“Do I really have a choice?” That question was posed the other day by one of our teenagers. She was talking about whether she had to go to school. She felt cornered. She felt boxed in. She was speaking for a great many of us. We feel as though we really do not have any choice about many important things. “Do I really have a choice?”
That teenager has no choice about going to school. The law says you will go to school, parents say you will do your homework, and teachers get on your case if you don’t. That’s that. Do I really have a choice?
Do I really have a choice as to whether I am going to work? Granted, there are some folks who seem mysteriously to float through life without working, but for most of us ordinary mortals, no work, no pay; and no pay, no eat. That makes the choice pretty clear. Do I really have a choice? So much of the time, choices are already made for us. We have little or nothing to say in the matter. It’s settled, done, finished. No choice.
Oh, I did meet the married couple who had it all worked out about making choices. They had an understanding about who made what choice. The wife said, “I make all the little choices and he makes the big ones. For example, I choose where we live, what we eat, what clothes we wear, and what car we drive. I also choose our jobs, our church, and the color of our wallpaper.” I said, “Wow, that’s a lot. You call those the little choices? What are the big choices, then? What does your husband get to choose?” “Oh”, she said, “Yes, he makes the big choices. He does all the major decisions – like whether the Fed should raise interest rates, or who the Wizards ought to start tomorrow night, or who the next president should be!”
So again, after listening to that, I have to raise the question, “Do I really have a choice?” Choice seems meaningless much of the time. Decisions don’t seem real. Life seems cut and dried. Freedom doesn’t seem accessible. We feel disempowered.
And so when it gets down to the most important decision of all, there too we feel as though we really don’t have a choice. The decision to live or to die. The choice of life or death – is that really a choice? After all, none of us chose to be born. Our parents did that, or maybe not, but here we are. We didn’t choose to be born. And most of us struggle with whether we choose to die. Not too many people are in a hurry to die, and usually we think that it’s not right to choose to end life. We think that the end of life belongs to God alone. And so, once again, when it gets down to the most important decision of all, the decision to live or to die, do I really have a choice? Is there really anything to be decided?
Moses seems to have thought so. The captain of Israel had brought his people through desert and drought, battle and blistering heat, to the very edge of the land of promise. It looked as though soon Canaan would be theirs and they would be able to settle down. It was all done, wasn’t it? What else was there to decide? What else needed to be done? Everything was working out. But Moses spoke of making a choice:
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity … I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life
Choose life! Of course! Who wouldn’t? Do I really have a choice? I think we do.
I
For one thing, we can choose whether to live or to die emotionally. We can choose to live with vitality and joy, or we can choose to die like rotten fruit on the vine. We can choose to live with purpose and meaning and direction and energy. Or we can choose to shrivel up. We can choose to let authentic life just slip away.
When Moses told the people that God was giving them a choice between life and death, he reminded them that God’s word of life was right there in front of them, right there for the taking.
Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?" Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?" No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.
Moses was telling that people that they have the choice of taking this moment, this very moment, and living, or they can let it pass, they can let it dwindle away into nothing and die. When God says, “Choose life”, He means, “Take it now.” Seize the moment. Carpe diem. Those who really choose to live are those who live now.
Some folks are buried in the past. Their lives are full of regrets. Nothing is as good as it used to be. Everything is downhill. And when you live in the past and not in the present, you have chosen death and not life. You have chosen self, which is death, and not God, who is life.
My grandmother was a wonderful cook. We looked forward to holidays when we would be invited to her house for a delightful meal. But every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every special occasion, when we would fill our tummies and push back from the table, she would say, “Well, it’s not as good as the last one I made.” Easter wasn’t as good as Christmas, and Christmas wasn’t as good as Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving wasn’t as good as birthday, and birthday wasn’t as good as last Easter, and so on back. We used to say that we wished we had had a taste of Grandmother’s first meal, because every one of them had been downhill since then!
Oh, but you know what my grandmother really wanted, don’t you? What did she want? Exactly what she got. A room full of family saying, “Oh, no, this was wonderful.” Her family crowing, “This was superb. Nothing could have been better than this.” She wanted her ego stroked! She wanted to be patted and polished! Of course! Who doesn’t?
Except that to choose to live in the past is to choose death. To choose to look backward for something better than now is to choose death. To choose never to get over the past, that is death. To choose never to forgive yourself for your mistakes, that’s death. When God says, “choose life”, He is telling us to use this moment, to live right now.
I’ve had some tremendous times sitting with and listening to dying people over the years. It doesn’t exactly sound like fun, but it is a blessing. And it is a very special blessing to listen to those who know that their condition is terminal and who have chosen not to undergo heroic treatments. There is nothing that will make you as conscious of the power of this moment as listening to someone who has chosen quality of life now over two or three months of existing in misery. Several people I know have made this choice. They all say, “Now is precious. Every moment is precious. I don’t want to waste any of it. I want to spend it loving and being loved. I want to invest it in sharing wisdom. I want to live now because I don’t have many tomorrows.”
Right here, right now, is what God has given. This moment is the only one I really have. I’ve already spent yesterday, and tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, so let us live this moment with vitality and with joy. Let us live this moment, under God, with purpose and meaning and direction and energy. Let us take this moment and fill it with life.
Yesterday morning some of us attended a conference. We gathered for worship along with two or three hundred other church leaders. The music for our worship was presented by a Brazilian praise team, complete with drums and clapping hands and that seductive Portuguese language. We stood to our feet to join in the praise; I complied, as instructed, but slowly. We were told to clap our hands in rhythm; I did as I was instructed, but reluctantly. I was thinking about such things as dignity and decorum, so I clapped very carefully. But out of the corner of my eye, across the room, I saw two of our deacons. I’m not going to name names, but I am pretty sure that what they were doing was the samba! They were alive! They were living into the moment! They’ve chosen to live now! My clapping got a little bolder and broader. I too want to choose life! I want to be here, now, not somewhere else, not stuck in the past, not holding back, but alive now!
Do I really have a choice? I certainly do. I can choose to fill each moment with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run. Or I can choose to let life slip through my fingers like water through a sieve. I can choose to live every moment to the full. Or I can choose to waste it all and come to the end wondering where it all went. The key is to live in the presence of God and draw from His energy; or to live all curved up into myself and die. Do I really have a choice? Yes, I do have a choice about whether to live with vitality and joy or whether to die while I’m still alive.
II
But there are other life choices that I can make too. Do I really have a choice? Yes, because we can choose whether to affirm and enhance life for others, or we can choose the stifling death of isolation. We can choose whether to bring life to others or to abandon them to all the deaths that our society wants to bring. We can choose to offer life in all its fullness to others, or we can turn our backs and live in comfort and let them go.
There are a lot of different ways I could go with this point, but one way is suggested very strongly by a phrase in the text. Moses says,
Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.
Think with me about choosing life for our descendants, our children. It’s a year after Columbine; an eight-year-old boy was stabbed in Alexandria; six days ago, young people wounded by a shooting at the zoo. Then this weekend, a shooting spree near Pittsburgh. How can this be, and when will it stop? Children killed, children hurt, children in danger.
It is not only that children died or were wounded. It is also that something dies in the spirits of children when these things happen. Children suffer small but significant deaths when their friends and peers are under assault. Their sense of security has been wounded. Their carefree existence has been shattered. Their right to be children, playing and learning and laughing and loving, has been violated. When we permit a violent society to continue, we are choosing death for our children just as surely as if we had used the guns ourselves.
But God’s word says, “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.” Choose life! Do I really have a choice about choosing life for our children? I believe that we do have a choice and that we must exercise that choice. I believe that the people of God can no longer stand idly by while weapons circulate. We must do something about the flood of guns that has invaded our schools and has shown up on our streets. I believe that we need to strengthen and to enforce gun laws. Personally, if I were in political office, I would work toward the complete elimination of firearms from civilian life. Protecting the ability of hunters to bring down a few birds is not worth the life of even one American child. We can choose life by getting involved in the gun issue. Later this spring or summer I hope to devote some of our Wednesday evening study sessions to this issue. We as God’s people need to know about it and do something. Otherwise we are choosing death. On Mother’s Day there is to be a Million Mom March here in Washington, focused on common-sense gun control. Some of us need to do a little more than give Mom a dinner at the restaurant. Some of us need to march with Mom and in honor of Mom against the arms race. We do have a choice. Let us choose life.
Let us choose life by raising our children in a non-violent atmosphere. Let us choose life by putting aside forever the symbols of death. My wife and I never permitted our children to have toy guns or weapons of any sort. If they whined, they whined. We were the parents. If they claimed that everyone else was doing it, we held firm. We told them that they were not everyone else, they were in our family, and in our family we used no weapons. Let us choose life by raising our children in a non-violent atmosphere.
Let us choose life by exposing our children to peaceful images. Let us choose life by paying attention to what is happening in the media. Films and television programs that demean women, or exploit sexuality, or suggest that fists and guns are the way to solve problems are not worthy of our support. Do we have a choice? We certainly do. I’ve never yet seen a TV set that didn’t have a little button marked, “off”. Push that button; send a message to advertisers and producers that we do not intend to pollute the minds of our children with violence. Choose life. We do have a choice. My dream is to see our church exercise its influence on this issue. We have among us plenty of people in the communications field. Through them I believe we can choose life.
And let us, people of God – let us choose life by providing our children with positive alternatives to the stuff that’s available on the streets. Let us choose life as a church that offers strong child-serving programs. Our children need to see how much fun it is to be a Scout, or to sing in a choir, or to attend Bible school, or to learn all sorts of things in our After-School Ministry and our Saturday Club. Let us as a church choose life for our children.
I pray for an expanded vision for our children and our youth. We’re working on some things that could really be important. Your church has some people with a vision for a computer learning laboratory, right here in this building. Your church has other people who are envisioning recreation for young people. Your church has still others who are looking at creating a youth center in this property. None of these things are ready to go. But there is vision. Do we really have a choice? I believe that we do. On this Children’s Sunday, let us choose life for our children. “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live”
III
Do I really have a choice? I can choose to live with vitality and energy now and not to dwell on the past. Choose life. Do I really have a choice? I can choose to give life to the children and not just pull back into isolation. Choose life.
But most fundamental of all, I can choose whether to receive the gift of eternal life, or I can choose to throw it away and embrace death forever. At the heart of all this is the greatest issue of all – to choose eternal life or to choose eternal death. There is more to us by far than yesterday’s mistakes and today’s pleasures. We are creatures made for eternity. We have an ultimate destiny.
Do I really have a choice? I have a choice to receive eternal life, or to embrace eternal death. Now I do not run around threatening the tortures of hell, nor do I paint fantastic pictures of heaven’s golden streets and pearly gates. I am not all that interested in the temperature of hell or the furniture of heaven. But I am nonetheless persuaded that our God has not made us just to throw us away. I am persuaded that our God loves us and wants fellowship with us forever. I am persuaded that our God so loved the world that he gave His only Son so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Everything I see, everything I feel, tells me that the most fundamental choice of all is whether to receive eternal life or whether to embrace death forever.
Moses put it pointedly to the people of Israel:
If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish …
The choice is straightforward. The choice is urgent. Trust God, walk in His ways, serve Him, and He assures us of eternal life. Or else serve other gods – the usual pantheon of greed and power and self-will – serve other gods and die. Perish. Not because God sits up in heaven and decrees it, just for fun. But because we have chosen, like sheep, to go our own way, do our own thing, and imagine we can do it all.
Do I really have a choice? I certainly do. I have the choice of receiving the gift of God, which I do not deserve; the choice of knowing that I am treasured by my Maker; the choice of being protected from hurt, harm, and danger by the one who holds all power in His hands. I have that choice. I have that choice because there was one who died in my place. There was one who chose death so that I could choose life. There was one who went to a cross and suffered the loss of all things, so that I could have all things. I have that choice.
Or I have the choice of doing what I want to do. The choice of doing whatever feels good. The choice of ignoring God’s ways and rebelling against God’s will. I have that choice. But it is a choice of eternal death. It is a choice of incredible misery. It is a choice of unspeakable pain.
Some day for each of us there will be a Remembrance Sunday service. Some day for each of us, from the youngest child to the oldest senior, someone will remember that we were here. Will they remember that we chose life now, vitality and energy and joy and purpose? Or that we chose death – recrimination and ego-stroking and unhappiness. As for me, I say, choose life. Will they remember, on that Remembrance Day, that we chose life for our children – doing something positive to make life rich for the children? Or will they say that we chose death – huddled up in a little shell, hoping that the world’s ills would just go away. As for me, I say, choose life. And most of all, on that Remembrance Day, on that Judgement Day, will God remember that we chose eternal life, secured for us by the blood of His Son? Or will God look around and say, “Where is my child, my dear one? Why isn’t he here, with me? Why did she choose death?” As for me, I choose life. I choose Jesus Christ; I choose life. I choose to love God because He first loved me. I choose to follow Christ, I choose to trust Christ. I choose life. Won’t you? Won’t you today, right now, choose life?
