Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Choose This Day …"

Text: Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

from the book of Joshua …

from the third chapter, last week,

to the final chapter, chapter 24.

Last week, Joshua and the Hebrew people

were crossing over the Jordan River

to enter the promised land for the first time …

Today, numerous battles later,

and 31 kings defeated – see chapter 12 for the whole list! –

we find them ready to settle down in the land,

which they have finally made their own.

We learn from chapter 23 that it was "a long time afterward,"

and that Joshua was "well advanced in years."

What we heard this morning was, in essence, his farewell speech.

Joshua gathers everyone together at Shechem,

and he begins by reminding them of everything God has done for them

in the last hundred years or so …

and I do mean everything;

that’s why the reading skips from verse 3 to verse 14!

It’s kind of like one of those fancy corporate resolutions,

that starts out with "whereas this…"

and goes on with "whereas that…"

and then a whole long laundry list of "wherases."

Whereas God did this for Abraham,

and that for Isaac,

and got you out of Egypt,

and granted you all these victories, etc. …

Until finally you get to the

"therefore, be it resolved that:"

and at last you get to the point of the whole thing!

For Joshua, it’s pretty simple:

"Now, therefore, revere the Lord,

and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness;

put away the gods that your ancestors served

beyond the River and in Egypt,

and serve the Lord."

A quick historical and theological aside:

Joshua is quite serious about those other gods;

that’s not just a metaphor or some kind.

In the ancient world,

every nation or tribe had its own god;

there was no notion, even among the early Hebrews,

that their God was in fact everybody’s God,

the God of the whole world.

The first commandment, after all, reads:

"you shall have no other gods before me";

it does not say,

"there are no other gods, so get over it!"

You succeeded in war or in conquest, it was believed,

if and only if your god was more powerful than

the god of the people you were contending with.

So Joshua is quite serious here.

If you were worshiping some other Egyptian gods

when your family were slaves in Egypt,

time to put that away.

If, while we’ve been making our way into the land God promised us,

you have been tempted to worship the god of the Hittites …

or maybe you just hedged your bets

by making a little offering to the god of the Amorites …

or maybe you had a little too much wine one evening

and visited the temple prostitutes for the god of the Canaanites …

It’s now time to fish or cut bait.

"If you are unwilling to serve the Lord," says Joshua,

"choose this day whom you will serve …"

that is, choose one and make up your mind! …

"but as for me and my household,

we will serve the Lord."

Well, the people answer

"far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods"!

Who else has done so much for us?

Joshua pushes them a little on this:

Be careful … God is holy.

If you say you’re going to follow the Lord,

but then you go ahead and do things with and for foreign gods,

you don’t even want to know what’s going to happen to you!

And the people assure Joshua

that they know what they’re getting themselves into,

and for a while, at least, through the period of the "judges,"

it seems like they are following through with that pledge.

But that’s another story for another day.

The key here, it seems to me,

is the notion of "choose this day whom you will serve."

But I want to put a slightly different spin on it

than Joshua did.

Here, at least,

Joshua makes it sound like this is going to be

a once-and-for-all decision.

If on this day you choose Yahweh, the Lord,

then you’d better not let him catch you

changing your mind at any time in the future.

The Lord is jealous and will not forgive that, says Joshua.

So if you decide today for the Lord,

there’s no going back, no messing up,

from this point forward.

Sort of like in third- and fourth-century Christianity,

where the official position was that

if you sinned even once after being baptized,

that was it; you were going to hell.

I understand why Joshua was pushing the people a little;

they hadn’t exactly been monotheistic up to this point;

that is, they frequently fudged their commitment to the Lord

just to be on the safe side with those other gods out there.

Or that’s how they would have explained it, anyway.

And Joshua is right to insist that they stop

playing musical gods

and make a commitment to the one who saved their bacon.

Well okay, that’s not a kosher metaphor,

but you know what I mean.

But I don’t really think that it’s a one-time choice.

I suspect that for most of us,

it’s a matter of every day

choosing whom we will serve on that day.

We can look backward to times on the previous day

when, despite our best intentions,

we failed to serve the Lord.

And can, if we so choose,

recommit ourselves in this new day

once again to serve the Lord.

I used to love the hymn "Once to Every Man and Nation,"

even despite the non-inclusive language …

it has such a stirring tune,

and the text is powerful,

which isn’t surprising, since it comes from

the poet James Russell Lowell.

Unfortunately, I’ve come to believe that theologically, it’s simply wrong

to suggest that only once do we get a moment in which to decide.

That whole premise is false,

and so, as you’ll notice,

that hymn is no longer in our hymnal.

Our journey through life,

and our journey with God through life,

truly is a matter of making the choice every day

whom we will serve.

Sure, we have decision moments like baptism, or ordination,

or wonderful mountaintop experiences of God,

in which we make large-scale promises and commitments
to serve God.

I don’t mean to discount those experiences

and their importance in shaping us.

But even after those high points have come and gone,

the other gods still pursue us.

I don’t mean the gods of the Hittites and the Amorites and all of those.

I mean the gods that are the particular temptations of our day and time.

Gods of success and/or wealth.

Gods of physical health and good looks.

Gods of national security, of job security.

Gods of comfort that just happens to come at someone else’s expense.

Gods of favored political and economic ideologies.

We are surrounded by things that are good

which tempt us to lift them to the status of things that are ultimate.

And so, it seems to me,

our task is not only to choose this day whom we will serve,

but to choose every day,

and in many different circumstances,

and faced with various clever temptations,

and confused by multiple options

that Joshua and his people never could have dreamed.

This is key to our Protestant and Reformed understanding

of saints, and who they are.

They aren’t necessarily those people

whom the church has canonized and given the title of

"St. Matthew," "St. Cecilia," "St. Teresa of Avila," "St. Francis of Assisi";

although those people almost surely are saints

even by a Protestant definition … !

The saints are people who choose –

who choose this day and every day, whom they will serve –

and who continue to make the choice to serve the Lord.

Even when other choices might bring more comfort,

even when other choices might make life ever so much easier …

Even when yesterday they really screwed up and made a bad decision

that wasn’t at all "what Jesus would do" …

The saints are those who once again make the choice to serve the Lord,

and get themselves back on track.

It is not a matter of being perfect.

Contrary to the scare Joshua tries to put into the people,

it’s not about God being jealous or unforgiving

if we make the wrong choice about whom to serve,

or if we make the right choice but then do something dumb.

It is a matter of choosing to serve God not only as a life commitment,

but as a daily commitment.

Not only making the big promises like baptismal vows,

marriage vows, ordination vows …

but of making the little choices in every moment

that honor our promise and our commitment.

Choose this day whom you will serve …

Choose again tomorrow morning whom you will serve …

On Tuesday, when you go to cast your vote,

choose whom you will serve.

This week, as you make out your pledge card

so you can bring it with you next Sunday,

choose whom you will serve.

In every moment of every day,

choose whom you will serve.

May we say along with Joshua,

"as for me and my household,

we will serve the Lord."

Thanks be to God!

Amen.