Joshua at Jericho: Sunday, October 18th

This Sunday's Church School lesson for K-5th graders is the story of Joshua leading the Hebrew people out of the wilderness and into the promised land at the town of Jericho. It is, in some ways the final conclusion to the stories about Moses that our classes explored over the past month or so. Moses began the great procession of God's people, out of slavery in Egypt and into the wilderness of the Sinai peninsula -- where they wandered for two generations as a community without a home. All they had to go on during that time was God's promise that if they followed faithfully, God would bring them to a land where they could establish communities of justice, peace, and dignity (so unlike the communities they had left in Egypt). In Joshua's arrival at Jericho, God's promise is finally fulfilled after nearly 40 years.

Now, the story of the Hebrew people's arrival in the Jordan Valley is fraught with difficulties. The belief that God destined this land for the Hebrew people has caused no end of international turmoil -- especially since the establishment of the political state of Israel in the years following the Holocaust of the 20th century. Some believe that the experience of the 20th century in Israel/Palestine parallels at least somewhat the narratives of Joshua's conquest of an already settled land as God's recompense for one group's own suffering of oppression/persecution. The belief in a divine right to the land, as well as divine sanction to use violence in carrying out this prophecy, finds a significant amount of its justification in this familiar Bible story (among other sources as well). And having personally traveled to present day Jericho and elsewhere in the Jordan Valley, witnessing the oppression and violence that engulfs that region today, it's hard to read this story without feeling deeply conflicted about its place in the canon of familiar Bible stories that we teach to children.

Do you remember "Choose your Own Adventure Books" from being a pre-teen? I used to love these books because the reader was involved in determining exactly how the story worked out by making a series of choices at critical plot moments: "If you think Sara should follow the wizard's voice, turn to page 26; but if you think she should stick to the path by the river, turn to page 42."

I sometimes wonder if children who hear the first part of the story of the Hebrew people could write a better ending to this story than the one in today's the Bible story. Could they come up with a more peaceful ending, an ending in which God's promises of a land for the Hebrew people were kept without resorting to violent conquest, an ending that wouldn't have led to the conflict that region now experiences today? What would such an ending look like? Maybe this Sunday, you can give your class the chance to dream of alternate endings to this story.

One way you could teach this story is to review the history of the people of Israel (slavery in Egypt, Moses' leading them into the wilderness, life being hard in the wilderness for 40 years, the need for a permanent land where they would not be oppressed), and then introduce them to Joshua, a child who had not been a slave in Egypt, but had been born and grown up in the wilderness. God called Joshua, as a young man, to lead the people into the permanent land that God had promised. But there's a problem. There were other people living there. Joshua had an army of people, and believed he had God on his side. Then stop telling the story and imagine with the kids what might have happened next.

For older kids, try breaking them into groups and asking each group to come up with a story or even a skit about what might have happened next. Or you could have each group come up with two alternate endings (a choose your own adventure!). Younger children could wonder about this together, thinking about how Joshua might have managed to settle in the land peacefully. What would he have had to do in order to live peacefully in Jericho rather than conquer it? Share space. Get to know the people who live there already. Respect people with different customs. Talk about disagreements rather than fight about them. So often it seems easier to just take what you want and beat up the guy who has it now (particular if you've been beaten up in the past), but children tend to have a harder time justifying this kind of behavior than adults do. One of our jobs as teachers is to protect those gentle instincts.

I wonder if Joshua might have made a different choice about how he brought his people into the land if he'd known about the legacy of violent conquest that, over 3,000 years later, still persists. I wonder if he, or those who wrote his story down in the Bible, would have heard God's call to Joshua in a different way...

Have a great class!

Blessings,
Chris +