Whom Shall We Follow?

And then there are those extremely rare individuals who can calculate the day of the week for any date in history, or other feats of memory and calculation.

A few can hear or see something once and always be able to recall it.

But for most of us, this works only in our imagination.

Most of us need to hear and see something over and over again in order to thoroughly learn it.

And then to move from memorization to understanding and application of a piece of knowledge to life activities... that takes even more effort.

We recently completed catechetical camp, the three busy days that the pastor and students spend together in which we review lots of the things that they should be learning thus far in their lives.

One of the requirements is that each student is able to recite the 10 commandments without prompting.

And they each did so.

But they had more difficulty understanding Luther's explanations of the commandments.

One of our activities was to take the daily newspaper and to ask which commandments are involved in a particular story, either by the commandment being kept, or being broken.

It took awhile before they caught on that the commandments are not just words to be memorized, but words to be lived!... and how that takes place every single day in a multitude of ways.

We only learn such things a little bit at a time, with many repetitions.

It is never once and done; we just cannot assimilate things quickly.

So when God gives the commandments on Mt. Sinai, beginning with the promise I am the Lord your God, he already knows full well that this covenant will have to be repeated many times, and by each generation.

And to start, God gives the covenant twice while they are still there at Sinai, because of their disobedience!

As Moses nears the end of his life, he calls the people together and reviews the goodness of God and the Lord's expectations of his people.

The book of Deuteronomy functions as Moses' final testament to God's love, faithfulness, and expectations.

In our first lesson today, it is one generation later, nearing the end of Joshua's life, and he calls the people together again to renew the covenant.

They gather at Shechem, the place where Abraham had built his first altar, where Jacob had bought property, where Joshua had earlier built an altar to God.

It was recognized as a place of contact between God and his people.

Joshua speaks on behalf of God, the maker and giver of covenant.

He follows a well-known format of a “vassal treaty,” an agreement given by a greater king to a lesser subject.

That is our status before God; we're not equal parties. God gives the covenant to us, we don't negotiate it!

(1) Following the naming of the parties of the covenant,

(2) then follows a historical review of what God has done for his people. Those are the verses that are omitted from our reading today, the verses that recall the bondage in Egypt, the exodus, the wilderness wandering, the entry into the land, and God's providence throughout.

(3) Then follows the stipulations:

Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your fathers served beyond the River, and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

Choose this day whom you will serve... but for me and my household, says Joshua, we will serve the Lord.

(4) Such a covenant needs witnesses, and in this case there are two kinds.

First, the people are to bear witness to each other as to what they have accepted from the Lord. They are to teach one another, to pass this on to their children, to make it a part of their daily living.

Second, Joshua sets up a large stone under the great tree at Shechem, so that when people pass by they will remember all that was said and done here.

(5) The covenant is also committed to writing, so that it can be taught and studied.

(6) There are rewards or consequences for keeping this covenant.

God will turn and consume you, Joshua warns the people, for he is a jealous God, who stands for no competition.

Don't try to deal falsely with him, Joshua admonishes the people.

Sure thing...we hear you...will do, everyone replies.

We know how briefly their resolve lasted.

We know how hard it is to learn and do it.

The next book in the Bible is Judges, which records how things fell apart after the death of Joshua.

The sad summary comment at the end of the book of Judges is: In those days there was no King in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

They forgot the objective nature of a covenant that had been given to them, and left it all to their feelings and whims; and disaster fell upon them.

It sounds very contemporary.

Not only outside the church, but even among the leadership of our own denomination, there are many who are saying that one's feelings and wants are more important than the scriptures and the 2,000 year tradition of the church.

In effect, they are saying that the commandments are old stuff, not in tune with present-day society, and need to be adjusted to what someone else thinks.

It is the same old argument that has been tried all across the centuries.

And whenever it gains the ascendancy, disaster is sure to follow.

Choose this day whom you will serve, the gods your ancestors served beyond the river and in Egypt, or the Lord your God, who brought you through the Exodus waters of Baptism and set you in a new company of people called church, the body of Christ,

who expects more from us than from the society around us,

who demands more of us,

and who has given more to us than we ever properly acknowledge.

What we are talking about here is perfectly congruent with the idea we outlined several weeks ago concerning the book of Ephesians that we've been reading in recent weeks.

The first three chapters of the book named the gifts of God to us, and the final three chapters outlined how we should live in response to these gifts.

Because ...God has done this, therefore...we should respond in loving word and action.

The “Grammar of the Gospel” is what we called it, and now we see that Paul is not inventing something new here, but simply reflecting the age-old pattern of covenant from Abraham, Moses, Joshua, and the prophets:

God loves...God gives,,,we receive those things with thanks and live,

or grab them, run, and misuse them, to our own disaster.

It is as simple as that, and yet so hard for us to learn.

We stumble again and again.

It goes against the grain of our “me-centered” culture to understand that I am not at the center of things – Christ is!

It is so hard for us to grasp that Christians are connected together not by our agreements, but by the act of God who has made us members of the body of Christ in the world, that is, part of his one, holy church.

The challenge Joshua lays before the people is not a once and done thing.

Choose this day whom you will serve, he says.

On this day and in this particular situation, whom do I choose?

And tomorrow in another situation?

And the next day...?

It is hard work, this receiving and thinking and deciding and doing.

In order to survive, Paul urges us to put on the whole armor of God:

the belt of truth,

the breastplate of righteousness,

the shoes of the Gospel of peace,

the shield of faith,

the helmet of salvation,

and the only offensive element, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

The struggle is real; inside us and around us.

Evil threatens at every turn.

But you and I head out from this gathering today with a promise,

a promise that is good forever.

Before any of our choosing and deciding, there is this promise of the Lord God our Father:

I am the Lord your God.

That is where we begin.

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.