Either/Or 11-12-23
Either/Or
Mt 25:1-13; Joshua 24:1-3, 14-25
Mt 25:1-13
“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Joshua 24:1-3, 14-25
Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel; and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors—Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac;. . . “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed; and the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.” But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm, and consume you, after having done you good.” And the people said to Joshua, “No, we will serve the Lord!” Then Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” The people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and him we will obey.” So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made statutes and ordinances for them at Shechem.
Prayer – Lord of truth, your word is demanding upon us. Your voice shatters our complacency, disturbs our false peace, prods us toward new life, dismantles our structures of security. We come this morning with far too much uncertainty in our world all the while hoping for some sense of peace and serenity. Sometimes, O God, you give us what we want while others times you give us the truth and the light you know we need. Give us grace to hear whatever you have to say to us, to love you on your terms rather than ours, to follow where you lead rather than where we want to go, and to have faith in you rather than ourselves and our devices – amen.
At last the Israelites have made it to the Promised Land. Egyptian slavery and the struggles in the wilderness are far behind them. Joshua, their leader stands before them and preaches, “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Decide today whom you will worship – the God who delivered you from bondage or some other god more to your liking. Sounds like one of those ‘come to Jesus moments doesn’t it?’
And of course the people of Israel realize that Joshua isn’t pulling any punches – he is preaching pretty hard – and so they respond with a vow to worship the God of Israel, the God who has promised to be their God. Unsurprisingly, Joshua is oddly unconvinced by their promise to worship God rather than idols. He had them promise three times, ‘we promise, we swear, we vow we will worship the true and living God rather than some dead, human-made idol.’ For Joshua, it is an either/or decision.
I wonder if Joshua was convinced, still a little uneasy that God’s people may backslide into worshipping the gods of Egypt or of their promised land, Canaan, at any time. You know gods of weather, of planting and harvesting, of fertile wombs for large families, of peace and harmony. We listen to this ancient scripture and may think to ourselves, “Well, we may still have problems with racism, consumerism, materialism, wealth, technology, health and fitness, but at least we’ve come a long way from those Israelites. We’re not a bunch of pagan idolaters.” Who do we choose to follow? Where do our feet take us? Like the Israelites, for us, it is an either/or choice.
But Joshua knows his people – he knows how fickle they are, how quick they are to despair and to turn away from the God of their salvation, and even though those fears will soon be played out again and again in Israel’s and Judah’s history, still Joshua tries to impress upon them the need for them to not forget the reminder and thus encourages them to make a choice. Because Joshua recognizes a simple truth, one summed up well by Bob Dylan – “You’re gonna have to serve somebody.” For Joshua, it’s an either/or choice.
We will either serve the Lord our God or a god of our own interests. I admit, other gods are pretty attractive. Just watch the ads on TV any day of the week – take or use this product and your life will be better. Drive this pickup truck and you will have arrived. Drink this beer and you won’t get fat. The other gods have a way of focusing on the comforts of life, things to make a hard life easier if only you make the appropriate purchases and do the right rituals. Service to these gods of our own interest demand comparatively little over and against the demands of the God of Israel. So, for us, it is either/or as well.
The God of Israel demands much more than just proper worship and ritual. The God of the covenant demands justice within the community, concern for the poor, widow and orphan, concern for the stranger, putting your money, your faith, your daily walk on God’s path of faithfulness. Joshua knows this God demands more of God’s people. “Choose this day who you will serve,” Joshua says, “cause you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” For Joshua, for us, it is an either/or choice.
Joshua offers a glimpse into his own personal commitment. “As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua warns the people of Israel and us today, that this God does not want casual, verbal pledges. What this God requires is a life-commitment that will impinge upon every dimension of our lives – public, social, political, economic. Joshua is saying to us as he said to his community long ago, this isn’t a both/and, this is an either/or, we have to choose who we will follow.
What is at issue is a God who is committed to neighborly justice and the organization of the economy for the sake of the weak and vulnerable. But the other gods, the totems of self-sufficiency don’t require such neighborly passion. The either/or that Joshua presents has immediate social consequences. A decision to choose God entails socio-economic justice. A decision for other gods leads inevitably to socio-economic exploitation, the accumulation of wealth at the expense of neighbors. Things like tax cuts that benefit the few and oppress the majority. Such a religion without commitment to social justice will eventuate in communities of economic failure where some live on the right side of town and others live across the railroad tracks.
Joshua understood very well that a ‘choice of god’ entails a decision about a political economy as well. Thus, Joshua suspects that his people, not too different from us today, want to have it both ways – to enjoy the promises and provisions of God while at the same time accepting the self-serving gifts of the gods we tend to desire in our everyday lives. And still it seems to me that we, like the people of Israel, are at a come to Jesus moment. We as a people, we as individuals, we as communities and communities of faith have to choose – either/or – who will we serve.
It seems that this text is perhaps more appropriate during the past week when our country was faced with yet another election that clearly had divergent paths. We are at a crossroads I believe, re-deciding what kind of society and what kind of community we want to be. Our decision has old roots in covenantal neighborliness that anticipates, as we say in the flag pledge, ‘justice for all.’ That same pledge also says, ‘liberty for all.’ And now a privatized ‘liberty’ is in conflict with a socialized sense of justice. That issue goes very deep in to many homes and neighborhoods today.
This text has been appropriate for us as a church over the last year as we considered how to proceed as a congregation. We chose, after prayer, after meetings, after discussion, and probably after a fair amount of inner wrestling – to change our name. Our choice was an either/or - We either do or we don’t. And this church made a powerful choice to add GRACE to its name while dropping Presbyterian. And as we made that either or choice, I wonder what other either/or choices lie ahead?
This text is before us as we may be entering into a new land, a land of opportunity. The new landscape is very different from our old, taken-for-granted life. We are not the same nation we were 1 year ago any more than we are the same nation we were 50 years ago. We are now in an information age with boundless electronic opportunities for all kinds of ventures that summon us. Our new venue of faith in a changed world that has to deal with a post-pandemic world where economic disparity, a mixed population of many languages, ethnic groups and religious orientations that some see as threats and rivals. Indeed, our new venue for faith is a reality that is as new as was the new venue of Joshua and the Promised Land.
Churches are facing a changing landscape unlike anything we have ever imagined. The life of faith has been evolving over the last two generations – the church is no longer the center of the community. Competing priorities mean that we have to think outside of the box when we think about the life of our churches. We are in uncharted territory as faith communities, plus we are dealing with a landscape that, recently said socially distance, don’t gather in large groups and that has in fact changed church in many ways – we have Zoom participants, we have folks engaging church differently today. Like the Israelites in ancient times, we are faced with considering new paths to embody our faithfulness. And it only makes me wonder what either/or choice is next for the church.
In that new venue of ‘otherness,’ contemporary as ancient, our passage this morning invites us to make a choice. It is news indeed that decisions can be made. It is perhaps easier to imagine that we are pre-destined to our fate, that the die is cast; we may be resigned in despair or cynicism, or we may be excited about new chances. The choices before us are more open than despair or cynicism and more demanding than greedy buoyancy.
What is before us in our world, as it was before Joshua and his companions, is faithful decision about God and neighbor. The God decision is a recognition that we are not our own gods to do whatever we may want to do. The God of the covenant is no therapeutic push-over who benignly accepts selfish anti-neighborliness and the cheapening of the human fabric. The neighbor decision is an awareness that the ones unlike us merit, because they are present, inclusion in the goodies of the community, so that we are not free to engage in private greed and acquisitiveness.
It is no wonder that Joshua was hard-nosed with his community. The choices made are costly and demanding. But Joshua also knew that default on such decisions doesn’t make them go away because God is not easily expelled from our common life. Joshua also knew that no decision was a decision. To disregard such decisions is to make big choices that may very well lead to big trouble.
So the question is before us – and this time it is an either/or question – who do we choose to follow, who do I choose to follow? It seems that life itself, faith itself offers countless opportunities to decide – either this or that. May God give us the courage to choose to be faithful followers and true believers, may God give us the passion to include our different neighbors, and may God facilitate a healing of our world that truly makes us one faithful body and one grateful people – thanks be to God – amen.