Word to the Wise
Thursday, February 18, 2010 - Thursday After Ash Wednesday
[Deuteronomy 30:15-20 and Luke 9:22-25]"I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life , then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him" [Moses in Deuteronomy] "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. What profit is there for one to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself." [Jesus in the Gospel of Luke]
One way of looking at "life" is to see it as a period of years spent making choices! That is the way many of us Western individualists see it. We don't like to have our "options" limited. Moses and Jesus appear to be doing just that, however. In the case of Moses, if one chooses "life" one chooses to be a part of a community bound together by an elaborate code of laws whose observance will define one's identity. If one chooses not to follow Moses, one chooses exclusion from the community, which in that culture was tatamount to a death sentence! In the case of Jesus, if one chooses "life" one chooses the cross on a daily basis or else one chooses to lose one's life by trying to save it from the cross! Some folks would say, "Do I really have any choice here at all, given the negative consequences of one of the options? The response is simple. We always have a choice, but we do not always get to define the options, especially when we're not in charge. What some of us try to do is simply pretend that our way is actually the way of the positive option - a sort of "end run." We forget that we cannot define the choices. One of the great tasks of the season of Lent can be a good long look at our decisions. The "options" are pretty clear. There's no point in attacking those or the Creator/Savior who defines them. Where are we now as a result of all those decisions we have made? Perhaps it is time we paid more attention to the message contained in the options, which may lead us to a closer relationship to the Creator/Savior who is trying to get our attention. AMEN
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