The Joshua Election

Sermon for August 23, 2009 Proper 16 Text:  Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-25 Title:  "The Joshua Election" A.  The names may not be familiar:  Samuel Hill, John Nicholson and William Knights.  But what they did certainly is.  Together they formed The Gideons International in 1908, placing their first Bible in a hotel room in Colorado.  The three men were all traveling businessmen with the shared vision of reaching other traveling businessmen with the Gospel. That first Bible placement has since expanded to include more than 180 countries with more than 1.3 billion Bibles placed in hotels to date.  Research from the hotel industry itself reports that approximately 25 percent of all travelers read the Bibles in their hotel rooms. Lonely people in cities from Vegas to Venice can reach for one book that brings inspiration, guidance, admonition and encouragement.  The stories of how Scripture has interacted with the lives of people are numerous, often starting with horrible life situations and ending with people following Jesus. "Elliot," for example, checked into a hotel to commit suicide, stumbled upon the Gideon Bible, and met Christ that night. Today he's a pastor. "Kevin" was a staunch evangelist for atheism who, to his shock, met Jesus through a Gideon Bible that he keeps with him to this day.   There is no question about it.  Scripture has a way of confronting us.  Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that God through Scripture has a way of confronting us.  Confrontation is  precisely what Joshua does in our text for this morning.  Here we find a Joshua who was able to bring magnificent clarity to the issues that lie before us when he says, "Choose this day whom you will serve". Before going forward with this, we need to take a moment to go backwards.  Earlier, Moses passes the mantle of national leadership on to Joshua. The amazing life of Moses is summed up in Deuteronomy 34:10: "Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face."  Obviously, these are not easy sandals to step into!  But God had selected the right man in Joshua for the next phase of Israel's life in the Promised Land.  Moses, as great a leader as he was, wasn't a general.  Joshua was.  And military prowess would be what was needed as the people of God entered into the land already populated with a wide variety of people.   When Moses died, God started speaking to Joshua in the same way He spoke to Moses.  In the first chapter of the Book of Joshua, we find God telling him  "Josh, you da man!" (OK, so the translation is a little too modern, but you get the picture!) "Be strong and courageous because I go out with you!"  God had always led Moses.  Now He would do the same for Joshua. For his part, Joshua needed to forsake fear and embrace courage. He would not only extend the blessing that had been given to Moses but achieve it in an even more spectacular fashion. Moses got the Israelites through 40 years of wandering in a desert; Joshua would take them to the Promised Land and possess it.   Now in Joshua 24, this conquest is all over, for the time being.  The land has been possessed.  Chapter 24 is Joshua's deathbed speech.  He points a bony finger at the Israelites and offers them perhaps the most important challenge they would ever hear.  It is a challenge for us as well – in one word:  "Choose!"   B.   So after the conquest, before the Israelites settle by tribes into their newly acquired home-places, Joshua assembles them at Shechem, to renew the covenant first made at Mount Sinai.  Shechem holds great significance.  It was at Shechem that God first addressed Abraham in the new land (Gen. 12).  Perhaps most importantly, as I mentioned earlier this week in my e-mailed sermon teaser, Shechem was where Jacob led his family in an idol-burying ceremony (Gen. 35).  So it was a place loaded with symbolism and memories of dedicating oneself to the one true God.  In verses 2-13 (not a part of the lectionary reading today, but vitally important to the meaning of the whole chapter), Joshua reminds the people about the Lord God's relationship not only with their ancestors, but with them as well.  He stands clearly in the place of Moses, the mediator between God and the people.  He is forthright in saying that their ancestors indeed did serve other gods. Nonetheless God called them and delivered them from oppression, as well as leading them in the successful conquest of the land they were now occupying. The option is not between serving the Lord and serving no god at all.  We can easily read between the lines and see that the various local deities had an attraction for the Israelites.  No doubt they had intermarried, and adapted the spouses religious practices.  They thought they could worship both the one true God and the local deity of convenience.  But they were sorely mistaken.  The entire chapter should be seen as a contract, between God and God's people, outlining how God had stayed with them through their slavery in Egypt, their Exile in the Wilderness, and their conquest of the Promised Land.  Verses 2-13 are overwhelming in the number of statements of what God did for His people:  "I gave", "I sent", "I brought out", "I handed over" "I rescued".  The Lord had delivered on His part of the bargain.  He had been faithful.  Now it was the peoples' turn to swear to their part of the bargain, namely, to serve the Lord with all their hearts, soul, mind, and strength, to borrow the words of Jesus centuries later. Joshua sets the example:  "As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." It may seem strange to our modern ears of individualism, but Joshua spoke for his entire household.  It's not that others in his household had no mind or tongue of their own, but frequently in the cultures of the ancient near east, the head of the household represents and decides for the family.  The people respond by declaring that they would indeed serve the Lord and Him alone, who had delivered not only their ancestors but who had brought them to this place at this time. "Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God." Joshua's response is a shock:   "You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins." This is not simply "reverse psychology," but a reminder of the seriousness of their commitment. To go back on their word would be far more disastrous than never to have made the commitment in the first place.  Although calling God jealous might seem a little strange, it has great meaning in the cultural context of the ancient Near East.  There, it was assumed that one would worship a lot of gods, depending upon the particular favor one needed from the appropriate deity.  God is holy, and we are to be holy — completely set apart for God's worship and use. God is jealous and will not accept any disloyalty.  One cannot serve the Lord God and another god.  God demands an extreme quality and depth of the spiritual relationship we enjoy with Him.  He demands that we reflect His purity, nature, and holiness in every aspect of our lives.  We remember Jesus' statements about not being able to serve both God and mammon.  We as disciples are called to "fear" the Lord, that is, to have respect for our Creator, Redeemer God.  And we are to "serve" the Lord, namely, to be devoted to Him alone with both our words and our deeds.     And obviously, no one can do this perfectly all the time.   That is why Joshua told the people "You cannot serve the Lord."  And of course he was right.  The pages of the Old Testament are full of the stories of Israel's failure to follow God.  On our own, it is impossible.  We can only be acceptable to the Lord when we accept Christ as Lord and Savior, and God sees us through the blood of the Lamb.   So perhaps naively, even with the warning, the people affirm their intention to serve the Lord.  And in the full zeal of the moment, they celebrated a ritual of putting away their idols, burying them along with the temptations they brought.  At least for the moment.  I once heard a story from Haiti on total commitment to the Lord.  A certain man wanted to sell his house. Another man wanted very badly to buy it, but couldn't afford the full price.  After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation: He would retain ownership of one small nail protruding from just over the door. After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So the first owner went out, found the carcass of a dead dog, and hung it from the single nail he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable, and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail. The conclusion is simple:  If we leave the Devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ's habitation. C.  I guess you could say the implications of this passage for us are obvious.  In point of fact, we have to make choices everyday.  Many, many choices have no more than immediate consequences:  what shirt should I wear today, what do I want for breakfast, which route do I want to take to work, and so on.  But then there are choices that can have life-changing consequences:  should I take this job, should I marry this person, should I move to this locale.  The reason Joshua, at the end of his life and career, posed the question to the people the way he did is because the answer to the question would affect any other choice they might make in the future.  When he said, "Choose the Lord your God, or choose to follow some other god", what Joshua is really trying to say is that we all have to choose where to ground our core principles.  What is our life's priority?  If our life's priority is ourselves, then all our decisions will be based on what's best for me.  Our god is me.  I can do it all!  A lot of life's trauma results from the fact that so many of us put self-interest ahead of everything else in life.  And then when we run into something that is not in our control, we learn that the god of self is not a very good god after all, and our whole worldview collapses.  If we choose to follow the Lord, then our decision-making is grounded in the fact that God is in charge of our lives.  We want to live by an ethic that centers around loving God and loving neighbor around loving ourselves.  If our god is anything else other than the Lord our God – if it is money or fame or career or power or whatever -- then although it may be attractive for a time, but eventually it will be proven to be just a wooden idol.  And we are left with nothing. Fortunately, when we choose wrongly, when we fail to follow Jesus, when we place God on the sidelines of existence, there is still hope.  Jesus came to die for us, and He rose again from the dead to demonstrate that not even death is the final word in the argument of life.  The final word is grace.  And the Lord is always ready to forgive us when we mess up, when we choose wrongly, and when we fail to follow Him.  Commitment to Christ begins with decision, but commitment is never a once-in-a-lifetime decision.  Christ will forgive us of our sins, and restore us to newness of life.  No sin or wrong choice is ever too big for God.  The Lord is in charge. Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman told of a distinguished minister, Dr. Howard, from Australia who preached very strongly on the subject of sin. After the service, one of the church officers came to counsel with him in the study. "Dr. Howard," he said, "we don't want you to talk as openly as you do about man's guilt and corruption, because if our boys and girls hear you discussing that subject they will more easily become sinners. Call it a mistake if you will, but do not speak so plainly about sin." "The minister took down a small bottle and showing it to the visitor said, "You see that label? It says strychnine -- and underneath in bold, red letters the word 'Poison!' Do you know, man, what you are asking me to do? You are suggesting that I change the label. Suppose I do, and paste over it the words, 'Essence of Peppermint'; don't you see what might happen? Someone would use it, not knowing the danger involved, and would certainly die. So it is, too, with the matter of sin. The milder you make your label, the more dangerous you make your poison!" So who do we choose?  Christ is waiting for us when we choose Him.  Amen.              Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA  20177 703-344-3569 almond_keith@yahoo.com