Pentecost 12 Joshua 24

I wish I had the courage of Joshua! I’d love to have an archeologist come across a record someday of a time when I said to the people I lead as pastor,

Lector: “Pastor Clark gathered the people of St. Paul’s together at their place of worship, and summoned the Sunday school teachers, the worshipers, the committee heads and the church council; and they presented themselves before God. And Pastor Clark said to ALL the people:”

“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 consumerism, workaholism, hedonism, egotism, or ‘me-ism’ in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

In our Old Testament lesson the people respond with a verbal re-commitment to their God because they remember how much he has done for them. The God of Israel freed them from slavery in Egypt, gave them life in the desert, gifted them with Commandments that would help them live out their relationship with Him and then guided them into a new land that would be theirs…at least so long as they continued to serve God in sincerity and in faithfulness.

Equally, we could draw on memories of times when God free us from limiting circumstances, supplied not only our basic needs for survival, but also lavished us with material blessings, gave us His Son to establish us in relationship with Him, and guided us into places and circumstances where we could feel secure and at home. And having had this brought to our remembrance, we too might say, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods…”

We would say it with all the fervor that the Israelites used and with the same good intentions. Unfortunately, those archeologists would find also records of our becoming distracted by the many demands on our time and energy – that new car, our work, the golf match, the kids after school activities and just plain old fatigue and laxity. These gods call to us too and sometimes they seem ever so much more attractive and rewarding than that old God we can worship some other time.

Furthermore, these other gods by subtle trickery have claimed a piece of our brains. The whole theory behind consumer marketing is that a slogan, a name or an image to which people are exposed repeatedly becomes implanted in a person’s brain. Thus, if we want a cola to drink we say we want a Coke. Or we can still be digesting a good dinner and see a Burger King commercial and we’ll feel not only hungry, but hungry for a flame broiled Whopper.

Or we might have the experience a new pastor in town who related the following to some colleagues: “I was driving down a main street in a town recently and noticed three McDonalds. All those golden arches… McDonalds owns a piece of our brains.”

Another pastor in the group said, “How many churches did you notice?”

The new pastor said, “I can’t remember if I saw any.”

We might ask if the cross owns a piece of our brains like McDonalds and other commercial establishments do?

Yes, we get distracted. We are lured by slick advertising and mass market psychology. We fall victim to our own desire for power and pleasure. We become victims of skewed values and priorities. And sooner or later we, like Israel, find ourselves bowing down before other gods. Little by little, these other gods may even take up so much of our time that we forget our fervent promise to serve only the God who gave us freedom, salvation and all the other blessings in our lives.

It’s really sad. God’s people were given and are given so much by Him and yet, they forget how blessed they are and worship other gods.

Of course, the same thing happened in Jesus day. The Jews had been waiting for a Messiah for generations. Jesus came. He fed them miraculously. He gathered disciples around him who received his personal guidance. He offered them freedom greater than any they had ever had before. But little by little, they found what Jesus said too hard to take and they fell away. And finally Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?”

Peter on behalf of the others gave a fervent statement of commitment, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” At least twelve remained. At least these twelve would remain faithful. At least these twelve would resist the distractions and temptations of other gods like the god of greed, the god of self preservation, and the god of egotism.

As we know they didn’t. One would betray Jesus. One would deny Jesus. All would run for their lives when the word got too hard. These disciples, and even those who drifted away sooner, can be forgiven because this is all before the resurrection. Sure, they had mountain top experiences and participated in miracles that led them to moments of great faith and zeal, but they hadn’t yet seen the risen Christ. And we know too, that at least eleven of the twelve will return and will serve God with sincerity and faithfulness.

We have the advantage over Israel, over those who followed Jesus and over the twelve. We are post resurrection people. We know the end of the story. Most of us were even raised from infancy with the knowledge that we are saved by grace through Christ and are heirs with Him of all God’s blessings. We are even allowed to make our own decisions about how we will serve God. We make our decisions and when we fail in our commitment to God we are forgiven time and again.

We are forgiven and given new chances, only to show ourselves to be like the man who lost every job he had, but one day he got a very simple job in an orange factory. He was told: “Just put the big oranges in this box, the medium sized oranges in this box, and the smallest oranges in this box.” But not long afterwards, he came up to his boss and said,

“But why?” asked the boss in amazement.

“I cannot take it,” he replied, “Decisions, Decisions, Decisions!”

Yes, God frees us from slavery to the Law and gives us the freedom to decide for ourselves about serving Him. Do we then complain, “Decisions, Decisions, Decisions!” Do we even allow ourselves to be distracted by those false gods and say to God, “I quit.”

Now, hear again the words of Joshua, “Choose this day whom you will serve.” And now take out your bulletins, turn to the first lesson and meditate for a full minute on vs. 16-18 – the answer Israel gave. Then, make your decision.