You are driving in a car at a constant speed. On your left side is a valley and on your right side is a fire engine traveling at the same speed as you. In front of you is a galloping pig which is the same size as your car and you cannot overtake it. Behind you is a helicopter flying at ground level. Both the giant pig and the helicopter are also traveling at the same speed as you. What must you do to safely get out of this highly dangerous situation?
Get off the children's carousel and, next time, don't drink so much.
Make good choices. That’s the theme of the lessons we hear today. Make good choices. All three readings talk about choices God’s people are asked to make. For Joshua and his household there is no question: they will serve the Lord and that is not a matter of just an individual commitment; serving the Lord is a communal decision. The covenant that God makes with us as God’s people is a covenant—a promise we make to God and that God makes to us—to share in God’s life with one another in community.
Make good choices. What does that have to do with us? Yes, we know those Israelites were prone to throwing their loyalties to false gods and idols at the drop of a hat, but that’s ancient history. Or is it? What about the gods of our time and place in human history: Money, Power, Greed, Prestige, Self-importance. Times marches on but things are not much different from the time of Joshua.
We too have choices, and we do make choices about whom—or what— to serve and about what will rule and consume us. But we make choices everyday about a lot of things: What foods to eat, a peach or potato chips. We make choices with our TV remote. We make choices about what to post or how to react on social media. Choices are a part of life. Then there are those times when we are asked to make more important choices, choices that have significant outcomes and consequences both for ourselves and others.
Mark’s Gospel tells the last of the four part series in which Jesus is teaching about the bread of life. Today, however, we find him claiming to be the bread of life, and he insists that people eat his body and drink his blood. Now we’ve heard these passages over and over but imagine what it must have been like hearing it for the first time.
Hebrew Scripture strictly forbids the drinking of blood so you can understand why they began shaking their heads, walking away, and saying, “This teaching is difficult. Who can accept it?” Once again—and we talked about this a few months ago—Jesus offended his audience. That’s the trouble with Jesus.
So, it makes sense that, watching a lot of the folks who had up to this point followed and admired and believed in him walk away, Jesus would wonder if the last twelve holdouts wouldn’t want to do the same. “Do you wish to go away?” he asks them. Peter pipes us first, probably giving language to what they were all thinking “Lord, to whom can we go?” I wonder if a little voice inside his head that day wasn’t saying “Make good choices.”
Paul’s letter to the Ephesians also challenges those Christians to make choices: to choose to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power, put on the whole armor of God, so that they may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. His message is for us as well. “For our struggle,” Paul tells us, “is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil.” Paul’s admonition was given two thousand years ago; it’s still appropriate today.
When the South African government canceled a political rally against apartheid, Archbishop Desmond Tutu led a worship service in St. George’s Cathedral. The walls were lined with soldiers and riot police carrying guns and bayonets, ready to close it down. Bishop Tutu began to speak of the evils of the apartheid system -- how the rulers and authorities that propped it up were doomed to fall.
He pointed a finger at the police who were there to record his words: "You maybe powerful -- very powerful -- but you are not God. God cannot be mocked. You have already lost."
Then, in a moment of unbearable tension, the Archbishop seemed to soften. Coming out from behind the pulpit, he flashed that radiant Tutu smile and began to bounce up and down with glee. "Therefore, since you have already lost, we are inviting you to join the winning side."
The crowd roared, the police melted away and the people began to dance. Don’t go away, Paul says. Put on your armor and dance. I am inviting you to join the winning side.
When we are faced with the really big, choices in life, a guiding principle is this: Be on the winning side, that would be the Gospel side. We can never go wrong, never lose if we use this simple litmus test: What choice would Jesus make?
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