SERMON "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life that you may live." Deuteronomy 30: 19. This is, when you think about it, a rather curious choice to set before anyone. For a start anyone listening to the words is by definition already alive, so why would you invite them to choose something that they already have? We are alive at the moment and one day we will be dead and there doesn t seem to be a very big element of choice in any of that. Well Ok, perhaps we accept that the writer must be talking about life which is more than having a heart that beats and lungs that breath. And we know that is true. We recognise that there is more to human life than a few biological facts. We might say of someone, She is full of life meaning that she has certain qualities of energy and enthusiasm. Or we might look at other people, and decide that full of life would not be a good description. There was a cartoon which showed a plump middle aged man slumped in his easy chair staring vacantly out the window. Behind him his wife is saying to a friend. Last week, I think he had a near-life experience. It is possible to be alive and yet not to really live. And this morning we have a text from our scriptures which implies not only that there are different qualities of life, but that we have a choice to make about what kind of life we are going to have. It is saying that we get to decide, and indeed we have to decide, how we are going to live in the world. Now there are many arguments which would question the validity of that claim. Sometimes it seems that the quality of our lives depends on other people, on decisions taken in other places over which we have absolutely no control. Sometimes it seems that we are merely victims of our environment, we say it was my parents, it was my upbringing, it was a poor education or a lack of support, that made me who I am today. The modern version of that is to claim that we are all victims of our genes, that
how we cope with life is programmed into our DNA and there is nothing we can do about it. Clearly there is some truth in all of that, but I am also convinced that there is great wisdom in these ancient words which tell us we have a choice, we have options, we have decisions to make. So the choice once that was set before the ancient tribes of Israel at a key moment in their history echoes down to us, calling us to choose what we want from our days upon the earth, and how we want to live. Well if that is the choice then our answer seems easy enough. Being asked to choose between life and death sounds like the ultimate no-brainer, as does the option of blessings or curses. However what it is not so easy, and not so obvious, is to accept that in order to get those good things we need to say no to other things. That is the thrust of the passage that we read. There is a picture of a great life in the new land that they are about to inhabit, but it is made clear that if they get distracted, if they chase after other things, if they opt not to bother terribly much with the things of God, that great life is just not going to happen. So it is not a choice between living a clearly good life and an obviously bad life. Most of us could manage to get that right. It is a choice between wanting the blessings that God offers enough to be willing to turn their backs on other things, or merely wanting those blessings alongside lots other things that they might also desire to do and to be and to have. That is why the question carries so much power for us today. Yes there are lots of things that will affect the course of our lives that are beyond our control, but we get to choose, indeed we have to choose, what we really want from life, and therefore what we are going to give our main focus and our best energy and our greatest devotion to. Think of a child who wants to learn to play the piano. That is a good thing to want. Mastering that skill will bring them pleasure later in life, and hopefully it might just bring pleasure to others also. Who wouldn t want to
play the piano? But if a child is to have that great gift it means they will have to practice, which might mean that they can t go out to play sometimes, or that they have to miss a television programme, or that they can t also learn to play the guitar and the flute and the drums. Because in order to say yes to something we have to be willing to say no to something else. In order to say yes to life which is full and rich and deep and meaningful and satisfying, we have to say no to other things which be both innocent and attractive, but which will not lead us to that kind of living. This is a very unfashionable way of thinking today where we are led to believe that we can have it all, and indeed that we deserve to have it all. (because we re worth it!) Yet the truth remains that if we are serious about wanting something, we need to be willing to sacrifice other things, not bad things, but lesser things. If we want something badly enough, we will be ready to let go of other things. If we recognise a pearl of great price we will, in the language of Jesus, be ready to sell everything we own in order to purchase the field in which it can be found. For that one thing will mean so much to us that nothing else can ever match up. " Now choose life that you may live." Yes we want to have a meaningful relationship with God. Yes we want to understand more fully who we are and why we are here and what leads to fulfillment and contentment in life. Yes we want to do that by being active members of a church and practicing the Christian faith. That is what we choose, I don't doubt that for a moment. But do we choose it, adding quietly that of course we want so many other things as well. Well what if that is not possible? What if it were clear to us that in order to live a Christian life we have to say no other things, just because the need to practice our religion is going to take precedence. What if it were clear to us that a Christian life lived out alongside lots of other priorities is actually not a Christian life at all, just doing enough to allow us to pretend to ourselves that we are serious. What if it were clear to us that there is so much to be gained by mastering skills like regular bible reading, and deep
prayer, and honest fellowship, and ready forgiveness, that nothing else can ever offer us such rewards. What if we come to see these things as so valuable that we were willing to set aside other attractive things in order to gain them. How different would our lives look then? Jesus words from Matthew s gospel tell us that the life of faith is indeed something which goes deep and which will take at least a lifetime to really work out. He says that you can t just turn up at worship without having spent time getting your relationships right in advance. He says that you can t just obey rules about sexual behaviour without facing up to and working on your deep set attitudes. He says that this stuff is serious enough that you would be better going into it with one eye than trying to do it while you keep other lifestyles going as well. This faith which is God s gift to us goes to the very heart of our being, changing our attitudes and transforming our experience of life. That is not something we can gain by wanting it in the same way that we want an occasional trip to the theatre, or a nice house, or a healthy pension fund. For this kind of life is something that we have to choose, even if that means putting it before other things that we might also like to choose. It is something that we have to opt in to with real commitment and devotion and sincerity, or we will left outside. For many of us the failure to choose life, the failure to really decide what is most important in life and to commit ourselves to that, will not look like the man on his easy chair gazing easily out of the window. It is more likely to be a life driven by the expectations of colleagues, or the needs of some financial plan or the attempt to exorcise some demons of our childhood. But the ultimate effect is the same. We get to the end of our days and we wonder where they all went. We wonder why we gave so much of our precious time and effort to things that we discover to have been meaningless, and so little to things that we discover to be precious enough to deserve it. It was a more experienced minister than myself who once told me that in all his years of talking with people in their final
moments, he had never yet met one who had told him, I just wish I had spent more time at the office. Remember we always have a choice, we always have options. 19 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, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him