A Note from the Minister  From the Minister's desk....


I am a tragic child of the 80’s. I loved the hyper colour shirts, mullet hair styles and synthesized music.  One of the popular 80’s groups was WHAM.  George Michael was the lead singer and he had an oversized white shirt that he wore in one of his pop clips, it said in huge black letters “CHOOSE LIFE”.  It wasn’t long before lots of people were getting around wearing imitations of George’s shirt quoting it like a mantra. There was nothing new in this statement of “choose life” as the writer of Deuteronomy (Moses) back in 1406 BCE wrote of the LORD’s discourse ... Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. 30:19b.

This Sunday’s lectionary reading Deuteronomy 30:15-20 invites us to consider that there is a choice that is constantly before us, always! The choice... to ‘choose life’ (and prosperity) or ‘death’ (and destruction), Moses alludes that it is the love of the LORD and the walking in the LORD’s ways that leads to life. To choose anything else is to embrace death. Verse 19a states...

This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.

Is this the moment when God sets before all of humanity the reality of free will?  Of course not! Genesis carries the same weight of choice for Adam and Eve and the eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Even here the choice before Adam and Eve is the issue not the fruit. By the time Adam and Eve have eaten of the fruit they have already made the choice to do what they want (not what God asked of them), they have already chosen death. 

Over time the choice to live the LORD’s way became law and the law became a burden on the lives of the Hebrew people separating them from the God who wanted to be with them. It is up to Jesus (God incarnate) to embody the verses that precede Sunday’s Deuteronomy reading and liberate people from the law and from the eternal consequences of death.  Deuteronomy 30:11-14 says

11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

In our other lectionary reading Philemon 1:1-21 Paul is urging Philemon to chose life in the form of welcoming back a slave that has previously run away (a choice that for Onesimus carried the punishment of death).  Paul is revealing that Onesimus has come to faith in Christ while with Paul. Onesimus has died to self and risen in Christ, he has “chosen life”. He has chosen life to the point where he is willing to go back to Philemon and face his master, face his earthly death. And Paul in the spirit of Deuteronomy says in verses 8, 9 and 16 says

8 Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, 9 yet I appeal to you on the basis of love [to take Onesimus back], 16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother.

Let us then living as Christ lived “chosing life” rather than law and death. Let us learn from Paul and remember like Philemon that the choice is always before us at all times, it is not beyond us to see each other as brothers and sisters of Christ and children of God. As Dueteronomy 30:14 states “No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.” May you always CHOOSE LIFE!

Shalom

Scott