The story of humanity in Scripture begins with a choice. Should we eat from the forbidden tree or not? Consistently, the story of humanity is the story of us making choices for death instead of life. That’s what happened in the garden, it is what happens throughout the pages of Scripture, and it is what is happening in the pages of the newspaper. Today, we hear Moses tell the people, “I have set before you life and death, choose life.” We have choices to make –choices between being blessed by loving or being cursed by selfishness, and we often chose death.
Most of the book of
Deuteronomy is the farewell speech of Moses to the people of God. Moses knows
that he will soon die and that the people will then enter into the land they
have been journeying towards for a generation. When they enter that new land,
they will have choices to make. Will they choose to remember that it was God
who brought them out of slavery in Egypt, sustained them in the wilderness, and
led them to this land of promise? Will they choose to keep the commandments to
care for the oppressed and impoverished? Will they choose to practice Sabbath
rest? Or will they choose to go their own way – will they choose other gods who
make more enticing offers, will they choose to maximize their profits at the cost
of others, will they choose to live life by their own rules instead of God’s?
Moses urges them to choose
life, to embrace the promises of God which come through obedience and commitment
to God. Because when they enter into this new reality, they will have a lot of
choices to make. New rituals, norms, and practices will be formed. Decisions
will need to be made about how they will structure their schedules and cities. And
so, on the front end, Moses cautions them to choose intentionally, wisely, and
faithfully.
It’s great advice for us
as well – to be mindful of the choices we are making. We are inundated with
choices: paper or plastic; small or large; fries or tater tots; CBS or NBC Evening
News; the base package or the upgraded model; sleep-in or come to church? One
study estimates that we make 35,000 choices every single day. Sure, some of
those are rather small and insignificant, but a different study found that we still
make 122 substantive daily decisions. That’s exhausting.
To deal with this exhaustion,
our brains have evolved to do the work for us. Most of the decisions that we make,
we don’t actually think about. Psychologists speak of this in terms of System 1
and System 2 thinking. System 1 is our fast, automatic, unconscious, and
emotional response to situations. System 1 how you brushed your teeth this
morning. System 2 is slower, deliberate, and analytical. Hopefully, you’re
using System 2 right now; it would be how you go about calculating how much of
a tip to leave at a restaurant. What is interesting about this way of
categorizing our thoughts is that studies show that we are in that logical
System 2 thinking only 2-5% of the time. Meaning that the vast majority of the
time, 95-98%, we are not consciously thinking, rather we are reacting. This
means that an awful lot of the choices we make are ones that we haven’t
actually thought about, and might not be the choices we’d want to make.
It’s a question of
identity – what kind of people will we be? The answer, of course, is that we
will be the people who our choices make us. And if our choices are unintentional,
so will be our identity. Many of you know that last month I had the tremendous honor
of giving the address at the Martin Luther King Breakfast. As I prepared for
that, I read a lot of King’s writing. There was one writing that has stuck with
me. King once wrote a letter as if he were St. Paul writing to the American church.
In part, he wrote, “I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been
commensurate with your scientific progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk
about ‘improved means to an unimproved end.’ How often this is true. You have
allowed the material means by which you live to outdistance the spiritual ends
for which you live. You have allowed your mentality to outrun your morality.
You have allowed your civilization to outdistance your culture, and through
your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood. But through your
moral and spiritual genius, you have failed to make of it a brotherhood. And
so, I would urge you to bring your moral advances in line with your scientific
advances.”
King is saying that we’ve
done a lot of stuff and made a lot of choices, but we haven’t really thought
about the implications of most of it. We have so many tools at our disposal, so
many answers that we can find instantly, but what kind of people have we become
for all of our technology and supposed progress? I haven’t been around as long
as some of you have, but it seems like things are fraying at the edges. I didn’t
watch the State of the Union the past week, I read a few headlines about it and
that was enough. The vitriol in our speech towards one another is disgusting. We’re
just constantly reacting out of our places of fear, brokenness, and sin – the choices
we are making are not putting us in the direction of abundant life in Christ.
Though St. Paul was writing to the Corinthians, he might as well be writing to
us as he confronts the behaviors of jealousy and quarreling. We seem to constantly
be making such deadly choices.
In the text from Matthew,
we heard Jesus challenging us by saying “You have heard it said…” And, usually,
we just go with whatever it is that we have heard said. We think “Oh, this is
how we do this” and then we keep on making those choices without much reflection.
And sometimes this is just fine. When it comes to making a cup of coffee in the
morning, I’m glad that I can pretty much do that without having to think about
it. But when it comes to how we want to be as a community of faith in 2023, well,
that’s a dangerous thing to have on auto-pilot.
I don’t have to tell you
all that the Church is changing. To be sure, the Church was changing in 2019,
but the pandemic was like a fast-forward button. What would have happened over
the course of a decade or two happened in the span of 3 years. And while there are
certainly some things about the future that are unsettling and uncertain, I can’t
tell you how excited I am about what’s coming. I don’t know what it is, but I
have a very clear sense that the Holy Spirit is up to something. Where she’s
leading us, I can’t say for sure, but what might look like decline in terms of
finances and attendance are not signs of a problem, but rather that the winds
are shifting, that something new is coming.
In January, we had a
great Vestry retreat, led by Methodist Bishop Will Willimon. We talked about
some of our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats – and we discussed
a lot of System 2 ideas and plans. Likewise, the staff and I have dedicated a
lot of time recently to intentionally planning for the future, not just doing
the same-old same-old. And to be quite clear – the same old was never bad, and
parts of our tradition absolutely need to be cherished and carried into the
future. But we have a choice before us, and we are resolved to listen to the
Spirit, to be intentional about our choices, and to be responsive to the call
of God, not the status quo.
What’s driving this is
our absolute trust that the love of God in Christ really and truly makes all
the difference. And because our world is changing, because society is shifting,
because life in 2023 does not look like it did in 2003, or 1953, or 1803, we need
to be intentional about how we participate and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ
with a world that desperately needs to come and see the love of God in a beloved
community like St. Luke’s.
If it sounds like I’m
preparing you for change, I am. Again, I can’t say for sure what all the changes
will be, I know the Spirit is doing something through us and I’m excited about
it. As an example of something different – we’ve added lovely icons to our worship
space that are reshaping our identity as a parish, we are trying something new
on Ash Wednesday in terms of our worship schedule, and we’ve been trying new
patterns for Sunday morning fellowship and the Wednesday Evening Parish meals.
I’m not talking about demolishing the bell tower or anything like that, rather
it’s about doing all we can to pave the way for people to come and see the difference
Christ makes.
The reason why I want to
be more thoughtful and intentional, trying new things and responding to the
Spirit instead of keeping up old habits and patterns is because the love of God
is worth it. When we know that the seed of God’s grace, forgiveness, peace, and
love has been planted within us, it changes everything. When the love of God is
what we are pursuing instead of our need to be right, rich, or righteous, then
our relationships are transformed. When the love of God is the lens through which
we make our choices, we dwell in the Kingdom as it is coming on earth as it is
in heaven.
As we strive to further cultivate
beloved community, offer intentional worship, and proclaim abundant grace, we’re
not doing any of this to try to be trendy, relevant, or even successful. It’s
that, to the best of our ability, we’re going to choose Jesus instead of choosing
our personal preferences, staying in our comfort zones, or unthoughtfully just
doing what we’ve always done. Just as the people of God were on the precipice
of entering a new land and Moses urged them to be mindful of the choices that
they will make, we would do well to also be intentional and faithful in our choices.
I’ve been blessed to
serve at St Luke’s for 8 ½ years, and if it’s up to me, I have not yet hit the
halfway point in my tenure here. But I also know that whether it’s a job, a
call, or a relationship, there are natural cycles. It’s what people often call
the “seven-year itch.” I very much want this Parish to thrive, and I believe
that God is setting us up for that. But we cannot be content with where we’ve
been, God is always ahead of us calling us to follow. We are blessed with the staff
we need to meet this moment, with members who are so supportive, committed, and generous, and with opportunities to be a
beacon of God’s light in this community. I have a sabbatical coming up in about
two months and though it got delayed a few years because of the pandemic, I believe
it is happening in God’s time – an intentional time of rest and reflection as
we are entering this next chapter in our history. It’s a question of whether or
not we stick with “You have heard it said and seen it done” or if we choose to
follow the Spirit.
And though I’ve been
talking about our Parish, these questions also apply to us as a community, as
families, and as individuals. What choices would you like to be more
intentional about? What things might be God calling you to let rest for a while
so that you can pick up something new? How can you plan to spend more time with
God in System 2 thinking about and being mindful of God’s loving presence with
us?
As always, the Gospel is
that even when we make the wrong choices, God has chosen us and that’s really
all that matters. When we stumble, God has chosen to pick us up. When we are
lost, God has decided to come and find us. When we make mistakes, God has
already chosen to forgive us. This grace is what gives us the confidence to
take the risk of choosing love as God’s loved and chosen people.
