Choose Life

Deuteronomy 30: 15-20

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

I ask you to imagine Moses preaching these admonitions to you, just as he did to the Israelites in a final effort to save them from themselves. Forty years of wandering have brought them to the border of promise. The Israelites must now decide whether to honor the covenant they made with Yahweh or to be cursed: “Your life shall hang in doubt before you; night and day you shall be in dread, with no assurance of your life” (Deut 28: 66). In the verses immediately preceding today’s lection, Moses assures the people that the commandments of the Lord are neither too hard nor too far away: “No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe” (30: 14).

The question before us is this: What will we, God’s people, choose when confronted by so momentous a decision? Will we choose life or death? Will we choose to love or to hate? To be silent or to speak truth to power? Will we choose integrity or what’s politically expedient? Will we choose to die in sin or to live in forgiveness?

This Lenten season, I implore you: Choose life! For to live means that we must die to our old selves. The selves whose hearts and souls have grown rusty since Easter last. To choose life means that we release, shed, bury whatever it is that separates us from the love of God and one another. As with the Israelites, the choice is laid out bluntly for us. It is yes or no. This is not a “maybe” or “I’ll have to think about it” or “l’ll give it a try.” There is no “try” for us.

Moses promises Israel that God’s fidelity is assured. May we journey through Lent in the assurance that God’s merciful grace restores us to new life.

prayer

Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings with your most gracious favor, and further us with your continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy Name, and finally, by your mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

—Book of Common Prayer Collect, Thursday after Ash Wednesday