CHOOSE  LIFE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Thursday after Ash Wednesday is, “Choose Life.”

In Hebrew it’s  “Bacharta Ba’Chayim”.  Choose Life!

It’s a key command from Moses to his people – at a key moment in their lives.

They are standing there ready to cross the Jordan River and finally move  into the Promised Land.

Today’s first reading – from Deuteronomy 30 - is one of the most important Old Testament writings.

Today’s first reading begins this way, “Moses said to the people: ‘Today I have set before you:   life and prosperity, death and doom.’”

Then he spells out what he wants to say,  “If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statues and   decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the Lord, your God, will  bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.”

Then he gives the if, the but, the catch, “If you don’t, you won’t have life!”

Then he gives the great statement. “I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life!”

GEORGE  WALD – HARVARD BIOLOGIST  - 1906-1997

Years ago, I was driving along by myself, listening to NPR Radio. George Wald, a famous Harvard biologist was being interviewed.

He was asked one of those questions people sometimes are asked. “If you were all alone, stuck on an abandoned island, in the middle of ocean, and you could have one book, and one book only, what would that book be.”

The New York Times Book Review asks the same question this way, “What books are you reading right now – the ones on your  lamp stand, that little table next to your bed?”

George Wald answered the one book on the abandoned island question with a 2-word answer, “The Bible.”

The interviewer asked back, “Why?”

“Well,”  he answered. “I’m sort of cheating with my answer. The Bible is a whole library of a people – a portable library – with many books, many scrolls – from a long period of time – that contains thoughts that have been written and re-written to help a people with life.”

Then George Wald, I still remember his said, “Just take Deuteronomy 30. There’s a great text, where Moses calls the people together and gives them 2 choices. The stuff that gives you life and the stuff that will kill you. Choose life.”

MARY  OLIVER

A rabbi - in a sermon on Deuteronomy 30 - said  Mary Oliver in her poem, The Summer Day, said the same thing so powerfully.  He says he has a hand written note on his refrigerator door with Mary Oliver’s question which is used every May in hundreds of commencement  addresses: “Tell me, What is it  / you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

IGNATUS OF LOYOLA

All this is the basic message of Ignatius of Loyola. I once took a summer program at Wernersville PA – the Jesuit Retreat house – on Ignatius. The Jesuit Exercises help people make a serious retreat and look at their lives.  They look at what’s giving them life; more. They look at what’s killing them; less.

JESUS CHRIST

Jesus is saying the same thing in today’s gospel – but he says it in paradox and in contradiction.  It’s the message of the cross.  If you want to follow me, you have die to self and rise to new life.

CONCLUSION

This Lent there is the great question.

What are you doing with your one wild and precious life?

What’s killing you? Less.

What’s giving you life? More.

Choose the cross – it looks like a killed – it looks like death – but it brings new life and resurrection.

Choose life.