The Cathedral Church of St. Peter
Joe Liotta, a member of Albany Via Media, was in St. Petersburg, FL on Sunday and heard the following sermon preahed at The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter's by The Rev. Earl Beshears. The text is Deuteronomy 30:15-20. The point is, God is calling us to chose life in all our relationships:
In the name of the Living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
During the darkest days of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote a letter to President F. W. de Klerk. He told de Klerk that he could resist the abolition of apartheid if he wanted to but the issue had already been decided. Bishop Tutu told him that God had already determined the outcome. Apartheid would be abolished and all people would live in freedom and dignity. How did the bishop know this would happen? He told de Klek that apartheid would end because that’s the way God wants it. That’s God’s choice and it’s just a matter of time that apartheid would end. Eventually de Klerk changed his position to be on the side of God and apartheid ended.
I think this small piece of history is instructive in our deliberations about blessing same gender relationships and marriage equality. This too is God’s choice. When I do premarital counseling my primary question is whether or not God is in this relationship? Did God bring the couple together? If the answer is no, I decline to officiate the marriage. Regardless of gender, if God has created the relationship, whether we bless them or not, God has already blessed them. It’s just a matter of time and discrimination against same gender couples will end.
Wherever we find two people who have joined together in faithful covenant, loving and comforting, honoring and keeping each other, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others as long as they they shall live - wherever we find those promises made and kept, there we find God’s blessing. Such miracles do not happen without God.
+++++
Moses speaks for God when he says: “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob."
It is so easy to read the book of Deuteronomy as a simplistic guide to health, wealth, and a comfortable long life. A kind of prosperity gospel in the Hebrew Bible. If you follow the rules, you get all the goodies you want; if you break the rules, destruction is sure to come.
When I was 12 years old, I came home from Sunday School and told my parents I did not want to go back. All the Sunday School teacher talked about was what I should do and not do and the terrible punishments I would receive for not following the rules. The teacher was doing his best to make me afraid of God and he was succeeding.
It was not until years later that I encountered the book of Job. If you want to know if following all the rules brings the good life, just ask Job; he will tell you how ridiculous this notion is in no uncertain terms. Any person who has lived for five minutes in this world knows all too well that exemplary actions do not automatically bring wondrous rewards and reprehensible evil does not automatically result in appropriate punishment. Good honest people often get hurt and evil people sometimes seem to be rewarded.
This reward and punishment notion is not what Moses is talking about. To have a clearer idea of Moses’s meaning, knowing the Hebrew grammar will help. It’s dangerous to include a Hebrew grammar lesson in a sermon. It almost guarantees that some of you will tune me out and I will not be able to regain your attention.
I’ll take that chance because I think it’s important we understand that when Moses says “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live,” the word “choose” is not an imperative. It is not a command or threat to choose life with reward or punishment to follow based on our decision. Instead, the word “choose” is in the indicative, describing what is happening or what will happen. This verse might be better translated as “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. You will choose life so that you and your descendants may live..."
“You will choose life..."
Can you see the difference? God is not threatening us with death and curses. He is not commanding us to choose or else be damned. Moses speaks for God when he says “you will choose life.” He speaks to the people of God and says the people of God will choose life. Choosing life is one of the attributes of God’s people. We will choose life by loving the LORD our God, obeying him, and holding fast to him.
The whole notion of choice and choosing is sometimes confusing to me. There are things we simply do not choose for ourselves. We did not choose our parents, our native intelligeThe whole notion of choice and choosing is sometimes confusing to me. There are things we simply do not choose for ourselves. We did not choose our parents, our native intelligence, our sexual orientation, our country of origin, the faith taught to us as children, and many other significant aspects of our lives that make us who we are. All of these and many other things were decided for us at our birth. Different parents, different DNA, different life circumstances and we would be different people. nce, our sexual orientation, our country of origin, the faith taught to us as children, and many other significant aspects of our lives that make us who we are. All of these and many other things were decided for us at our birth. Different parents, different DNA, different life circumstances and we would be different people.
Going beyond the basics of nature and nurture, there are other important aspects of my life in which I do not feel like I had a real choice. Things like reporting to the selective service induction center after receiving a letter from President Johnson or getting on an airplane for deployment to Vietnam in 1967 when I was told to. Perhaps I had choices I did not know about but if you don’t know about other options, is it still a real choice?
I can’t recall ever making a decision to love my wife, or son or grandchildren. I just do. It’s like loving them was programmed into my physical and social DNA. The first time I saw my son, Jean was being wheeled out of the delivery room cradling him in her arms. She looks up at me, smiles and says “isn’t he beautiful?” I had no choice, right then and there I loved him. This choice that is no choice, is like Moses saying: “you will choose life."
God’s covenant with us is really very simple and very profound: "I am your God; you are my people." You see: it is God’s choice; it is God choosing us; it is God creating us and choosing to be relationship with us. "I am your God; you are my people." God does the choosing, not us. God’s covenant relationship with us is wrapped in blessing. Choose life is not decision theology. We are already God's people because God made the choice.
However, we are not puppets who never make decisions and choices for ourselves. We make godly and spirit-led decisions when we gather here in worship or when we reach out to our neighbors who are in need or when we strive for peace and reconciliation or when we invite and welcome those who may be different into our cathedral community or when we respect the dignity of every human being and proclaim God’s blessing upon those whom God has already blessed. That is choosing life - choosing the life God wants for us.
You will choose life is not a command. It is encouragement. It is an invitation to live as God's holy people. And it is a simple statement of fact that God's great indicative is love and the foundation of our salvation is God’s grace, God’s choice, God’s holy indicative that we have life and have it abundantly.
This is the point in the sermon when, if you are still with me and not thinking about Hebrew grammar, you might be asking “SO WHAT? I’ve endured this grammar lesson and now I want to know, what does it mean for me, for us, that it is God’s choice and not my choice?"
In the simplest terms it means that we, God's people, respond to God's choice by loving God with all our heart and mind and body and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Choosing life means allowing our adoption as God's people to define how we live in the world. It is putting into practice, in all aspects of our communal lives, the same grace that we have received from God. The prophet Micah summarized choosing life this way: What does God require? To do justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God.
We are not bound by legal proscriptions, or belief in correct doctrine, or following church rules and regulations. This is the truth my Sunday School teacher missed. God did not create a reward and punishment world. When we think or act like God’s love depends upon us and our behavior, we slip into a magical view of the world and an idolatrous view of God. When we see obedience to God or Biblical rules or Church doctrine as a path to prosperity or salvation we have missed God’s blessing and God’s grace in our lives.
I didn’t choose to be born a man or to love a woman, that’s the way God created me. Jean and I received the church’s blessing 46 years ago and we have received God’s blessings throughout our marriage. Likewise, even when we the church refuse to acknowledge and bless, God bestows his blessing upon same gender couples. The world can resist God and God’s blessing but its just a matter of time and we will recognize and bless the loving relationships that God has created. It is just a matter of time and God’s great indicative that we choose life will be the way we live. One day all of our brothers and sisters, regardless of their sexual orientation will be treated with dignity and respect. Which side will we be on? Where will we stand?
We will choose life. We will choose to follow God and bless and honor the love and commitment that God is already blessing and honoring. We will strive to heal the injury and harm we have done to our brothers and sisters. We will rejoice with them when their love and promises are sanctified before the altar of God in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
How do I know this? Why will this happen? Because God has already determined the outcome. Because that’s the way God wants it - we will choose life.
AMEN
Earl Beshears ✝
Recent Comments