Sermon preached at St. Alban's, Spirit Lake, on September 9, 2007
(Proper 18, Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, BCP Lectionary)
by the Rev. Carl D. MannTexts: Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Philemon 1-20
Luke 14:25-33Imagine you’re going down to the Clay County Fair and while strolling around the grounds you hear a politician trying to drum up support for his campaign. “If you vote for me, you will be voting to lose your parents, your spouse, and your children. Everything that you have will be forfeit, and quite possibly you will die as a result of your vote. Can I count on you to support me?” Now you would probably keep moving on very quickly because his message sounds a little crazy. You’d be better off seeing the side show because a two-headed pig is a lot more believable and interesting.
But what if, instead of a politician at the local county fair, we imagine a leader of a great expedition, traversing a high and dangerous mountain pass in order to bring necessary medical supplies to a group of villagers who are cut off from the rest of the world. He turns to us and says, “You all need to make a choice! You can continue with me or turn around and go back. If you choose to follow me, you’ll have to leave your personal belongings here because from now on the path is so narrow and steep that you won’t be able to carry everything. Chances are that you won’t be able to find them again. Now this route is so dangerous that some of you probably won’t make it back alive but it is the only way to get there from here.” Now this situation we would understand. We wouldn’t necessarily like it but at least it makes sense. 1
In both of these scenarios, we are faced with making a choice: Whether or not to follow someone. And in today’s Gospel, it is clear that Jesus is more like the leader of the great expedition to save lives than that of the politician garnering votes. And yet both are essentially presenting the same choice.
We are a people of choice. Our economy thrives on it. Our freedom is derived from it. Our lives depend upon it. We tend to measure our success by how many we have. Choice defines us.
Choice seems to be one of the fundamental characteristics of human existence. Choice is a gift from God because it is part of God’s design for us. When God created us, He shaped into us the possibility of choice. Choice seems to be part of His purpose.
Now human beings are unique in our ability to approach choice beyond instinctive drives. Of all God’s creation, only humans carry the weight of moral decisions. Animals don’t, and neither do angels. God has woven into our DNA the capacity to consider the long term consequences of our decisions from the choices we encounter. So there must be some purpose in it, right?
Now we may not have given this much thought, but God must have considered choice so important that when He created us, he even created in us the freedom to choose against Him. Choice must be so vital to being a human, so essential to His purpose, that He would give us the option of being near or far from Him. That kind of freedom requires more love than most of us can imagine. Even as parents, as much as we love our children, we don’t give them that kind of freedom. We expect them to obey. They may not always do so but we don’t emphasize the choice, we emphasize the obedience.
God understands the importance of allowing each of us to control and shape our future. And that’s a freedom which God has shared with us—the ability to make choices—choices that bring us closer to Him, and choices that take us farther away.
Now our lives are full of choices. Most of the time these are pretty small ones: Do I want fries with that? Ranch dressing or Italian? The black shoes or the brown ones? In spite of the fact that our lives are inundated with small choices, we are also confronted with major choices that have to be made. Those choices not only have an impact on the way we live, but will impact the lives of those who live around us and those who will follow us.
Let’s look at the Old Testament reading again. “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. 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…But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, [if you] are led astray to bow down before other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish;…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, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days…”
That’s a tremendous set of choices. It isn’t fries or black shoes or Italian dressing. Moses is talking about life and death, blessings and curses. He is talking about major decisions that have real impact. These are decisions that have to be made, whether we like or not. Facing up to the decisions Moses puts in front of us isn’t what we’d prefer to do. But intentionally facing them is a matter of responsibility; we can choose to be obedient and come closer to God or choose the path that leads away. We can put God first in our lives or turn our backs to Him.
Obedience, responsibility, and making the choices that need to be made are fundamental elements of the discipleship process, the very process Jesus points us toward in the Gospel reading for today. Discipleship should be the natural outcome of following Jesus Christ. Following Jesus without choosing to become his disciples is just another aimless walk around the neighborhood. As one commentary states it, there is a huge difference between going to school and actually being a student.
In order to be a disciple or a student of Christ we have to choose to put him first in our lives, above any other relationship that we have with anyone or anything in this world. We have to be willing to pick up our own cross and follow him even unto death. Now for most of us that will be at the end of our natural life on earth through the normal aging process but it also means that we should be willing to lose our lives for the sake of Jesus Christ and his Church.
At this point there may be some people in the world saying, “Now wait just a minute. Stop the bus! I don’t want to go that far. I don’t mind going to Church once and a while, or even dropping a little something into the plate but giving up my life is too much! That would be above and beyond.” And you know what? Those people are right! It is above and beyond, and it’s exactly what Jesus did for each and every one of us. He chose to be obedient to God the Father even unto death on the cross so that each and every one of us has the choice to be reconciled with God. In order for that to happen all we have to do is follow his example. All we have to do is to pick up our own cross and follow him. That is the cost of discipleship!
Jesus Christ is putting the same choice before us that God had Moses place before all Israel. Obey or disobey; blessing or curse; eternal life or eternal death. This is the most significant choice with which we will ever be faced. My hope and prayer is that we all choose correctly so setting the example for others to make the same choice.
To paraphrase today’s psalm: Happy are they who will choose correctly for their delight will be in the law of the Lord. They will be like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; everything they do shall prosper. 2
Gloria Patri
1 Thanks to the Rt. Rev. N. T. Wright for this analogy.
2 Many thanks to the Rev. Matt Greathouse for the bulk of this sermon.