Watch Now

No More Lone Rangers – Joshua 4

No More Lone Rangers

Joshua 4

 

Near the end of World War II, a plane carrying 24 members of the U.S. military, crashed into the New Guinea jungle during a sightseeing excursion. The three survivors, suffering from gangrene and hunger, were stranded deep in a jungle valley notorious for its cannibalistic tribes. The army tapped a special battalion of 66 jump-qualified members of “1st Recon” led by C. Earl Walter Jr. This battalion’s daring motto was Bahala na!, a phrase from the Philippines that can be translated as “Come what may.” There was only one way to rescue the survivors: recruit ten volunteers, including two medics, to parachute into the dense jungle and extract the survivors.

It was a dangerous plan. Walter stood before his men as he gave the potential volunteers four warnings. First, Walter told them, the area they’d be jumping into was marked “unknown” on maps, so they’d have nothing but their wits and their compasses to guide them. Second, the jungle was so thick it would be what Walter called “the worst possible drop zone.” Third, if they survived the jumps, their band of men would confront “a very good possibility that the natives would prove hostile.”

 

But Walter saved the worst for last. No one had a plan, even a rough one, to get them out of the valley. They might have to hike some 150 miles to either the north or south coast of New Guinea, through some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth, with crash survivors who might be hurt and unable to walk on their own. Complicating matters, if they hiked north they’d go through an area “known to be the domain of headhunters and cannibals.” If they hiked south, they’d pass through jungles and swamps occupied by perhaps ten thousand Japanese troops. Death seemed a strong possibility either way.

 

When Walter finished his litany of warnings, he waited a beat, then asked for volunteers. Every member of the parachute unit raised his hand. Then each one took a step forward, as several of the men yelled Bahala na. “Come what may.”[i] Come what may, they weren’t going to leave their brothers behind.

 

There are many images of manhood and fatherhood in popular culture today. Few of them are noble. There’s the image of the bumbling fool of a man who is constantly messing things up. There’s the distracted, unaware, workaholic man who rarely pays attention to his wife and kids. There’s the angry drunk who uses and abuses his family. There’s the absent father, referred to but never seen, no longer a part of the family’s life. But there is perhaps no image of manhood and fatherhood more dangerous to our self-concept as men than the image of the lone ranger.

 

The man who always knows exactly what to say or do, who can figure out any problem and never stumbles or falls down, and who, most importantly, meets the needs of others all on his own. He never needs someone else to support him, or help him. Because to do so is to be weak. And that false view of what it means to be a real man is killing men.

And it isn’t just men who hold other men to this standard. Wives and daughters, the women in our lives, often hold the same view. In her TED talk, “Listening to Shame,” researcher, author, speaker, and professor Dr. Brene Brown tells this story. “For men, shame is not a bunch of competing, conflicting expectations. Shame is one, do not be perceived as what? Weak. I did not interview men for the first four years of my study. And it wasn’t until a man looked at me after a book signing, and said, “I love what you have to say about shame, I’m curious why you didn’t mention men.”

 

And I said, “I don’t study men.” And he said, “That’s convenient.” And I said, “Why?” And he said, “Because you say to reach out, tell our story, be vulnerable. But you see those books you just signed for my wife and my three daughters?” I said, “Yeah.” “They’d rather me die on top of my white horse than watch me fall down. When we reach out and be vulnerable, we get the shit beat out of us. And don’t tell me it’s from the guys and the coaches and the dads. Because the women in my life are harder on me than anyone else.”

 

So what will it take for us all, men and women alike, to reject this false image of manhood, of fatherhood? It will take us embracing the truth that God has created us to connect – to God, and to one another. And not just with our spouses. We’re created to be a part of a team. Turn with me to the Old Testament book of Joshua, chapter 4.

 

This is a passage I’ve used often as an introduction to our quarterly testimony services, where instead of a sermon you all get the chance to share what God has been doing in your lives. But there’s something else going on in this passage that I want us to notice this morning.

 

Before we look at the passage itself, let me set the stage for you. The people of Israel have been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years as a nomadic people. Under the leadership of Moses, they left Egypt, and miraculously crossed the Red Sea on dry ground by the hand of God. But then they sent spies into the land God was giving to them, and the spies came back and reported mighty peoples and cities with thick walls, impossible to conquer. So, because of their lack of trust in God’s provision for them, they were forced to wander together as nomads in the wilderness until that generation of people all died off. Now, their children are the adults, and Moses has died and Joshua is following in his footsteps as Israel’s leader. They are once again on the shores of the Jordan river. Moses had led them to that place, and now Joshua would lead them into the Promised Land.

 

But while they were there, on the eastern shore of the Jordan, two and a half of Israel’s tribes – the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh, looked around and said, you know, it isn’t so bad here. Numbers 32 tells the story. “Now the people of Reuben and the people of Gad had a very great number of livestock. And they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and behold, the place was a place for livestock. So the people of Gad and the people of Reuben came and said to Moses and to Eleazar the priest and to the chiefs of the congregation … the land that the Lord struck down before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock.” And they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan” (Num. 32:1-5).

 

Here’s the problem – those two and half tribes represented a significant part of Israel. If the twelve tribes were all exactly the same size, and they weren’t, they would represent a little over 20% of Israel’s people, including her fighting force. Were they planning on abandoning the rest of the people, avoiding the conflicts to come? That’s what Moses was wondering. “But Moses said to the people of Gad and to the people of Reuben, “Shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here? Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the Lord has given them?” (Num. 32:6-7).

 

Now, check out the answer the men of these tribes gave. “Then they came near to him and said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock, and cities for our little ones, but we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel, until we have brought them to their place. And our little ones shall live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land. We will not return to our homes until each of the people of Israel has gained his inheritance. For we will not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond, because our inheritance has come to us on this side of the Jordan to the east” (Num. 32:16-19). What did they say? We will go, and fight with, and for, our brothers. We will not leave you alone to fight without us. Our inheritance is on this side of the river, but we will not rest until ALL of Israel has their inheritance, the land God has promised to them. Remember, these are the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh.

 

Now, check this out. Look at Joshua 4:11-13. They settled their families in the land on the east side of the Jordan, and certainly left behind warriors to protect them. But then 40,000 of their best soldiers crossed the Jordan River with the rest of Israel. And not only did they go with them, the went, fully armed, IN FRONT OF THEM. Look carefully at V. 12. They took up their position at the vanguard, in front of the people, in front of the warriors of the other tribes. They would take the first punch from any who came out against them. They didn’t just go with the rest of Israel and hope they didn’t have to do much. They went in ready, prepared, fully armed, and in the most dangerous of positions. They were going to fight in front of and alongside their brothers. No tribe of Israel was going to stand alone. They were all in this together.

 

Pastor John MacArthur tells this story from his days running track in college. He says, “I learned a vital spiritual lesson while participating in a track meet during my college years. I was running in the 4×400-meter relay at the Orange County Invitational. Our strategy was simple. The first runner, a speedy sprinter, would get as big a lead as possible right out of the starting blocks. My job was merely to run a clean lap without dropping the baton. Our third man and fourth man could make up whatever ground I might lose.

 

Our first man ran a great leg and made a perfect baton pass. I managed to finish my lap in a tight battle for first place. The third man went around the curve, came halfway down the back stretch, stopped, walked off, and sat down in the grass. The race kept going.

 

We thought he had pulled a hamstring or twisted an ankle. We all ran across the infield, expecting to find him writhing on the grass or at least wincing in pain. He wasn’t. He was sitting passively. We anxiously asked, “What happened? Are you hurt?” He said, “No, I’m OK. I just didn’t feel like running.”

 

My teammates and I responded with the same thing: “You can’t do that! Do you realize the effort we have all put into training for this? You’re not in this by yourself!”[ii]

 

Men, can I say something to you? Whether you are a biological father or grandfather, or an adoptive one, or a spiritual father without any kids of your own, YOU ARE NOT IN THIS BY YOURSELF. You are not expected to stand alone. Truth is, we can’t, and we know it. But we’re afraid to ask for backup, for help.

 

The tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh fought for their brothers’ and sisters’ promised inheritance of land, a place to live. Today, Christ and the salvation he offers is our inheritance. And while the Israelites had to fight for their land, so we have to fight for our inheritance, but it is our sinful natures that has to be crucified.

 

In Galatians 5:16-25, St. Paul says, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”

 

We cannot earn our salvation, it is a gift of grace. But we are to fight against our sinful natures, picking up our crosses and following Jesus. And we cannot do that alone. In 1 Timothy 5:1-2, Paul says, “Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.” We are to encourage one another, cheer for one another, and build one another up. That doesn’t mean we always say what someone wants to hear. It does mean that we’ll say what they NEED to hear, and we’ll say it with kindness, gentleness and love.

 

I have a friend named Garrett Gilliland. He and I served in ministry together for a year here in Traverse City at another church, and then in the earliest days of Christ Church, before he and his family moved to another position at a church in Canada. Today, Garrett and his wife Sophie live in Colorado Springs. About a year ago, I realized I needed a man in my life, a real friend, who wasn’t under my leadership here at Christ Church. Someone I could be open and honest with and talk about hard things with. Like James 5:16 says, “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” So I reached out to him, and together we agreed to try to connect weekly on Zoom for a few minutes. Sometimes we go a few weeks without meeting. He’s a teacher now and as those of you who work in education, the last 6 weeks of the school year feel kind of like you’re riding a roller coaster backwards, blindfolded, and in the dark. It’s chaos.

 

But on one of the days we chatted, I was telling him about one of my screw ups. And he listened for a while, and we talked about what I could have done differently, and how to do things differently in the future. And in the moment, I was feeling pretty low. I was feeling a lot of shame. And he looked at me and said, “You know you’re forgiven, right?” Yes, I know about grace and forgiveness and the mercy of God. I preach to you about it all the time, right? But in that moment, he was Jesus to me, because I needed to hear those words from a brother who can hold me accountable and who is also pulling for me. If it weren’t for him, and the words he spoke into my life that day, I would have wallowed in shame for a long time. Garrett is the living proof in my life that I cannot, and do not, stand alone.

 

Guys, we have to stop pretending that we can, or that we have to. We need other men who will stand by us, stand with us, fight with us, and sometimes, fight for us, like the men of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh.

 

Many men in the United States are struggling to thrive. Here’s how Georgetown University professor Joshua Mitchell summarizes the data:

 

With respect to the criminal justice system: men have a lower chance of posting bail than women; men go to prison at a higher rate and are treated worse in prisons than women; men are punished more harshly for the same crimes; men have higher rates of solitary confinement; men serve a higher percentage of the prison sentence.

 

With respect to education: men attend college at a lower rate, and graduate at a lower rate.

 

With respect to death: men have a lower life expectancy, by five years; men are 20 times more likely to die in a work-related injury; men have a higher rate of suicide.

 

With respect to physical violence: men endure a higher rate of corporal punishment in childhood.

 

With respect to war: men are forced by law and by societal pressure to fight and die in war. As veterans: men suffer higher rates of homelessness, suicide, PTSD, and drug addiction.

 

With respect to employment: almost all of the thankless work done “below ground” – in mining, utilities, fishing, and excavation – is done by men.

 

Now, this is not intended to pit men against women and debate who has more struggles in today’s society. It is to show that men in our culture need our grace our support.[iii] The persistent view that men have to be lone rangers – who cannot confess their sins and failures, who cannot feel afraid and inadequate, who have to die on their white horse and do it all without help – needs to die.

 

We need to replace it with a view of men who have a team they can rely one. Men, we need to be spending time together, playing, laughing, crying, holding one another accountable, and lifting one another up. We need to be able to ask for – and receive – help without being judged, and without judging ourselves. Because far too often, we are our own harshest critics. God hasn’t created us to be lone rangers. He’s created us to be a part of a team. Bahala na. Come what may.  Come what may, they weren’t going to leave our brothers behind. Let us pray.

[i] Adapted from Mitchell Zuckoff, Lost in Shangri-La (Harper Perennial, 2012), pp. 213-216

[ii] John McArthur, “Passing Down the Truth,” Ligonier.Org (7-13-18)

[iii] Joshua Mitchell, American Awakening (Encounter Books, 2020), n.p.