CHOICES EVERY DAY

January 21, 1990

8:30 and 11:00 a.m. Worship Services
John M. Buchanan

Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Scripture
Deuteronomy 30:15-26
Matthew 4:12-23

"T} have set before you life and death, blessing and
curse; therefore choose life." -Deuteronomy 30:19

It was, you might say, a moment of truth. Very near the end of his
long life Moses is summing up. He is about to die. He has led a band of
recalcitrant, disorganized Semitic slaves through a desert wilderness for
forty years. And now they have come to the river. From the tops of the
nearby hills they can actually see it; and across, on the other side, the
Promised Land. Moses knows that this is the end of the line for him. His
purpose has been accomplished, his life is fulfilled. He's not going
across the river with them. He knows - this remarkable man who has held
them together, pushed, prodded, pleaded, scolded, threatened and loved them
forward for four decades - Moses knows that the really difficult times are
still in the future: that if this group is going to become a nation and
survive in the future, it will have to discover new resources, new
strength, new will.

And so it is a time for summing up, which is what Moses does for
several chapters at the end cf the Book of Deuteronomy. He goes on and on,
repeating things they already know and have heard a thousand times before,
every bit like a nervous parent about to send an adolescent child on a long
trip. "Don't forget to brush your teeth; eat your lettuce; keep your shirt
tucked in; don't talk to strangers; say your prayers; and ch — I do love
you." That's Moses getting ready to send Israel across the river and into
the future. "Do this and do that - don't do this, don't do that." And at
the end of the discourse a wonderful conclusion:

"I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have
set before you life and death, blessing and curse: therefore choose life
that you and your descendants may live."

What a fascinating thing to say! The choice to live is yours. The
issue of your survival across the river in that frightening new place is a
matter of your choice. You may encounter some very serious threats to your
existence over there. There are very real risks. There are people over
there, for one thing, who will not be happy when they see you. But your

survival is not going to be determined by them, or by fate, or luck, or
genetics, or weather. You're in charge of life, so choose to live today,
in fact choose life every day.

The remarkable thing about that sequence is that philosophers,
psychologists, physicians, are still testifying to its truth and still
urging people to choose to live. Doctors know that Hamlet's pronouncement
is scientific fact... “Yo be or not to be: that is the question." Without
the will to live, to be, ail the medical expertise in the world will not
preserve life.

Rollo May, a psychotherapist and wise observer of our life identifies
this ability of ours to choose to be ~ as the distinguishing characteristic
of human beings.

Acorns become oaks, kittens become cats automatically, May observes.
“A man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or
her commitment to them." [The Courage to Create, p. 4-5}

The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich called it in one of the landmark
theological works of our times.

It struck me as very important when I was struggling with my own
vocation. Quite by chance I happened on a book by Dag Hammarskjold, the
former Secretary General of the United Nations who died’ in an airplane
crash while on a peace-making mission in Africa in 1961. Several years
after his death his diary, a personal spiritual journal, was published
under the title Markings. I read the book as I was trying to decide
whether or not to go through with this ministry business and it has been
important to me ever since. The book reveals a deeply thoughtful man who
in the midst of his distinguished career as a civil servant struggles with
doubt and uncertainty, occasionally depression and despair.

Hammarskjold wrote:

“IT don't know who or what put the question, I don't know when it was
put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes
to Someone or Something and from that hour I was certain that existence is
meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.

{Markings, p. 205]

There it is again: "Choose life.“ “Say yes to something."
"Choose life today," Moses said.

So one day they were fishing. It must have been early morning, or
early evening. That's when I see people fishing at the ocean. The light
is soft, slanted, the colors are pink and purple pastels. Peter and
Andrew, brothers, are working with their net, the tool of their trade.
They're in the water, knee-deep maybe. Jesus of Nazareth walks by, says
“Follow me and I'll make you fishers of men." And, Matthew says, that is
what they did. Left their nets and followed him. Later on the same thing
happens again. This time the men are in a boat, mending their nets.
They're brothers, James and John, their father Zebedee is in the boat too.

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“Follow me." And immediately they left their nets, and father, and
followed.

What's missing from this picture? What exactly is going on here?
Didn't they at least fold the net and stow it in case this venture didn't
pan out? And what about Zebedee? Does he have other sons to help him with
the family business? Specifically, how are you going to eat? How are you
going to put bread on the table for your families, men?

Maybe there's something else going on here. Maybe they knew Jesus,
heard John taiking about him. Maybe they were baptized by John in the
river. Maybe James and John have never been away from home and are itching
for adventure and anything will do. Maybe Andrew's having a mid-life
crisis and Peter has been thinking for some time about a second career,
going back to school.

It is a perfect opportunity for the gospel writers to tell us just a
little bit about the human dimension, the struggle, the dark night of the
soul, the conflicting demands of family, culture, livelihood, hopes and
dreams, that goes into a major decision. But the story is maddeningly
Silent about any of that, not because it didn't happen, I think. Of course
it did. Maybe all of it. It's not in there, I think, because Matthew
knows we're human and we'll figure that part out. What he doesn't want us
to miss is the deciding part: the power of that moment when a person
chooses: the existential drama of deciding to be, to take charge, to
commit, to venture, to choose life.

Matthew also keeps this encounter as lean as possible because it
expresses something terribly important about Christianity: namely that it
is fundamentally a matter of following Jesus and not believing things about
Jesus. You would think Peter and Andrew, James and John, would at least
ask who he was, his credentials perhaps. You'd think that the very least
they should have asked when he said, "Follow me" is “Where? Where are you
headed?"

Everything Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote became important in light of his
execution by the Nazis as a result of his decision to join a plot to
assassinate Adolph Hitler. His work on this passage is breathtaking.

With the swastika rising on the horizon Bonhoeffer wrote about Peter
and Andrew, but surely also about himself and his friends...

"Faith can no longer mean sitting still and waiting - they must rise
up and follow him." [The Case of Discipleship, p. 53] And then he spelled
it out: 3F

"Discipleship means adherence to Christ. An abstract Christology, a
doctoral system, a general religious knowledge on the subject of grace or
on the forgiveness of sins, renders discipleship superfluous. With an
abstract idea it is possible to enter into a relation of profound
knowledge, to become enthusiastic about it, and perhaps even to put it into
practice, but it can never be followed in personal obedience...
Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ."
[p. 50]

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The word here is a relevant one for us. We practice our religion in
a thoughtful way. our fenius as Presbyterians is that we insist on
bringing our minds to church. We do not park our intellect - our critical
faculty, that part of us that analyzes, critiques, doubts, examines -
outside before coming to worship. We take seriously the Biblical mandate
to love God with our ming. And so when Jesus says, "Follow me and I'l}
make you fishers of men," our inclination is to organize an adult education
class to investigate.

“Following as a New Urban Life Style Alternative" or at least a
support group or perhaps a task force to get Jesus to use inclusive
language so that there will be no gender exclusivity in this fishers of men
business. We want to understand and that's our genius, our contribution to
the church catholic; but Christianity is not a matter of believing
propositions about Jesus and when you believe enough of them join the
church. It's a matter of somehow hearing him say, "Follow me" and then
Figuring out how to de that.

Now the problem here is not merely Presbyterian intellectualisn. The
real problem is that we live in a culture that does not value very highly
the kind of selfless response, the risky following, the investment of one's
self, one's resources and potential and future — which is represented in
Matthew's account. In fact, it's quite the opposite. In fact, we live in
a culture that has been celebrating acquisition as a noble purpose and
almost poking fun at the altruistic selflessness of religious commitment
for a decade or so. We have new wave psychological problems to solve with
names like “Fulfillment Trap" and "The Unhappy Success Syndrome.‘

And yet you're here. You and I are here on Sunday morning at least
in part, I think, because we know the bankruptcy of materialism as a
religion. I think we know the smallness and emptiness of life no bigger
than its own needs and desires. I think we engage in unlikely religious
behavior, invest some of ourselves in altruistic activity, and get out of
bed and come to worship on a January Sunday morning because we know that
the issue is our own lives and the necessity of choosing to live them.

I think we know the tragedy of life lived for no purpose
particularly, invested in nothing but personal amusement.

I have just finished reading a biography of Charles Edward Stuart,
pretender to the British throne, who led a revolt of the Highlanders in
1745 and nearly succeeded. Bonnie Prince Charlie was his name and at the
age of twenty-five his armies were defeated at Culloden, near Inverness.
And he never did another important thing. It's a sad story. In his middle
years, living as an unemployed King in various European capitals, he spends
his life drinking, talking about the good old days and attending the
theater.

“.. night after night, having nothing better to do and nowhere else
to go, he would betake himself to his private box where he would loll ona
couch, refreshing himself from his flask -— until at the end he became
either disorderly or incapable." [Bonnie Prince Charlie, Fitzrony MacLean,
p. 356]

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The author quotes sameone at the time who said:

“All the world has regretted that the prince did not fall (at
Culloden) leaving an unblemished fame, that he did not ride back and die
with glory." [p. 337]

How inspiring it has been to witness once again, the truth that the
future belongs to those who are sure enough of themselves, free enough, to
risk, to invest, to decide to be, to throw themselves into the struggle.
How incredibly inspiring to watch those indomitable people, choosing life,
in Poland, East Berlin, Prague, Bucharest - those people who stood on the
edge of a very uncertain future and chose life. The head of Czechoslovakia
is a writer, Vaclav Havel. A collection of letters he wrote to his wife
before his emergence as a political power has been published recently:

“Only by looking outward, by caring for things that, in terms of pure
survival, he needn't bother with at all... and by throwing himself over and
over again into the tumuljt of the world, with the intention of making his
voice count - only thus does one really become a person." [Context,
“Letters to Olga,“ 1-15-90]

"Follow me and I'll make you fishers of men," Jesus said. Follow me
and I'll give you your life - for in the decision to follow, you yourself
aré claiming your life, deciding to live it.

I was distressed to read in the paper last week an article about the
continuing loss of members experienced by the Presbyterian Church and other
mainline denominations. It referred to a new study by a University of
Oregon sociologist which seems to conclude that people stopped going to
church when the church stopped promising them heaven if they did and hell
if they didn't.

The study said people don't see any reason to go to church if you
take away the carrot and the stick. Now in fairness to the author of the
study who I know, I don't believe the Associated Press writer had the
foggiest notion of what the issues were. I don't think the report got it
right. But he did reflect a kind of cultural truth about religion - namely
that the reason for following Jesus or joining a church is to get into
heaven when you die or to avoid going to hell: the basic motive for being
religious is either guilt or fear. And that if you don't market it like
that it won't work. I have te concede that when you look at the religious
landscape and see who is succeeding numerically, it seems to be an accurate
assessment.

But I also have to say that I have a suspicion that making a
religious appeal on the basis of the individual's fears or guilt - or
instinct for self-preservation - is, philosophically at least, not too
distant from appealing to his or her vanity, envy, greed or fear of not
being socially chic in market advertising of automobiles, suits and
cigarettes. Besides it's not what Matthew tells us Jesus said when he was
recruiting.

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He did not say, “Follow me and I'l] get you into heaven.” He did not
say, "Follow me or else." What he did say is - Follow me and I'll give you
lots to do. Follow me and you'll find yourself spending your life and
being grateful for the opportunity. Follow me and say yes to your life.

As I watched the film clips of the civil rights struggle around
Martin Luther King's birthday last week, I couldn't help reflect how
thousands of people heard the call of Jesus Christ to follow as a summons
to commit themselves to the cause of racial justice. I reflected on the
fact that the call of Christ does not always, or often for that matter,
point in the direction of professional church work. In fact the call of
Christ does not come as singularly and clearly as it did to Peter and
Andrew. Rather it comes all mixed in with the life of the world, in issues
of justice and compassion and peace which always reflect his priorities,
his agenda. ;

I couldn't help reflect that the cali of Christ always involves
leaving something behind: in this case family, security and a comfortable
living. In the case of civil rights we were called to leave behind a
comfortable racism, prejudices and stereotypes and to actually begin to
live in a new future of equality.

And I couldn't help reflect that everyone who ever thought for very
long about this passage and this topic recognized that the call comes from
Jesus, not ourseives: that he makes the invitation and confronts us at
times and places where we are not expecting him: not just in church, at
our prayers - but at work, selling stocks, changing a diaper, scrubbing a
floor, driving a cab, performing surgery, teaching a class, writing a
report, discussing a problem with a colleague. All of a sudden there he is
- "Follow me." And the choice is really to live life by throwing in with
him, by committing, by stumbling along behind, not knowing exactly where
he's leading, but magnificently blessed suddenly with purpose and meaning.

So hear him: “Follow me and choose life."

0 God, your call has come and we have sometimes not heard it, and
sometimes we have heard and not wanted to. Forgive us, and help us know
that you call us to fullness of life. [In all our choices may we hear and
obey your will for us: Thanks be to Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

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