Sermon Joshua 24:1, 13-28 June 21, 2020 Father’s
Day
Choose Today
On
this day across the country and the world, men are receiving hand written
cards, coffee mugs, ties, t shirts, breakfast in bed and other treats to let
them know how important they are to lives of the people who love them.
It
is one way to affirm that in their life this man has made a difference to
them.
Not
all men are dads,
not
all men are famous,
not
all men are ‘the best ever’,
not
all men are memorable.
But,
we all remember a man in our life who was a change agent for our life.
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| Change Agent Men of the church! |
Whether
it was a teacher in elementary school,
or
a coach in little league,
a
scout leader,
a
Sunday school teacher, a priest or a pastor;
a
neighbor, or a waiter, a bank teller, or an accountant,
there
is someone, some man, we have met who made an impact on our life.
With
a few words, or a gesture,
or
an action that man moved us
in
way that moved our life to a new direction.
“What counts in life is not the fact that we
have lived. It is the difference we have made to the lives of others that will
determine the significance of the life we lead.” This quote is attributed
to Nelson Mandela. There are men who have made proclamations that have moved us
to follow and to make a vow also.
Perhaps,
that’s why we have Joshua 24:15 hanging on plaques through our homes or on
doilies and bookmarks. “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”
This
is a proclamation made by Joshua to the people gathered at Shechem.
These
are Joshua’s words and while powerful and important, the rest of the story (as
Paul Harvey would say) is where we find our challenge, our opportunity.
Joshua gathered the people, the leaders at
Shechem. Shechem itself is an important place in the story of Israel. It
appears six times in the history of the people of Israel. Shechem is the
covenant making center. It is the place of a stone monument a large tree and an
oral history of covenants between God and God’s people.
Joshua
is about to die.
He
gathers the people before him just before they go on their own way to their new
inherited lands.
Joshua
stands before them with a challenge to unite them before God.
He
will not be going with them and so he sets himself apart.
He
proclaims to them who he is and who God is to him.
He
sets the bar high.
He
makes clear to the people that before they separate one from the other they
need to speak their truth with one voice.
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| Ecumenical Choir on Christian Unity, France 2005 |
His
leadership sets the tone.
He
reminds the people of God’s acts in their life.
He
retells their history, their ancestry.
He
goes down the list of names that are part of who they are.
He
tells them this so they will retell the same ancestry and history in their
different lands to the generations that follow.
“Choose today who you will
serve” he challenges.
The
hymn Once to Every Man and Nation is a powerful hymn written in 1845 to
a people in a nation in upheaval, ready to make the most difficult choices of
their lives.
Choices
that would put brother against brother.
The
words are haunting and full of truth.
“Once
to every man and nation comes a moment to decide, in the strife of truth with
falsehood, for the good or evil side; some great cause, some new decision,
offering the bloom or blight, and the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that
darkness and that light…yet ‘tis truth alone is strong; though her portion be
the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong, yet that scaffold sways the future,
and behind the dim unknown, standeth God within the shadow keeping watch above
his own.”
Times
of war and strife have placed men in choices of life and death.
In
Strasbourg, France there is a statue in the central park of a mother.
It
looks much like the pieta.
It
is a mother holding the bodies of two sons draped across her arms.
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| Monument aux Morts |
It
is a statue of the sons of the country who were caught in the moment to decide
and each chose a different side for which to fight.
And
this beautiful city understood and understands
to
this day the difficult challenges that lay before men.
And
so they honor their dead who fought on either side of the war.
We
never know the future struggles we will face.
The
people who have been the influence in our life
are
the ones who shape us and our decisions.
Who
are the people who have guided our feet?
Were
their shoes too big for us?
When
we remember those change agents
in
our life we realize
they
are the people
who
pushed us,
who
challenged us,
who
gave us hard tasks,
and
set high expectations.
That’s
what allowed us to respond with the strength we needed to make those difficult
choices and to stand firm. They believed in us enough to know that we would
answer the call to say yes to the tough tasks ahead of us.
Joshua’s
proclamation to the people and challenge was,
“Choose
today who you will serve.”
He
knew that following God was more than just listening for a sweet loving voice
from God.
The
God we serve who called us out of a life of darkness into a life of light is
more than a fuzzball of sweetness,
this
God we serve is a jealous God,
a
stubborn God,
a
God who gets angry,
a
God who seeks after his own like the hound of heaven.
This
God lifts the people out of the snares of danger with giant claws of an eagle
and soars through the skies with them dangling in the air.
That’s
a scary kind of God.
This
is our God.
This
is our God who calls for obedience and fear/awe.
These
are words we have watered down in the church because they sound too autocratic.
Yet, our yes to God comes with serious responsibility.
It
comes with consequences.
When
we make a vow of any kind, we are expected to live by it.
God
made a vow to us to always love us.
We
have the opportunity to respond to the challenge,
“Choose
today who you will serve?”
Our
God is full of stubborn love, relentless, and never letting go kind of love, with
high expectations of following the commandments laid before us.
Commandments
of loving neighbors, and enemies, of keeping holy sabbath, of not stealing or
cheating, not lying or envying.
Those
are a high calling that we forget God called us to obey, to revere, and to
follow.
Three
times the people responded to Joshua’s challenge and yelled out,
“The
Lord our God we will serve and we will obey.”
And
with this third response Joshua drew up the covenant before God and the people
and sent them to their lands.
He
was the change agent to stir them up
and
to draw them out so they would stand ready
and
proclaim God as their own.
We
need people in our lives to do that to us.
People
who challenge us, who draw us out,
who
put us to the test so we can discover
the
power of God within us to go forward in life.
We
are never able to take the risks to be better, live better, if we haven’t had
the example of someone who sets the tone, who reaches beyond themselves and
claims us through their voice.
Today,
on this Father’s Day,
let
us be thankful to the men who were change agents in our lives.
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| Mike change agent-sailing arrival in Greece |
Let
us also answer the call of God who gave us his only Son, Jesus Christ, that
whoever believes in him with have life abundant in this life and the next.
Tell
us your stories, tell each other the stories, proclaim today who you will
serve.
Be
the man who will be the change agent for others from this day forward.
Amen.
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