Sermon Archive

"Decision", Joshua 21:1-2, 14-18

Date: August 23, 2009, The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Author: The Rev. Dr. James D. Kegel

MAY THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH AND THE MEDITATIONS OF MY HEART BE ACCEPTABLE TO YOU, O LORD, MY ROCK AND MY REDEEMER.
            “Preach for decision” was what George Aus, long-time homiletics professor of Luther Seminary would tell his students. Every sermon should present a choice to the hearer whether to accept of reject Christ, to follow him or to turn away from him. Aus was my father-in-law’s model at seminary and he tried to follow that advice in all his preaching. Now there was another leading professor at Luther Seminary, Herman Preus, who took the opposing view. He taught in his dogmatics classes that it was never our decision to accept Jesus or follow him, but the decision of God. For much of the twentieth century both views were advocated in the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America, the old ELC, and in fact both were put in the constitution as a paradox. At the same time as God chooses us, elects us because of God’s grace; God also calls us to receive this great gift in faith. We are not automatons who have no say in the matter. At the same time we are saved by God’s grace alone, by God’s predestination of the elect, and saved by faith alone, by our accepting the free gift of God’s love and forgiveness for us in Jesus Christ.
            We preach decision and for decision. This is really what Joshua is doing in our first lesson, in the covenant at Shechem where he gathers the whole people of Israel, all the tribes, the elders, the heads, the judges and the officers of the people to present themselves before God. Then Joshua rehearses the story of salvation. I understand why those who compiled our lectionary took out verses three through thirteen but they are very important. Joshua recites how God called Abraham and Sarah to leave their land beyond the Euphrates in Mesopotamia and come to the new land of Canaan. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were blessed in Canaan and God was with their descendents in Egypt. God sent Moses and brought the enslaved out of their house of bondage doing great signs in their sight. God was with them as they encountered Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites and Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites and God brought them all over the Jordan. God gave them a land on which they had not labored and towns they had not built. They eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveyards that they had not planted. What we do not have in our lection is this long litany of God’s grace. The Gospel was taken out of our text and instead we begin with the decision, the Law—choose this day whom you will serve.
            It is a mistake to confuse Law and Gospel, God’s demands and God’s gracious gifts. It is also wrong to misidentify Law and Gospel as somehow Old Testament and New Testament. There is Gospel throughout the Bible, Old Covenant and New and there is Law. The Law demands obedience, make the right choices, serve the Lord. The Gospel explains how God first loved us, chose us, forgave us and keeps us until the end. Even the Ten Commandments begin with Gospel and then follow with Law. “I am the Lord thy God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Because God freed God’s people from slavery, they are to respond by keeping God’s commands. Because we have a God who delivers us from sin, death and the power of evil, therefore we are to fear, love and trust God above all things. Our choice for God is our response to God’s choice of us.
            A couple of years ago, we added an extra word to our mission statement. The statement appears every week on our bulletin cover. Originally we did not have the word “serving” in the statement. Arlene Haugen talked to many of us reminding us of the old Gospel song, “Jacob’s Ladder,” the lyrics, “If you love Him, why not serve Him.” We added the word because Arlene was right; we are called to serve God and God’s people because of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. We are asked to decide and then to serve.
            At our text study one of the pastors noted that the word “serve” appears nine times in our reading. When he said that I took my pencil and underlined each of the times it appears. The choice is whether to serve the Lord God or other gods and it is a choice everyone in Israel must make. All the people must make it no matter who they are or what they have done. Joshua does not say to the older members gathered at Shechem, “OK, you have done your duty, now you no longer need to serve.” He doesn’t say to the younger people, “You are busy with your job and rearing your children and taking them to dancing lessons and piano lessons and soccer games and tennis camp, so you do not have to serve.” He doesn’t say to the choir members, well, you do not have to serve until choir starts up in the fall or to the Sunday School teachers and parents and pupils, well don’t bother to come until Rally Day. He speaks to the elders, heads, judges and officers—the talented and wealthy are called to choose and serve but he doesn’t let the average man or woman just sit back and let others do it for them either. God had saved every man, woman and child from bondage to freedom, from slavery for service. Each and every one of them been blessed to be blessings.
            Tony Campolo the Philadelphia sociologist and Christian recalled that he was seated next to the governor at a state prayer breakfast and found that the governor was sympathetic but had never committed himself to follow Christ.
            “Why not?” asked Campolo.
            The governor honestly replied, “No one ever asked me.
            “Well I am asking you.”
            To his surprise, the governor responded, “Okay, I will.”
Garrison Keillor relates a similar story. After years of gently poking fun at Lutherans—and Catholics—in Lake Wobegon, this fallen-away Plymouth Brethren man was invited to attend St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Manhattan. He went and he joined. The reason—someone invited him.
            It may very well have been that the Israelites took their religion for granted. They may have become bored with their own traditions and enamored of the new and exciting religions of the Amorites or the Mesopotamians. They were in a new land. They may have thought, “Why do we keep doing things the way we did back in Egypt or hundreds of years ago in the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Since I have remembered with thanksgiving Arlene Haugen already this morning, I will share some advice she gave me as a new pastor here at Central Lutheran. She said to me, “Remember you are no longer swimming in the Mississippi River but the Mackenzie and Willamette.” That is true—one must adapt to new times and places but sometimes in one’s faith the old ways are still the best ways, the faith of fathers and mothers has been tested and tried and found gracious and sustaining.        
            We do not talk much about decision any more. I remember when our Lutheran Church held revivals—preaching, reaching, teaching; when we showed Billy Graham films in the parish hall; when our key message was that it was important to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ not just for here and now but because one’s eternal destiny depended upon it. We need the Herman Preuses who teach right doctrine. We do not believe any old thing but the right things centered in the God revealed in Jesus Christ through the Scriptures. It is important that our God is not that of the Amorites and Hittites, Canaanites and Jebusites but the Lord God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Joshua of Nun, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has chosen you. It is also necessary to have the George Auses reminding us that we do make a decision to follow or wander away, to worship the true God or idols, to love God and serve Him all our days. Choose this day whom you will serve. May we in our hearts and minds echo Joshua, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”
Amen.

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