Dr. Douglas Groll
August 26, 2012
In Jesus’ Name, Dear Friends,
Today we find restaurant going a generally positive experience. Over the last twenty five years of living in Chicago’s Galewood Area, just north of Oak Park, we have learned about what direction to aim our car to get a good meal. If you want fast food….Subway is just almost around the corner…..A good Steak and Ribs…..How about the Gale Street Inn? Cheap but good Italian….try Q’s down in Hillside. Depending on the palate on a given day…..the eating experience can be quite positive.
It wasn’t always that way in our family. Especially some 35 or forty years ago when our Son, Jon was just a small child. He loved eating in restaurants …but he couldn’t make up his mind what to order once we got there. We would go over what we knew he liked…but he couldn’t decide…and the act of having to choose…..to decide between two positives was so stressful that sometimes he even cried. .Too many choices. But you have to choose.
You have got to choose….make some tough decisions. Got to make some tough choices we tell each other…..what to eat…..when to go for the checkup…..where to send the children to school….what college or university to attend…..should we get married or not? Choose….choose now. In fact, if you listen carefully….there is a new phrase finding its way through our culture…..time and time and again we hear…..Seymour is really a good person….he just makes bad choices. It’s all about choices.
And that is certainly being shouted at us these days…..Each election cycle we are hammered with the message….this is the election of the century….this is when the real future of the land will be decided….this is the most important election of the last twenty five years…you have to choose….and then it gets more complicated…and if you listen carefully this year especially……even an election in this secular nation…..this pluralistic republic….a nation where we supposedly are ruled by law …we are having even electoral questions thrown at us in theological contexts…...Each candidate comes with baggage……You have to choose…we are told …..Republican…Democrat … ..Christian ….Mormon…… Catholic for whom the Council of Bishops approve on some things but oppose on the other. It’s all about choice…we say…..Got to make the tough decision…..
And there are some who simply throw up their hands in despair of it all and say…a plague on all your houses. Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune had its front page article on spiritual seekers..who have simply walked away from denominational organized religion….they are simply saying….”the answer is not there in the church or synagogue…I have to sort this out…..don’t force me to make a choice!” Interestingly enough…on that evening as I was surfing my car radio I stumbled on a loud, repulsive left wing counterpart to all of the right wing houghing and puffing…He was seeking people to join a Freedom from Religion Caucus. Got to make tough decisions….Got to make a choice….
And then throw in today’s Old Testament lesson….Why it is right there in Joshua’s words…. 14 “Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
Gee! We say….if you put it in those terms….I guess it comes down to this…..I have got to choose…I have got to sort through all the garbage and contradictory language….it is all on me…..or is it? As we listen to Joshua’s pledge….But As For Me And My House, We will Serve The Lord or…if we flip ahead into today’s Gospel lesson…and hear Our Lord Himself ask, “Do you wish to go away?.....Is the message here all about our choice? All about what we do?
Old Testament Context
The first thing we have to remember, even in assessing Joshua’s challenge to choice is that Israel is not the first actor…nor even was Joshua. Joshua and the Children of Israel had entered the Promised Land many years before. Joshua is now at the end of his life and at the point of making this final salutatory speech. In this chapter …he recounts the history…and this is the history always of not a heroic…right choice bearing people…but he recounts the history of Abraham the wandering Aramean…and how the hand of God takes a man and his family and says…..follow me…and I will bless you….and I will make your inheritance as the stars of the sky and sand of the sea shore..
And throughout this chapter……we hear the recounting…not of good choices of God’s people, but rather of the unlikely choice of God choosing a people…..He recalls for them their falling away…their griping in the wilderness….let us go back to Egypt…there we had cucumbers and figs and meat….we were slaves..but we had our three square meals as day….Talk about bad choices….there is that phrase…How Odd Of God To Choose The Jews…
So we have Joshua calling the people of Israel…the tribes of Israel…now finding their home in the land divided up according to the 12 tribes and families…and they are summoned to Shechem…It is about half the distance between Jerusalem and Nazareth..about half the distance between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee and they are there at the Schecem….near mount Gerazim and Mount Ebal..and the picture of even these two mountains are nothing to write home about….There is and was nothing in Israel that would commend it to God’s choosing….
But he did! God chose people….God called Israel…God formed a people….and made it His….and this is the context of Joshua’s message…..Joshua calls a people already called….Joshua invites a people to be blessed…to eat of the fields they did not plant…to drink of the wine of the vinyards they did not plant….to live in the cities they did not build…because God first chose to choose them….. This is the context of Joshua’s exhortation to his people…. He makes a pledge…not on the basis of what he has or could do….not on the basis of what he knows Israel to be..as an heroic people …because he knew first hand with whom he was dealing…but rather he could affirm “But as for me and my house…we will serve the Lord….! He could affirm this because he knew in whom he had been chosen….in whom he had been blessed.
New Testament Fast Forward
Now if we fast forward to today’s Gospel lesson, we see something of the same dynamic…but a little clearer….. John shows us the new Israel complete in Jesus of Nazareth…. In the chapter ahead of our text we see the miracles….. the calming of the storms…the feeding of the thousands…the new mana…the real bread of life! This is not your grandfather’s mana in the wilderness…. This is not the same old repetition of Israel confined to a race…a geography….a place. This is Jesus…the new Joshua…the complete Joshua….the son Mary….descendent of Ruth…..the Moabites…0f the descendent of Rahab…the prostitute… this is the Son of everyman…of all races…this is the cosmic Jesus…savior of the World… not just Israel… And this is the one who called….walked along the lake and called fishermen…. Walked along the lake and called corrupt Chicago politicians and tax gatherers…this is the one who could invite and call and feed….and heal re establish families……. This is the one…then who in a sense…in the same way that Joshua would invite Israel to choose to drink of the blessings of the Exodus…could now say to the disciples…those who would follow and those who would leave….”“Do you wish to go away?..... And Peter….Good Old Peter gave the right answer…. Not the eloquent one…. Not the heroic one….. that he would blurt out later in a moment of bravado……some drivel about how others could abandon Jesus but he would always be there…but here…the simple fisherman answers with the only real answer about choice…..”Lord To Whom Shall We Go!...You Have The Words of Eternal Life!”
This then, my friends…. Reframes the question in another way. Everything we do….everything we say….every choice we make…. Is not really about us… It is rather about rejoicing in the one who has chosen us……washes us in the waters of baptism….feeds us with his Body and Blood so that as a part of His Body…we are and continue to become people for the world…. People who serve… people who sometimes will even disagree as to what is the right choice in a moment…but people who at the heart of the matter know full well…… We have been loved with the love of the Cosmic Christ who has given himself so that we might give to others. Amen.
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