Choose Life
The Hebrew scripture reading from the book of Deuteronomy is a message for today. It speaks about choosing life over death. “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live…”
These words from Moses form the culmination of his farewell address to the Israelites before they are about to enter the land of Canaan to begin a new life. For forty years the nomadic people have wandered in the wilderness, escaped the tyranny of Egypt, turned away from God sometimes, bridled at the leadership of Moses when things were uncertain and dangerous, and longed for a haven that seemed too distant and too obscure.
Now by living on the plains of Moab they are about to reach the Promised Land and leave their failures behind. It is a liminal moment in their lives. They are leaving their past to live in a promised future foretold to them by Moses. But, in our lesson for this morning, Moses reminds them as they camp on the cusp of a new beginning in a new land that how they live today, and the choices they make today, will determine their future.
Today is no different. We are modern nomads moving into an uncertain future. How we live now and the choices we make now will determine our future. This is a self-evident truth for individuals, for communities, and for nations. It is certainly true for us in Needham today. We only have to look back to the past week and acknowledge with sadness what has befallen a Needham family and how all of us are so affected by the tragic death of one so young. As we seek answers that will never come easily, as we seek meaning in the clouds of our own worries, and as we seek to discern light in the midst of darkness, we are faced with the same choice asked of people in every generation who have faced trails and tribulations: “How are we to live?”
According to God, speaking through Moses, we are to choose life, accept life and create life. The great Lawgiver admonishes the Israelites not to be governed by their past wayward actions but to move into a future defined by God. Rather, Moses exhorts them to live into a renewed and restored relationship with God. The consequences of past sins, while severe, are not to be the final word of God. Rather, the God of Moses, the God who called Abraham into covenant, and called the people out of Egypt into a land of promise is a God of second chances.
To choose life is to be renewed, restored and forgiven.
About a month ago, a friend of mine, a gay man, asked me about repentance and forgiveness. He said that he knew his sexual orientation all his life. It wasn’t a lifestyle choice but who he was. God created him; yet, all through his life he has experienced isolation, prejudice, and loneliness. “Why would God want to do this to me?”
And then he asked me a question that still lingers in my heart and mind, “Instead of me repenting for who I am shouldn’t God be repenting for making a world so filled with hate, oppression, and prejudice?” In other words, he asked me about God asking us for our forgiveness for creating a world where young people die, where gays, women, people of color are marginalized, and where evil people do sinful things and bad things happen to good people.
The question scalds. It burns because there is no easy answer. We are left with the lament of the psalmist, who cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The question lingers with us in times of desolation and loss.
The poet, Rilke, writes,
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.”
You and I live the questions. I also live with the question by my friend who asked me: “Does God repent for making a broken world?” My response to him is my response to you this morning in the midst of the emotional trauma we have experienced this week and will continue to feel in the days ahead.
Perhaps God did repent. Perhaps, God saw that not all was good at the beginning. Perhaps, God decided to repent by re-creating a the world with a new creation by God giving us a Life through God’s son, Jesus Christ, who lived, suffered, and died like one of us.
It is in the mystery of the incarnation, where God repents, and even more loves, by taking the risk to become human and to experience the pain and the loss, the sorrow and the pity, as well as, the comfort and consolation, the joy and the triumph, of living a life. We may live under the shadow of the Cross of Christ. But, in faith, you and I live in the light of His resurrection
To choose life is to choose Jesus Christ. It is to choose one who became one of us so that we could become one with Him in this life and in the next. Through Him, we not only choose life, we also accept the life given to us and to put into practice the same grace with others as we have received from God through Jesus Christ. To choose life is not only to accept life but also to create life.
It means that God is still in process of creating a new world no longer defiled but blessed; and it our responsibility to be co-creators by building and strengthening our relationships with one another. As co-creators with God means that nothing stays the same except God’s abiding love that never changes and is eternal.
As co-creators, we are to take responsibility for our lives. No longer can we blame God for we are already a given and forgiven people through Jesus Christ. We cannot be merely observers but active participants in a holy hope to be instruments of God’s justice and peace where there is no place for hate, no place for war, no place for oppression.
It is time again to speak to one another about the importance of life and death, to speak about the forgiving God is a forgiven God, and to speak with conviction that the life, death and resurrection of Christ is the life given to us through God’s risking and vulnerable love. The truth is God gives us a Son; but even more than this, we are given a Life through Him that is hallowed and blessed. Let us take heed to the words of Moses,
“Today, I have set before you life and death… choose life so that you and your descendants shall live.”
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