Choose This Day

Pentecost 14, Proper 16

Fr. Tim Nunez

Choose This Day

May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

We heavily emphasize scripture in our weekly worship, usually two Old Testament readings including the psalm and two New Testament readings including the Gospel. Wise preachers work in and from the text.

The word scripture is drawn from the Latin word scriptura which means simply writings. The Greek word for writings is grajh, from which we get our words graphics, graphite and, well, graph. In other words, these writings are so important that the ancient words for writings refer, just as the ancient Greek word for book, biblos, came to be synonymous with THE Book, or the Bible. 

These writings are memories that we have preserved, translated and studied for millennia because they are foundational to our faith and our very sense of meaning and purpose, of being human.

Our best estimate is that this story from the book of Joshua goes back 3400 years, and yet it speaks to where we are right now. To set the scene, after being delivered by God from slavery in Egypt and 40 years in the wilderness, Joshua leads the conquest of the Promised Land, which is inhabited by various tribes with various gods with idols representing them.

Here is a big challenge. When Israel left Egypt, a lot of other slaves hitched a ride with them. The Israelites struggled to remain faithful to God. We get story after story of their failures and reconciliations with God along the way, some of which involved idols from Egypt. And while they were able to conquer the Promised Land, the survivors of those conquered tribes are still there, with their false gods and idols. There’s some intermarriage with those tribes. Some people tend to avoid conflict, anyone here been married? So, despite the Second Commandment, those false idols are still around.

Joshua needs to bring them all, descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as well as everyone else in the Promised Land, into the covenant that God made with his people.

He gathers them at Shechem. But why Shechem?

Shechem is where Abraham worshipped God first when he came into the region and it is where God first promised the Promised Land to his descendants. It’s where Jacob returned after his sojourn in Paddan-Aram and built an altar to God which he called "El-Elohe-Israel" or “Mighty is the God of Israel.”

Shechem sits in the middle of the hill country, about half way between Jerusalem and Galilee, physically in the heart of the Promised Land. It sits right along the ancient trade route between Africa and Europe and Asia. More importantly, it sits between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, the two mountains God commanded them to conduct a covenant renewal ceremony. On Mount Gerizim they pronounced blessings on faithfulness and on Mount Ebal they proclaimed curses on disobedience.

Shechem is so important that they will bury Joseph’s bones there, which they brought with them out of Egypt. It’s a big moment in a very special place.

Note what Joshua says. He doesn’t say, “Choose this day whom you will believe.” He doesn’t say, “Choose this day whom you will worship.” He says, “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Meg and I actually have that over the inside of our front door along with the later phrase “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” It’s there to remind us to serve Him.

Serving God requires that we become aligned with his will in our hearts and minds, and then act upon it. Belief and worship are necessary to get direction on where and how to serve God.

Will they serve the gods of their ancestors, either in Egypt or locally? Those false gods tended to represent the physical world, son, moon, etc. or agriculture, or fertility or death and the afterlife. Our idols don’t have similar names, but they aren’t so different; economics, productivity, sex, food and so on. Each of us has our own list that starts with the person in the mirror.

The point is to recognize who we are serving and how and where God is calling us to serve. That includes the ways God would have us serve him in our families, our friendships, our work and our leisure time. It may require we set some things aside or learn how to do them to God’s glory. You may feel called to take something up – I certainly hope that many will!

Today is Connection Sunday, a day when we emphasize each person’s call to ministry. That is central to our purpose – connecting people to Jesus and helping them hear and answer his call to serve. That includes the internal and external ministries of our church and other ministries in our community. We’ve invited the Lake Wales Care Center and Idols Aside to be with us again this year because they each have many ways for you to serve Christ.

Choose this day whom you will serve.

AMEN!