Life Chooses YOU

 

Life Chooses YOU!

 

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Choose life 

 

30:15 "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.

 

30:16 If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

 

30:17 But if your heart turns away and you do not hear but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them,

 

30:18 I declare to you today that you shall certainly perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

 

30:19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live,

 

30:20 loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him, for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob."

 

 

“Choose life.” Sounds so simple, doesn’t it? What does this author mean, “choose life”? Did you ever stop to think about it? People of faith have pondered this text since it was first penned millennia ago, Rabbis and preachers have pondered it from bemas and pulpits for millennia, as well. Evangelical Christians have hijacked the term to mean “accept Christ as your Lord and Savior,” or “oppose all abortions.” Years ago, someone wrote a while Bible study series they called, “Choose Life.” The assumption was that, to live one’s life according to the Bible, was choosing the kind of life God would want us to have. The obvious difficulty is that we never seem to be able to agree on what that “chosen life” might look like? 

 

The first verse of this lectionary passage already sets us off on the wrong path: “I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.” It sure makes it sound like the author is suggesting that there are only two choices: life and prosperity; or death and adversity. This may be what they call a “false dichotomy,” possibly? If these are our only choices, who among us who doesn’t need therapy and psychotropic drugs would choose “death and adversity”? I don’t know about you, but personally, I find even daily choices to be much more complicated than this. So did Israel, frankly. They were jostled about between hostile lands and promised territory. They lived where they had to glean to survive, and yet believed in a God who was leading them to a “land flowing with milk and honey.” They had almost a primal love for Yahweh, but regularly were seduced by the proximity of local gods that could be perched on the mantle. They belonged to a people who throughout history have been victimized by holocausts and pogroms, hostile neighbors and plagues. When this author puts before them a choice between “life” and “death,” they would most certainly choose life, but what does this really mean? It is an oversimplified message driven by an even more oversimplified understanding of what people face in “real life”—just like so many of the sermons we preachers have presented down through our own Christian history. 

 

I read a piece by a colleague on Facebook recently wherein he quoted Oswald Chambers, championing the idea that all God expects of us is “holiness.” So, what is holiness? And whose definition of it are we to use? (And don’t say “God’s definition,” for ultimately, this is exactly what we are debating!) So, if you take an additional step and suggest that holiness is living an “ethical, moral life,” then again we confront what “ethical and moral” mean? For me and my understanding of God’s inclusive love and acceptance, “ethical” living means I am compelled to accept others who may be WAY different than me in many ways, including things like culture or sexual orientation. To others, “ethical” may mean using faith categories and scripture to persuade someone that being any “sexual orientation” other than the one you were given the plumbing for at birth is wrong, requires repentance, and acquiescence to the “law of God.” You see our dilemma here? “Holiness” is truly a loaded word, in our churchy vocabulary. The founder of Methodism—John Wesley—said that the role of the church was to “spread scriptural holiness throughout the land.” But then he put feet to his own sermons focused on love and transformation by launching “acts of mercy” in poorhouses and prisons, women’s rights, and fighting for social justice among England’s “working poor.” So we might come to believe that Wesley’s “version” of scriptural holiness was not just upholding and defending doctrines and theological perspectives. I don’t think people would have flocked by the thousands to hear his sermons if they were just doctrinal treatises. He touched them where they lived, and preached a gospel that could lift them up out of the coal pits and exploitive practices of the monied interests in control of 18^th century England. Wesley’s version of “holiness” might better be termed “wholeness,” if one were to describe it an a more contemporary vernacular. Wesley did as did Jesus, to demonstrate what “choosing life” might look like to those who society had robbed of having choices.

 

Again, “choosing life” is about so much more than the poles presented in verse one by this author. Now, please understand that I’m not saying here that there are NOT those who make seriously bad choices that may thrust them in the direction of adversity and even death. I understand that addictions of various kinds, and mental illnesses such as depression, bipolar disorder, and certainly schizophrenia, may take persons to very bad places where their cognitive minds and feeling hearts don’t want to go. I get that, but I am not addressing these maladies in this reflection. Instead, I’m trying to get a hold on what it might truly mean to “choose life” beyond simply “choosing to believe in God.” In reading and studying the Bible for many years, serving as a pastor and interacting with God’s people for over 37 years in this endeavor, and through my own questions and experience in “living,” I have come to believe that God wants far MORE of us than just loyalty, allegiance, and doctrinal purity and/or “holy” living, at least as narrowly as some define it.

 

At each stage of our lives, we are given opportunities to “choose life.” As children, loving parents offer us many choices of things to eat, activities in which to engage, books to read, and chances to expand and row ourselves and our interests. As teenagers, we often face choices as to how much “risk” we are willing to take to have or keep certain friends, or in proportion to how much amusement we may experience. (Some of us who were more intellectually “geeky” sought less risk and more books!) As young adults, we had to choose a potential career and what preparation this career or job would require. Here is a place where the young adult often stumbles: will you choose a career that piques your interest, is connected with your passions, and that might “stretch” you? Or will you bend to the economic realities of just grabbing at a “job” to earn money to do the things you “really” want to do? I wish I could have confidence that the former choice was the norm, but I fear it is the proverbial “road less traveled.” As a pastor, I have encountered WAY too many folk who admit they chose a “job” or career based on its potential economic rewards, but that was disjointed from their personal interests, or even “gifts,” as they perceived them. This may be one of the most crucial “choose life” things we all face. Don’t fail at this one, and if you feel you have, it’s never too late to either make a career transition, OR to purposely choose to explore personal interests in the field or fields you like, even if these just become adult “diversions” alongside what you do to earn your keep.

 

“Choosing life” should be seen as God’s challenge at all stages of our lives, not just “life vs. death,” or even “money-making vs. gifts/interests.” I have identified three key areas to consider if we are to take the “choose life” challenge:

 

ACCEPTANCE—What will it take for you to accept yourself as who you are, at this point? And what will it take for you to make choices, going forward, that will enhance this acceptance? (I’m guessing that some of you, when I mention “acceptance,” thought about being “accepted” by God. Give up on this. Jesus Christ came, said what he said, and did what he did, that we might BE acceptable to God, even to the end of being proclaimed “children of God.) A second avenue of the “acceptance” question is how YOU will accept others? You also can “choose life” by accepting others as who THEY are, at this stage of their lives. Choosing to limit your acceptance of others speaks more loudly about how poorly you accept yourself than it does about any “standard” you may be using to judge others. We each must “choose life” that is our own path, and afford others the freedom to do likewise. To reject them because their standards don’t jibe with yours, or because their lifestyle is one you may struggle to endorse (or understand?), is no reason to reject their personhood, or their faith, both of which are ultimately between them and their Creator. One final note: if you recognize that self-acceptance is a goal with which you need help, BY ALL MEANS, get help! Your pastor may be helpful in sorting this out with you, but there is a strong possibility that a professional therapist may be even more helpful, if the issues blocking you are beyond simple “beliefs” or questions.

 

GOING ON TO PERFECTION—This is the famous “goal” set forth by Methodism’s John Wesley. Wesley believed that “choosing life” also meant embarking on a lifetime of self-improvement and personal and spiritual maturation. “Perfection” may indeed be an unattainable goal out there, just like traveling to another galaxy, but even as humanity chose to step out into outer space in spite of the limitation of literally astronomical distances, so can we choose to move in the direction of perfection. Don’t give up the game just because winning it seems insurmountable! My home pastor used to speak of the difference between “positional sanctification” and “real sanctification,” in a Wesleyan sense. Positional sanctification is what happened when we accepted Jesus Christ’s acceptance of US through his life, death, and resurrection. We were instantly “made acceptable” to God. “Real” sanctification is the “going on to perfection” journey we tackle as budding disciples of Jesus Christ. On this journey we seek to improve ourselves, incorporating the teachings of Jesus and learning to listen to our “better angels.” 

 

COSMIC CITIZENSHIP—“Choosing life” at this level involves accepting our full role as “children of God,” stewards of the life God has given us with the realization that it must be lived in community with OTHER children of God, and functioning as caregivers and stewards of the Earth. Our Muslim siblings believe that God “lent” the Earth to us, and that we are compelled to return it to God in the same—if not better—shape it was in when we received it. As that old poem, Desiderata, said, we ARE “a child of the universe.” Act like it, or at least understand that your journey toward perfection includes this element. I have been challenged by the opening words of Rick Warren’s bestseller, “The Purpose Driven Life”: IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU. A more accurate statement by my theology would be, “It’s not ONLY about you!” As one of my favorite comedic actors, “Red Green,” says, “Remember, we’re in this together.”

 

As I started writing this message, I was watching “Midnight in Paris,” a fanciful film directed by Woody Allen about a young author who dreams of Paris in the Roaring Twenties, when a trove of American artists, authors, and song writers descended on that romantic city. For the young “Gil Pender,” who is trying to decide what “life” he will choose, a quirk in the cosmic ether transports him to the very time he believes is “the Golden Age,” where he meets the Fitzgeralds, Ernest Hemmingway, Cole Porter, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, and about every other creative person of that era. There he also meets a young woman who dreams of Paris of the 1890s as “the Golden Era.” Mr. Pender comes to believe, as he experiences both of these eras, that WE must “choose life” for ourselves, and accept our time and place as realities in which to grow, thrive, and be creative. I think this is EXACTLY what the author of today’s text is trying to tell Israel! If you always believe the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, you will spend your entire life climbing fences, and getting some nasty snags along the way.

 

One more thing: didn’t someone tell us in scripture that “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last...” (John 15:16) While God does NOT manipulate us like puppets on a string, God DID give us a “head start” on making better choices—in the Garden of Eden, through giving Israel a law to live by, and in the person and ministry of Jesus Christ. Will we continue to make lousy choices? Or will we “choose life,” accepting that God has already made GOD’S choice, and it is US! Amen.