When I read the scripture lessons appointed for today’s service, I was pleased. The lessons from the Book of Joshua in the Hebrew Bible and from the Gospel of John in the Christian Scriptures offered a message that I need to ponder as summer 2015 winds down and school and another program year commences.
Joshua gathered all the Israelite tribes to a holy place in the Northern Kingdom and offered them a choice. He begins by recounting all of God’s life-giving acts on behalf of the people, the chosen people, the people with whom God has made a covenant. Joshua reminded the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of the tribes how their God had rescued them from slavery in Egypt; how he had brought them through the Red Sea and guided them in the wilderness. Joshua recalls the giving of the law at Sinai and their entrance into the Promised Land. And Joshua offered the assembled tribes a choice. You do not have to serve the Lord, Joshua tells them. You may serve the gods your fathers and mothers served “beyond the River and in Egypt,” or you may serve “the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.” You have a choice. Joshua is talking about the same choice you and I have today for surely there are still many other gods to serve. They may not be the Baals of which Joshua spoke, fertility gods who demand human sacrifice but today’s culture offers many tempting gods – popularity, prosperity, and passion are three that come readily to mind. But Joshua warns the assembly that the Lord, the God of Israel must be respected and served in faithfulness. Joshua says, in other words, you have a choice, You may choose which god or gods you will serve , but if you choose Yahweh, if you choose the God of Abraham and Sarah, the God of Isaac and Rebekah, the God of Jacob and Rachel, the God of Moses and Aaron and Deborah, if you choose Yahweh, here are the rules.
What Joshua is saying to the people is a bit like the Christian rite of initiation, Holy Baptism. Anyone is welcome to come to the font, but once you do your life is forever changed, you are sealed as a child of God and forever after the God we know in Jesus Christ has first claim on your life and your allegiance. Joshua says “choose this day.” And in one of the most famous of all scripture passages Joshua tells the people his choice. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
That quote, the fifteenth verse of the twenty-fourth chapter of the book of Joshua, is framed and hanging as near to the front door of my house as I can hang it. There are three reasons I am so fond of Joshua’s saying. First, it reminds we several times each day, every time I come in and every time I go out, I am reminded of who and whose I am, of where my allegiance is placed, of who has first claim on my life. And, secondly, I am reminded that the choice of who I serve was made once and for all times when I was baptized, and is made over and over again each and every day. “Choose this day.” “Choose THIS day.” Over and over again I freely choose to serve the Lord. There is no coercion; it is not required; the God we worship gives us free will; but as Joshua reminded the people of God’s faithfulness to them, I am reminded of God’s faithfulness to me, to my family, to this parish family. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
The third reason for my fondness for Joshua’s words is that it seems to me it is just at such times as that time at Shechem when we need to be reminded once again of God’s faithfulness to his people and his claim on our lives. It seems to me that at such times – times like the coming of fall and at times of new beginnings – that we need to re-pledge, re-commit, re-covenant, re-member. The people to whom Joshua spoke had come a long way. They had come from being no people at all. They had come from being a raggle-daggle band of persecuted captives in a foreign land who by God’s gracious favor had endured multiple hardships in the wilderness – grumbling, famine, homelessness, treason, and desertion. By God’s gracious favor these Hebrews were on their way to a position of strength, of promise, of prosperity. They were not there yet but they were on their way. Their future looked hopeful and their prospects sparkled. It seems to me that it is at just such times as these that we are the most vulnerable and we need to be called back to God. Just when we think we are going to be all right; when we believe we’re out of the woods and we’re on our way, at those times in the middle as well as at our bright beginnings and our happy endings, at various times, at all times, God calls his people to choose, to decide, “Choose this day whom you will serve.” This day. Choose this day. That’s yesterday’s message, that’s the message today, and that will be the message tomorrow. Choose.
That was the message Jesus put to is disciples at another holy place, the synagogue in Capernaum, many years later. The gospels tell us “many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.” Then, as now, it must have been a difficult decision. And Jesus turns to his inner circle and asks “Do you also wish to go away?” It’s tempting. Anyone with a shred of vision, anyone with a touch of intuition knows throwing in one’s lot with Jesus of Nazareth is going to mean walking a road of betrayal, of suffering, a road that leads ultimately to the cross. Then as now that can be tiring, sometimes lonely, and frequently dangerous. Why make a commitment? Why not just hang around on the fringes where the stakes are not as high? As Joshua told the people, as Jesus tells his followers, as each one of us knows, it’s a free choice. Choose. Choose this day.
It’s Peter, impetuous down-to-earth Peter who speaks. He speaks for the disciples who walked with Jesus then; he speaks for those of us who walk with Christ today. Peter speaks for those of us who know Jesus on vacation and when we’re back at work when times are fine and the sailing is smooth and when times are tough and the pieces don’t fit. Peter speaks for those of us who wonder some days if there isn’t an easier way – there is. Peter speaks for those of us who wish some days for assurances for our doubt. Peter speaks up, declares his choice, their choice, our choice. Peter answers, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God.”
The message for me, for you, for those of us this day who are offered that choice, for those of us here at this holy place, is summed up in the words spoken so long ago. “The Lord our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey.” Once you have come to know the Lord, once you are sealed as a child of God and marked as Christ’s own forever, come what may, we answer with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Over and over again, each day, every day, we choose. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed.”