1 Corinthians 3:1-9 St. Paul s, Alexandria. Matthew 5: February 2014

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1 1 Deuteronomy 30: Epiphany Year A 1 Corinthians 3:1-9 St. Paul s, Alexandria Psalm 119:1-8 Judith Harris Proctor Matthew 5: February 2014 From the Book of Deuteronomy: See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. I speak to you in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy [Ghost] Spirit. Amen. Dumbledore had a great line from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. He looked Harry square in the eyes and said, It is our choices, Harry, that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities. Our choices..today s readings are all about choices beginning with the Deuteronomy passage where Moses exhorts the people to make up their mind; and including the Psalm, Paul s words to the people in Corinth, and the Gospel where all center on a choice, on making a decision and a commitment. All confront the matter of loyalty, allegiance, dedication, and single-minded unswerving devotion to God and to God s commandments. Moses lays out the choices to the Israelites: to obey the commandments of God; to love the Lord their God by walking in His ways and observing His decrees and ordinances - or - to be led astray; to bow down to other gods and to serve them. If they choose the first, they will live and become numerous and the land they possess will be blessed. If they choose to worship other gods, they won t live long

2 2 in the new land they enter. Moses encourages them to choose life so that they and their descendants may live, loving God and holding fast to His commandments. We have our own capacity for making good and bad decisions, and the Prayer Book knew that, because it addresses this very thing for our Christian life. The Catechism asks: What does it mean to be created in the image of God? The answer: It means that we are free to make choices: to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God. The next question asks, Why then do we live apart from God and out of harmony with creation? The answer: From the beginning, human beings have misused their freedom and made wrong choices. [BCP 845]. Throughout the Bible, there are stories of people faced with decisions. Some made bad choices: Adam and Eve choose between eating the forbidden fruit or not, and caused the fall of the human race. But even after that, God didn t change the ground rules for human life; people still had the capacity to choose for or against God and between good and evil; Cain chose evil; Noah chose good; Samson and King Saul chose evil; Ruth and Esther chose good [Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, InterVarsity Press: Leicester, England, 1998, page 144].

3 3 In today s world, we struggle with making any kind of decision, and the task is made so hard by the ever-increasing number of choices we have. Scientists have done research to find out the capacity of the human mind to process facts that lead to decisions. At the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory (there actually is such a place) studies reveal some interesting facts about how humans make decisions. Research has found that it is all but impossible for our minds to process more than 7 bits of information at any given time. Small wonder, then, that it is so tough to decide what toothbrush to buy or what breakfast cereal to purchase. The Campbell soup aisle has long been a quest of mine to navigate quickly and efficiently. Even though the store arranges the cans in alphabetical order, low salt content soup and healthy choice soup have been added which throws the system off. Some soup is in microwaveable containers; some in cans; some needs water added; some does not, and on and on it goes. Scientists have discovered that the choices we make amount to what they call a tug of war, an exhausting battle between our gut feelings and our reasoned thoughts [CBS News; Decisions, Decisions.., April 25, 2010]. It turns out the Baskin-Robbins

4 4 trademark of 31 Flavors may not be such a smart market move after all. 31 flavors far exceeds the seven bits of information the mind can process. I read an interesting article in the magazine, Christianity Today. Entitled, Are we worshipping the idol of open options?, it speaks to this point and the reality that like it or not, choices bombard us on a daily basis. It starts off with a picture of a Starbucks coffee cup with the various options printed down the side of the cup. These include: decaf, shots, syrup, milk, custom, drink, and extra foam. A psychologist interviewed points out that we are a culture that demands choice and loves options, but we confuse this with limitless freedom. In fact, this apparently limitless choice does not make us happy. The number of choices available to us, he observes, becomes overwhelming, and actually makes it difficult for us to ever have the joy of fully committing to anything or anyone. Even if we do commit, our culture makes us feel dissatisfied with the choice we ve made. By way of example, listen in on the musings of a man standing in line at a Starbucks store. The customer in front of him has ordered a decaf grande sugarfree vanilla nonfat latte with extra foam and milk heated to 140 degrees. The man

5 5 overhearing this began to wonder, has my choice of milk temperature been catastrophically naïve up to this point? [Christianity Today, Barry Cooper; Are you worshipping the idol of open options? ] Take this kind of scrutiny and apply it to the bigger question of relationships, work, and worship, and we quickly realize the options are not trivial, but have far reaching consequences. The Israelites forgot the God who saved them from slavery; and once free, they would not commit completely to Him. Their decision was indecision. You are here today. You made the decision to come to church and I m willing to bet there were more that a few choices in competition with each other that could have gotten in the way, but you committed to being here - a good decision. I like the words of Elisabeth Kǜbler-Ross on this subject. She says, We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind s greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear. God is not indecisive. God always has and always will love us. Perhaps that is what Moses wanted the Israelites to hear. I speak to you in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy [Ghost] Spirit. Amen.