At the Crossroad

Sermon

A few years ago, because of circumstances we did not welcome, Gregg and I replaced all the plumbing in our house. Gone were the 90-year-old galvanized pipes with heaven knows how much gunk in them. Now we have some sort of plastic, I think, thing. The water pressure is better, and we have no leaks behind the walls that might lead to black mold. Hallelujah.

But, when all this happened, they had to re-ground the house. I had no idea that houses had to be grounded, electrically speaking. Turns out those gunky, leaky galvanized pipes served another purpose—to ground the house in case of some sort of mysterious electrical event.

Being grounded is the way I think about today’s text from Deuteronomy. The Israelites are at the end of their forty-year journey through the wilderness. The promised land is in sight, but Moses—their fearless, faithful leader for those forty years—knows that he will not go with them for the last part of the journey. Today’s lesson is part of his farewell speech.

Actually, a fair amount of the book of Deuteronomy is his farewell speech. But the book as a whole serves a larger purpose than getting ready to be without Moses. Deuteronomy was written in its final form during another period of upheaval and change in Israel’s history. When the book was written, the great city of Jerusalem was under siege and then surrendered to the Babylonians. The temple, where God’s spirit was thought to dwell, was destroyed. The people were defeated and in danger of losing their identity. That is when Deuteronomy was written, in part as a response to the political and religious crises of the sixth century. Especially in today’s text, we hear the challenge to recommit to God amid all the change and unknown that the people face.

And what does this author, the historian, through the words of Moses, say? Choose God; choose life. When the world is falling apart around you, choose God, choose life. When change seems to be the only constant, choose God, choose life. When your beloved leader will not continue the journey with you, choose God, choose life.

It’s been a time of change for us, and my heart has been wrenched a few times this week; maybe yours has been too. It’s not that my world is falling apart, but change and sad news have been hard. In the midst of that, I try to remember to choose God and to choose life.

The crisis of the earthquake in Turkey is unspeakably horrific. I cannot imagine what it is like for those who are still alive—to be searching for loved ones; to be searching for shelter, for warmth, for water and food. All of that is exacerbated by the refugee crisis, by winter, and by unstable politics. I don’t know if I could say to anyone living in those horrors, or even those providing aid and relief, choose God, choose life. It sounds a little tone-deaf to me.

What I want to do is speak to God and say something along the lines of, “Tectonic plates that shift, really? What were You thinking?” But things don’t work that way, and maybe, for some of those people living in that tragedy, faith in God is helping. I don’t know.

On Wednesday I learned that some minister friends of mine, who live in another part of the country, lost everything they own to a house fire, which also killed their two beloved dogs. All their kitchen stuff; all their books; all their art; their precious rescue pets, gone.

Closer to home, and certainly of lesser impact, are the changes we’re experiencing here. My dear friend Anne has been visiting this week, and she asked how things were going. And then I started thinking back on the last several months.

“Well,” I said, “in July we let go our building superintendent who had been with us for fifteen years, and in August our director of children’s ministries, who’d been with us twenty-one years, left. And then we thought we wouldn’t have enough money but ended up having more than enough money at the end of the year. And then an unhoused person died in our stairwell, and our associate pastor, who’s been with us twenty years, announced she was taking a new call, and our bookkeeper, who is an utterly delightful colleague, gave two weeks’ notice, and a beloved member was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and a dear member died, and another beloved member was diagnosed with lung cancer, and we’re getting ready for an art show. So things are—fine?”

And then in the wee small hours of Friday morning, the phone rang, and we learned that Gregg’s father had just died.

Choose God. Choose life.

Often our transitions begin with grief, and when grief shows up, the best thing to do is acknowledge it and let it be. So we grieve the tragedy in Turkey and Syria, just as our friends grieve the fire that destroyed everything they owned, just as Gregg, Sarah, and I are grieving his father’s death. Grief comes first, too often. But then what?

Our daughter is in the throes of rehearsal for her school’s production of the Stephen Sondheim musical, “Into the Woods.” There’s a line from one of the songs that has stuck with me all week, when a character describes an experience she just had and says she was excited and scared. I think that sums things up well.

In our transitions, can we also be excited and scared? Can we view this particular season of Westminster as an adventure and not a drudge? Can we see the opportunity before us as an invitation not to tweak things but to look deeply and make the changes we need to make? Can we not jump to fixing problems but sit with our challenges and try to understand what lies under those challenges, to see what we might learn from our challenges?

Can we encourage each other, every day, every Zoom meeting, even gathering, every phone conversation, every text message, to choose God and to choose life, especially when things are not going the way we planned? What will it mean for us to choose God and to choose life?

Laurie has given us a beautiful example of that. Let me say that twenty years in one pastoral position can make one very comfortable. You have long-established relationships with people. You finally know your way around this building. You have given and received love, you have developed relationships based on deep trust. So why leave all that? Why not just stay comfortable?

Why leave? Because God beckons. Sometimes, as in Laurie’s situation, God uses the means of the old girls’ network, clergywomen from across denominational lines who reach out and say hey, I think I have an incredible opportunity for you. Why not just stay comfortable? Because comfort is never what God call us to. God calls us to love. God calls us to serve. And if you have ever loved anyone, and if you have ever served anyone, you know that a lot of the time comfort is the last thing that shows its face.

Laurie has chosen to follow God’s call to Beaverton and St. Andrew Lutheran Church, and as much as I will miss her (and I will), I say, you go, girl. Laurie has chosen life, that energy that comes when setting off on a new adventure, that fresh vista, that new commute.

What will it mean for us to choose God and to choose life? To answer that, let’s go back to the Exodus story which ends with the book of Deuteronomy. For forty years, the formerly enslaved Israelites who had once been living and dying in Egypt wandered in the wilderness. It took them a long time to leave Egypt and get to the promised land, more time than was necessary. But they needed those forty years to figure out who they were as children of God who were not enslaved but free, children of God whose God demanded them to live in a certain way.

They followed Moses and sometimes they got it right, but just as often they got it wrong. God finally decided to make things easy for them and gave them Ten Commandments to follow—just ten!—and still they didn’t always get it right. And even though at times they gave up on God, God never gave up on them.

And now they’re ending their journey and they find out Moses isn’t joining them in the new chapter. But those Israelites chose God and trusted that even though Moses wouldn’t go with them to the promised land, God would be with them. And though the Israelites followed Moses, and trusted him, and maybe even loved him, they would not stay with him, make a monument to his grave, stay with the dead. They chose life, as exciting and scary as it would be.

Sometimes I wish that for a season, like for Lent, we would do nothing but have worship and Bible study and prayer. We’d dispense with committee meetings for a while, and just focus on our individual and communal relationships with God. In the past when I’ve mentioned doing such a thing to Gregg, I get an earful….

But I think that this season we’re about to enter—a season without Laurie’s caring presence and the season of Lent—is a time that we can intentionally ground ourselves in our faith. Before we do anything, we pray. Before we jump to any decisions or conclusions, we have conversations with each other about discerning what God might be leading us to. We remind each other that none of us is alone, and we live that out—we are intentional about walking alongside each other, especially alongside those who are going through hell. We abandon no one.

And we choose life, and we are excited and we are scared. Choosing life in this season might mean not settling for the quick and easy solution that leads nowhere but trying something that might work and might not but at least moves us off the dime.

One pastor put it this way, what it means to choose life.

“Quit doing what is not worth your time.
Do something so someone else will not have to.
Give money to a cause you care about.
… Apologize to someone, even if it was mostly his fault.
Forgive someone, even if she doesn’t deserve it.
Have patience.
Stop having patience when it is time to tell the truth.
Figure out what you hope for and live with that hope.
Search for something better and deeper than your own comfort.”

(Brett Younger, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 1, p. 343)

Amen. To the glory of God.