The Choice: To Serve or Not to Serve
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 16) - August 24, 2003
By The
Very Rev. James Hubbard
- Joshua 24:1-2a,14-25
- Psalm 16
- Ephesians 5:21-33
- John 6:60-69
(From The Lectionary Page)
The decision to serve God always involves conflict for the individual. And that conflict falls in two arenas. The first arena is that of the culture in which we live, the second is that of the Christian community in which we take our place.
Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and faced them with a choice. "You have been serving the comfortable gods of your neighbors, the people with whom you live, and that is your choice. But today you are to make that choice consciously and publicly." Now to serve the gods of the people beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites was pretty easy. They were the gods of comfort, the gods of agriculture, the gods their neighbors served. They did not have to be different, it did not cost them much, the tithe, for instance, they could be lax or devout, the penalties were not great, nor the rewards apparent. But, says Joshua, to serve the God of Israel requires your whole life.
Marva Dawn, a Lutheran theologian, tells the story of Yehudi Menuhin, the great concert violinist and conductor. When an awed listener praised his exquisite performance by insisting, “I would give my life to play like that,” he gently replied, “I have.”
Jesus’ challenge to his disciples was similar.
To follow him would make his disciples outcasts in Israel. Religion
had again become comfortable, the expectations clear. But Jesus was
talking about clear, ultimate loyalties, which ran counter to the
culture. “Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is
a hard saying, who can listen to it?” And they took offense, and
Jesus knowing it challenged them with these words. “Then what if you
were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?” To
believe in this man as God, was blasphemous to the good Jew. They
could not accept this. “After this many of his disciples drew back
and no longer went about with him.”
The choice today is the same. To serve God openly and unashamedly
requires the same kind of sacrifice—public notice. Civil religion
today dictates that one not do more than go to church on Sunday,
that one does not get too involved, that one not be fanatic about
one’s religion, and surely that one never speak about it to another.
It must remain private. The choices are the same. Choose this day
whom you will serve, the gods of public and private comfort, or the
Lord God who requires our all. Most of us serve the gods of personal
comfort.
The second arena of choice is that of the community of which we are a part in the kingdom of God. St. Paul illustrates this with his infamous words about wives being subject to their husbands. Women today get incensed about those words. How often I have heard women say, “I don’t like St. Paul” and by so doing say, “I’m not going to take that part of scripture seriously.” Paul had an uncomfortable habit of making Christian faith apply to the everyday matters of life, the nitty gritty stuff of existence, and when he did Christians had some clear, tough choices. Like this matter of subjection. Most fail to read it carefully. It begins by saying, be subject to one another, and that involves husbands to wives as well as wives to husbands, but in the larger context it calls for Christians to be subject to one another, to serve one another, to look out for each others well-being, no matter what that costs one in personal service or self-giving. Because most of us have never learned that, we are where we are. This person preferring their way to another, that person with feelings hurt, this one determined to see that the priest does what he or she wants, that one clear that he is not going to do this or that until he gets his way in some matter. The result? Little community, limited love, no feeling of belonging or being cared about. No one is willing to be subject to anyone else.
A dozen years ago I went to Costa Rica with 21 others. There for ten days the Company of Strangers lived and worked in Christian community. Company of Strangers is what I called the work camps I led during those years. I really don’t know what people outside that work camp experience imagined it to have been. I suppose for some it seemed like a way to get a vacation in another culture, for some exciting, for some when they heard about the cold showers and the sleeping on the floor, and the eating of Costa Rican food, including turtle meat and rice every day, they shivered with pleasure that they did not go. But for those of us who went, it might be characterized fairly as an experiment in Christian living, in learning to be subject to one another.
One man came to me early in the trip very unhappy that he had to go along with the others. Four just pulled out. I remember one night, one older high school boy was clear that the Costa Ricans were not the important ones for him, this Company was. It was the group of 22 with whom he had to live, who occupied his waking hours, with whom he felt estranged, but with whom he desperately wanted to be important in order to work out his Christian commitment.
In those work camps whether domestic or foreign, we focused on the Eucharist. The work mass began and ended our day. No one could ignore that without pulling out of the group. Someone always did. People came to Company of Strangers, Costa Rica for all sorts of reasons—the desire to serve, the desire to see Costa Rica reasonably, the desire to have again the opportunity to live in Christian community, and I am sure many other reasons, but most returned home with a song in their life, with a vision of what it could be like at home, with a sense of being loved and cared about that was new. Not everyone, but most. On Saturday evening before the group was to leave for home on Sunday, two Company members came to me and said, "Father James, could we plan an hour together with the group tomorrow morning? We can’t leave without having one more time together." Now I was exhausted, not tired, not worn out, but pushing the edge of complete physical exhaustion, and I knew. I knew we had to get together to give people an opportunity to draw together the edges of their experience. But I also knew that it was 1:00 A.M., and I still had to get up at 3:00 or 4:00 and put together my sermon for the 9:00 liturgy at the Cathedral church in downtown San Jose. But I assented. Lets meet at 8:00 just before the service, for an hour. And I went to bed. A number of the Company stayed up until 3:00. I overslept, pulled myself from my bag on the floor about 5:00 a.m., wrote my sermon, God knows how, and joined the group at 8:00 so tired, so bone tired that I simply was there, not sure how I would make it through the day. Someone read a psalm, and another a reading from Isaiah that “we would mount up with wings as eagles” and one shared a poem she had written.
Silently the dew falls
Stars begin to appear
And continue the dance
Through deep backdrop
Of sky reaching far…There rests a quietness in my soul,
I listen, wonder at the silence…
Yet…I feel a singing somewhere
Deep within me, soft notes.
I know not where they were born,Yet I know they came from the song.
I can’t remember their beginning,
Only of when I began to discover.
They are still young within me,
Yet now I see them in others.I close my eyes and look into my hand
I find a hand in mine.
The union of two spirits
Two notes in the Song
Bound by the sound
To which the stars dance,
I learn to dance…Debbie Dawn Crimean
June 12, 1985
And the tears began to trickle down my face, and I wasn’t tired any longer. I was washed clean of tiredness. I knew and almost everyone there knew what had happened, knew what the Company of Strangers was about. High school boys shared while crying so hard they couldn’t continue, as did middle aged women, and Vet Am veterans, and a worn, tired priest. The Company had become something beyond estrangement, even beyond friendship. This Company had become the Body of Christ. This Company knew the fears and the joys of openly and joyously being subject to one another in love.
This Company’s journey is done. Maybe, I have shared enough of it for you to catch the vision of another reality, of another possibility to join with your journey and help it come alive with love and joy in subjection. Your choice. Choose you this day who you will serve. Amen.
