for the previously mentioned genocides. It's easier to not get caught up by another culture if you eliminate it entirely. As the book moves on cultures are left mostly in tact and the Israelites need to learn to live as the People of God within these diverse cultures. This leads to Joshua's proclamation about his family. Having the decisiveness to choose and the fortitude to maintain a framework of belief is difficult but necessary work if their culture is to remain. So much of that revolves around understanding where they've come from and who they want to be. Joshua has this context after 110 years of life. Most of us need to figure it out a bit earlier.

Generation Next

Our passage comes as the generation that conquered the land and set the path forward are dying. The question before the generation that is taking over is whether they will continue on the path laid out for them or take their own? The answer to this question is always - or at least should be - yes. Each generation has to chose for itself how it will live. Part of that should be a maintaining of what has come before, but it also needs to be a review of what needs to be improved. No generation gets it perfect and it is every generations job to improve upon the previous one. Joshua was right that choosing who to follow and being steadfast to it is important, but life is dynamic and so that choice often needs to be modified over time - if not in belief at least in practice. How much of the important stuff sticks with the new generation is largely driven by how they understand where that stuff came from.

The verse that stuck out to me this morning as I read was 24:31:

Israel served the Lord as long as Joshua lived. They also served him as long as the elders lived. Those were the elders who lived longer than Joshua did. They had seen for themselves everything the Lord had done for Israel.

Israel followed the Lord as long as those who saw all the things that God had done remained alive. This implies that once they passed on Israel was less steadfast in their devotion to the Lord. Indeed, the very next thing you read after Joshua is Judges where Israel is largely leaderless and as such without a guide and continually falls into the trap of forgetting who they are. This seems to indicate a failure to properly convey the story of the people to the next generation. As a result the next generation didn't keep the needed traditions of the past and sailed into uncharted and unsafe waters.

Reflection

I've been thinking a lot about legacy recently. With dad's passing last year it's forced me to think about what I want my boys to remember about me when I pass - hopefully many years from now. I don't have many - if any - good answers right now, but I do want them to remember the story of our family. How their coming to our family was born in part by the way my parents talked about adoption and how my dad wanted to be a hospitable person. How Jen and I decided early on, before we were even married, that adoption was going to be part of our life together. How - as the Bible says - in the fullness of time they came to be with us and us with them. Their legacy is one of hospitality and of welcome and of preparation. Our family is more than a collection of mere coincidences that worked out in our favor. But also, our family will grow into whatever they become. Hopefully what they become is based in some part in what has gotten us here. The only way to get there is to tell the story over and over again.

A lot of this is pretty mushy stuff. It all relies on retelling the story accurately. One of my favorite quotes is "History is an art form and a literature form, it is not the telling of an objective truth."¹ I think this is an important way of understanding the telling of story. We tell the story from a perspective of our choosing. Accuracy in the retelling of our story is maybe not a play by play recounting but a sharing of the values in the events. When we retell the story we're conveying an idea. We lose ourselves when we lose our underlying principles - or ideas. As such telling the story needs to be conveying our values.

The Questions

• How do we tell the story of our family, country, and faith honestly?
• How do we pass on what we believe to the next generation without bogging them down from telling their own stories?