November 6, 2011 "Choose of Chosen"

Joshua 24:1-4 & 14-25
Matthew 25: 1-13
A scientist in Idaho recently put forwad the following undisputed facts: The chemical compound "dihydrogenated-monoxide has been implicated in the deaths of thousands of Americans every year, mainly through accidental ingestion. In gaseous form, it can cause severe burns. The chemical is so caustic that it accelerates the corrosion of many metals... is a major component of acid rain, ... has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients. Symptoms of ingestion include excessive sweating and urination, and humanity has become so dependent upon this chemical that complete withdrawal means certain death. The presence of dihydrogenated-monoxide has been confirmed in every river, stream, lake, and reservoir in America.

" Judging from these facts, do you think dihydrogenated-monoxide should be banned?"

 86% of those surveyed agreed it should be banned. Follow-up surveys at the University of Notre Dame, Glasgow, Scotland, Stockton, California, yielded similar results. 
However, dihydrogenated-monoxide is commonly called water (H2O)! The scientist, fourteen-year-old Nathan Zohner won the Idaho State Science Fair by proving his project's thesis: "How Gullible Are We?"

This morning I would like you to reflect with me, not only on answering questions right, but the levels of our commitment... the depths of our faith, whether we have thought through that the answers we give are what we believe... and whether our words, whether what we believe matters?

With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, God had freed the Hebrew slaves from Pharaoh, by miracles God had brought them out of oppression through the Red Sea into the wilderness, through Moses God had given the people the 10 Commandments and Ark of the Covenant, God gave them Manna from Heaven and water out of solid rock, day in day out for forty years God had led and provided for the Chosen people. Moses died before entering the Promised land and Joshua had been appointed to lead after Moses. Israel had crossed the Jordan and conquered the city of Ai, then the great city of Jericho without a single weapon being fired. Now, after all of that, possessing the Law, possessing the Covenant, possessing the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, before Joshua dies without leaving a successor, he asks the people, the Chosen people of God “Choose again, whom will you serve?”

A simple comparison would be to ask the couple married for over forty years, after all that has happened, after worrying about the paying of bills, after putting one another through school, after the birth and raising of children, after building your home and paying down the mortgage, knowing that for many of us our life and death choices change in the last year of life, we spend 90% of the world's cost for Health care in the last 10% of our lives, will you choose to share your days with this partner?

Perhaps the more relevant question to the times we live in, after working a lifetime for a company, day in day out, in good economies and bad recessions, through world-wars, when you prepare for retirement, will the company still honor your pension?

This is an archaic story from a Biblical time far removed from our own. Our cultural values are not only of a manifest destiny, that every person can succeed and hard work results in profits, but that we so believe in democracy and individual rights we will go to war for other nations other people to have these rights. What Joshua was affirming this day, was not human rights, but loyalty to a Divine Power. Can we make the division, that economically, socially, politically people have the Human Right to vote, to decide for themselves what is right and wrong, changing our minds as we often do; while at the same time committing to a loyalty to God, that not only on the day we join a congregation, not only when we are baptized or on the day of confirmation but deeper and deeper every day we affirm “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, I trust and love the Lord”?

Many of us cannot. And if not, we need to be honest with ourselves, honest with our faith, that there is one God, and God only will we serve. Everything else will take care of itself. We do not need to be concerned with the latest electronic car, DROID or popular possession. Because to choose the LORD and not be faithful may be worse than never to have known God at all. We become a prostituted people who claim fidelity to God, while lusting after all the other idols.

To be a Believer AND to be in the world today requires a balancing, that as a citizen, as a human being, we have rights and responsibilities of freedom, to work hard and do our best; HOWEVER, always to remember that as much as the commercials are selling us on CHOOSING to possess the latest, hottest, sexiest thing, as much as we desire to choose to keep up with our neighbors, even that we would choose to lay down our lives defending the basic human rights of others, we are also a CHOSEN people of God, and all our lives are lived in response to God loving us. The most difficult part of which is that being a Chosen people may mean our being used by God to demonstrate that loyalty, that fidelity, that love.

The problem of the bridesmaids was not that they did not know they were bridesmaids, not that they had not brought the right wedding garment, or that they had forgotten their role as bearers of the light, but that they were distracted by worry their lamps would go out. A different wedding tradition than we are accustomed to, where the groom does not see the bride before the wedding and everyone tries to get the Groom's expression as the Sanctuary doors open and he says “Whoa!” At this time, all the bridesmaids and guests gathered at the Bride's parents home and when everything was ready at the Groom's home, when the dowry had been paid, when all was prepared, then the Bridegroom came to escort his bride to their wedding together. The parable of the Kingdom of Heaven, is that the bridegroom is delayed in returning. Christ died over 2000 years ago, yet we are still here... Some came prepared with extra flasks of oil for 2000 years of waiting. Some panic at the last moment that they will not have enough to light their way and the way for the guests. They abandon their identity as bridesmaids at a wedding, to go buy more at midnight. While some are prepared and some are not, the question not asked is what would have happened if the foolish bridesmaids had not run off to CVS to get more oil? The Scriptures are filled with stories of there being only a dram of oil for the feeding of the Widow and her son, yet it was enough to feed them and Elijah for 40 days and nights, the story of Chanukah is about the oil not running out.Surely as Bridesmaids on the way to the Kingdom of Heaven the oil would have lasted, or if not, they could have joined the other guests but they were pre-occupied by having their own supply, by buying the stuff that would satisfy their fears.

As a Chosen people, Choose this day whom you will serve, Choose Again.