February 16 – Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Choosing Life
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany – February 16, 2014
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The good news is that according to Deuteronomy, you have a choice: Choose life!
The bad news is that according to Deuteronomy, you have a choice: Choose life!
Choose life, says God through Moses today.
Choose life.
It seems simple enough when you say it like that.
But we all know that choices are hard.
We all know that many times in life, we are confronted with very hard choices.
And I’m not talking about which brand of blue jean will flatter you most.
You have to imagine the scene in Deuteronomy to get the force of it.
The Israelites fled from Egypt forty years before.
They have been in the wilderness for forty years – an entire generation.
They have been schooled in the wilderness in a new way of living together:
the way of mercy-giving and manna-sharing.
A way totally unlike the way they learned in Egypt,
which was a way of mercy-denying and manna-hoarding.
It has taken a whole generation to school the people in these ways, in God’s ways.
Now, after 40 years, they are about to enter the Promised Land, the place where
they are going to put into practice what they have learned in the wilderness.
Graduation day is almost here!
As class valedictorian, Moses gets to give a looooooooong speech before the people finally cross
the Jordan River into the Promised Land: the thing is, he’s a little long winded.
If you think you’ve ever sat through a long graduation address,
you can be thankful you weren’t at this one: over 30 chapters long! 36,000 words!
In those 36,000 words Moses takes the trouble to remind the people of
all they have learned in Wilderness School.
And then, near the end, in today’s reading, he reminds them of something very simple:
they have a choice.
They have a choice.
They are on the cusp here: they are right on the edge.
They’re about to take a step into the unknown, and that is frightening.
They’re about to take a step into being a new kind of society,
a society that reflects God’s priorities in the way they live together,
a community that prioritizes the equitable sharing of God’s manna and
the sharing of God’s mercy with all who need it.
A community that creates a space for life for all to flourish in the way it’s organized.
A community that seeks to bring blessing to the whole world, and so
be a part of the process that transforms the world into what God has dreamed for it.
They have a choice, though.
They are not God’s robots.
They have a choice.
They can go back to Egypt and its many unfairnesses and injustices,
back to its slavery for most and privilege for a few, back to its societal death.
Or they can go forward into a new day full of promise and life,
a new day of love and grace, forward into life for all.
Moses invites the people on this day to Choose Life.
The land they are entering is meant for blessing and for life, not for death and exploitation.
So, Moses says, Choose Life.
Choosing life, though, can be difficult.
Choosing something new, can be difficult.
Crossing the Jordan River can be difficult,
because you don’t know exactly what life on the other side is going to be like.
At many times in their wilderness journey, the people wanted to choose to go back to Egypt,
as awful as it was!
At least they had a meal a day there!
Their future with God, though, was so uncertain, that they were fearful of it.
What do they get? God says, “Don’t be afraid; I will be with you” – as if that weren’t enough.
Sometimes in life we face difficult, excruciating choices.
Sometimes we know God is urging us forward, encouraging us to grow as God’s people,
but it’s hard to leave Egypt and its certainties behind when
God is urging us to something new.
Now what you need to know is that Deuteronomy is a very black and white book.
Choose life and you’ll prosper, choose death and you won’t.
If only life were that simple.
Do this and you’ll succeed, do that and you won’t.
Do this and I’ll reward you, do that and you’ll be punished forever and ever.
Do this and your future is set, do that and it’s game over.
The thing is, though, the Israelites make bone-headed decisions over and over and over again in
Their long history – and it’s never quite game over.
And there’s a lot of good news in that.
Remember our Easter musical last year, Forgiveness in the Family –
about Joseph and his brothers?
The brothers make a bone-headed decision:
to sell their brother into slavery because of their jealousy.
That was not a good choice. There were some painful consequences to that choice.
But their bone-headed decision was not the end of the story.
Joseph eventually rose to prominence in Egypt and
ultimately saved the whole family from famine.
The punch-line to the story?
Joseph tells his brothers, “Even though you intended to do harm to me,
God intended it for good, in order to give life to numerous people.”
Our bone-headed decisions are not the end of the story.
When God finally comes among us as a person, and offers us abundant, eternal life,
we instead choose death and place him on a cross.
And that is another bone-headed decision.
We choose death more often than not.
Even though we most often seem incapable of choosing life,
God steps in and chooses life for us.
In raising Jesus from death, God chooses life for us – and that is very good news,
the very best news of all.
That even when we choose death, God chooses life.
Our bone-headed choice to put Jesus to death is not the end of the story.
Every day we choose death when we choose apathy and despair and revenge.
But God somehow miraculously is committed to working through those choices and
not letting them be the end of the story, turning our bone-headed choices to life.
That doesn’t absolve us from making good choices,
and it doesn’t mitigate the painful consequences of our making poor choices.
But it does mean – thank God – that our poor choices are never the end of the story.
If you’ve made some bad choices, brothers and sisters,
I am here to proclaim to you this morning that they are not the end of the story.
God can work through them, because God always reserves the right to the final decision,
and from what we know of God in Christ Jesus, God’s final decision is to choose life.
You know, about 60 years ago the members of First Lutheran Church had a choice to make:
To leave this neighbourhood and move to the property where Portage Avenue Mennonite
Brethren Church is now, across from Rae and Jerry’s on Portage –
or stay at 580 Victor Street.
They couldn’t get consensus on the move and so decided to stay.
Moving to Portage probably would have been a good move in the eyes of the world.
High visibility, good parking, and, well, let’s face it: right across the street from Rae and Jerry’s!
As this neighbourhood declined, it seemed like less and less of a good decision to stay.
But who could argue today that God is not working life – choosing life – through that decision,
right here at 580 Victor Street?
In putting Jesus to death, the forces of death said “No” to Jesus and his ministry of mercy.
But in raising him to life, God said “Yes” to that ministry and “Yes” to his life.
And at 580 Victor Street, God is working through that decision to stay here –
and choosing life through you.
When you choose to worship together on Sunday morning at 580 Victor Street you are saying
Yes to gathering and mutual care and to the importance of this neighbourhood and
you are saying No to isolation and separation and to the notion that
some neighbourhoods are more important than others: you choice matters!
When you choose to sponsor refugees at 580 Victor Street you are saying Yes to life and
to possibility and hope and you are saying No to the forces of war and apathy and death.
When you choose to make Community Meals at Food Bank at 580 Victor Street you are saying
Yes to sacrifice and Care and hospitality and you are saying
No to hunger and manna-hoarding and apathy: your choice matters.
When you choose to visit the home-bound at 580 Victor Street you are saying Yes to
compassion and to care for the vulnerable and you are saying No to
letting our culture define who is useful and worth our time and who is not.
So my brothers and sisters, choosing life is a real option on this day.
Saying Yes to the resurrection life in Christ is not like saying Yes to
the life our culture defines as life.
It is not just saying Yes to life under certain conditions – when life is young and beautiful and
full of achievement.
In Christ, saying Yes to life is saying Yes without any conditions.
The Yes in Christ applies in sickness as well as in dying.
The Yes in Christ applies to all – without limits. (Dorothy Soelle, Choosing Life [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981], 7)
Our choices will not always be perfect ones.
But because God has chosen life in raising Jesus from the dead and because he still lives,
he still chooses to work life – through us, even on this day – and that is an amazing thing.
With the Israelites on that day long ago, we are on the cusp of life –
of God’s intended abundant life for all people.
Let us not be afraid: let us, with the God who is with us, Choose Life.
And together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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