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.
