Read the Lectionary Texts

by Rev. Dr. R. Tim Meadows

Pastor, Protestant Community Church, Medford Lakes, NJ

Some years ago, the great American theologian (well, singer), George Jones, offered a poignant song with the same title as our sermon today. Choices. Fearing a demand for royalty payment, and the immediate egress of you, my audience, I have reluctantly decided not to sing it this morning.

However, it so captures what the Psalmist and the Gospel of Luke say, that I will read a portion of it to you:

“CHOICES!”

“I’ve had choices, since the day that I was born.
There were voices that told me right from wrong.
If I had listened, I wouldn’t be here, today.
Living and dying with the choices I’ve made.”

Both the Psalmist and the Gospel of Luke indicate that we will have choices in life, and we will have to live and die with those choices. The good news that both offer is that the right choices will be easier to live with than the wrong choices. Both the Psalmist and the Gospel of Luke seek to tell us, at least in part, what the right choices in life are. Let’s listen to the possibilities of the choices we can make:

The Psalmist encourages us to choose good and reap the benefits. To choose generosity, compassion, and righteousness and know that this will be a positive model for those who come behind us and see our example. The Psalmist however is not naïve. Even the good, he says, will face bad news, but they face such with the confidence that God will grant them what they need for whatever the outcome of the difficulty may be.

For all of those who seek certainty from their relationship with God, and the Word of God, the Psalmist offers this:

Choose Good! Choose Generosity! Choose Compassion! Choose Righteousness!

Do these things and it will be much easier to live and die with the choices you’ve made.

Jesus’ word on choices according to Luke is not quite as easy to affirm and live by as those of the Psalmist. As Jesus is want to do, when he discusses choices, he offers us hard choices to consider. Jesus wants to mess with our neighborhood dinners for six and our dinners for eight. He wants to tell us how to mix the company, and who should be on the guest list, and it is not what we want to hear! Take the worst seat at the party, Jesus advises. Invite those no one else will to dinner, Jesus says. Now, that is just not the way things are done in our world!

Jesus is getting at some critical choices however, with his social chaos. He is reminding us to choose humility over asserting our rightful place, and he is reminding us to choose to be kind toward those who do not necessarily receive kindness as a general rule.

How simplistic, yet how profound Jesus is. Can you imagine how different our world could be, if just those of us who profess to be followers of Christ made these choices? We might actually experience that kinder, gentler, nation we were promised so long ago. Can you imagine how those on the margins of society might feel and react, if we make the choice to reach out without prejudice that Jesus challenges us to make? The margins might just disappear. Can you imagine the real influence that the Church might have in society if it truly affected the agendas of the Psalmist and Jesus? The influence might be welcome and irresistible, rather than partisan and political.

We’ve had choices. We will have choices. We will live and die with the choices we make.

I suppose my singing of Jones’ song will have to wait until after a Guinness or two have been consumed by all of us in an appropriate karaoke setting! But I pray that God will give us the grace to make good choices, and the strength to live and die with those choices, until they make a positive impact in our world!

Amen.