Deuteronomy 30:11-20
The context of this passage is pretty straight forward. It is Moses’ last speech, given after the 40 years of wandering through the wilderness, and before the people enter the Promised Land. “The failures of the past lie behind them in the desert, and the challenges of a new future lie before them across the river. This results in a unique theological linking of the past and the future around the present.”[1]
Another way of putting this is that they are in a liminal place. In case you’re not familiar with that word, liminal is defined as
- of or relating to a transitional stage of a process.
- occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.[2]
Wikipedia offers a more complete explanation as it applies to anthropology: In anthropology, liminality … is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. During a ritual’s liminal stage, participants “stand at the threshold” between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the ritual establishes.
Doesn’t that apply perfectly to the Israelites’ situation? They are in a time of transition, standing at the threshold between the past and the future, They are letting go of their identity as wanderers, and not yet living into their identity as people of the land. They are unsure of what is to come, uncertain of how their identity will be formed and their community will be built. They are in a liminal place, a liminal people.
It is into this situation that God is quoted as saying, “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.” Standing, as they are, on the threshold, it is the time to choose, and to declare that choice.
Now, before I go any further, I want to address a dangerous interpretation of this passage. Some people use this passage to say that if we do everything right, if we follow God faithfully, we will receive nothing but blessings, and bad things will not happen. Or, on the flip side, they will say that if bad things happen, it is because we weren’t faithful.
In my opinion, neither of these is true. God does not send floods because of gay marriage and God does not send disease because of sin. Although we call God Father or Mother, and there are some ways in which God is like a parent, God does not offer rewards and consequences like I do for my four-year-old. “I’m sorry, but you didn’t listen and you made a bad choice, so you lose your TV time and your health.” No, it doesn’t work that way. God isn’t offering reward and punishment. God is offering choices … choices that will have consequences because all choices do. So make choices that lead to life.
It’s easy for us to say “Yes” when the options are so obvious, Life or Death. Yes, there are some who choose death. I’m particularly thinking of people caught in the vice grip of depression or those suffering so much physically that they choose to end their life on their terms. But other than that, we all would say we choose life.
But it’s a little bit like the technique that is common in high school debates and political campaigns. You set up two options—it’s this or it’s that—with no middle ground, and the audience has to choose. Recently there was a public debate between creationist Ken Ham and Bill Nye “The Science Guy.” Here’s how one theologian described the debate:
“On several occasions, the creationist Ham put the matter to his listeners starkly: Either one accepts the Bible, divine creation, moral order, motherhood, apple pie, and puppies; or else one supports evolution, anarchy, [and] ritual sacrifice. You could just picture folks all across the country sitting in their Barcaloungers, looking at their significant other saying, ‘Well, we don’t believe in anarchy or ritual sacrifice, and we love puppies…. So we just can’t be evolutionists.’ Because when you put it that way, who wouldn’t want to disassociate themselves from what is being portrayed as the very heart of darkness?”[3]
It’s similar to how we respond to this passage. Of course we choose life, right? With the exceptions I named earlier, who would choose death?
Of course, it’s not all about one big choice because those everyday choices add up. For example, I may not choose to be overweight, but I did choose to have breakfast at the Cookie Jar on Friday and I’m pretty sure those two things are connected! We choose whether to watch violent movies or video games. We choose how we respond to the person who cut us off in traffic. We choose whether to nurse that grudge or let it go. We choose, over and over, things that give us life or not. “No, they may not be ‘life and death’ choices, but they are choices which lean towards life or death…. And perhaps they prepare us for the day when the choice we are offered will be monumental and life-altering: That day, for instance, when it will be yours to choose between staying in a marriage or a job that is not about life, but about death. When you venture out not knowing what this new life will hold but knowing that the old one was surely not right. That day when you will need to dig deep to find the courage to speak the truth, even knowing the consequences for you may be less than desirable…. That day when we are called to choose between the comfort of what we now know and the terror of what is yet unknowable.”[4]
Choose life.
Choose life for yourself AND choose life for others. You see, this scripture was not to individuals but to a community. And it was not to form a covenant with God because that had already occurred. This call to choose life was made within the context of relationship, of community, and it was for all.
In her book There Was No Path So I Trod One Edwina Gateley’s poem Called to Say Yes reminds us that our Christian calling is to say no to death in all its many forms. We can do better. And we do better by saying yes to life.[5]
We are called to say yes.
That the kingdom might break through
To renew and to transform
Our dark and groping world.
We stutter and we stammer
To the lone God who calls
And pleads a New Jerusalem
In the bloodied Sinai Straights.
We are called to say yes
That honeysuckle may twine
And twist its smelling leaves
Over the graves of nuclear arms.
We are called to say yes
That children might play
On the soil of Vietnam where the tanks
Belched blood and death.
We are called to say yes
That black may sing with white
And pledge peace and healing
For the hatred of the past.
We are called to say yes
So that nations might gather
And dance one great movement
For the joy of humankind.
We are called to say yes
So that rich and poor embrace
And become equal in their poverty
Through the silent tears that fall.
We are called to say yes
That the whisper of our God
Might be heard through our sirens
And the screams of our bombs.
We are called to say yes
To a God who still holds fast
To the vision of the Kingdom
For a trembling world of pain.
We are called to say yes
To this God who reaches out
And asks us to share
This crazy dream of love.
So this morning I say to you: Say yes. Choose life. In a thousand different ways, choose life. Choose the scenic route.
Choose to watch the sunrise over the ocean.
Choose to over-tip breakfast waitresses.
Choose relationships that make you a better person.
Choose to be vulnerable.
Choose the hard road because it makes you stronger.
Choose to forgive when they don’t deserve it.
Choose to love another animal even though you still miss the last one.
Choose life.
Choose to give money to the guy with the cardboard sign
without worrying about how he’ll spend it.
Choose to welcome an immigrant.
Choose friends you have nothing in common with.
Choose faith instead of fear.
Choose to smile at the Muslim woman behind you in line.
Choose to protect her from hatred and discrimination.
Choose to vote.
Choose love. Choose peace.
Choose life.
Real, complicated, messy, whole-hearted and broken-hearted life.
Say yes. Choose Life.
Amen.
[1] Bratcher, Dennis. “Sixth Sunday After Epiphany,” The Voice.
[2] Oxford Dictionary
[3] http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/the-politics-of-choice-deuteronomy-3015-20/
[4] http://words.dancingwiththeword.com/2014/02/choosing-life.html
[5] JourneywithJesus.net