Choose whom you will serve
November 12, 2023
Prelude
Lighting the Christ Candle
Welcome and Announcements
Dec 3 Advent Communion
Dec 24 11 am, Christmas Eve Service
Called to Worship:
Today God’s word will be spoken to your hearts.
Open our ears and our hearts to receive God’s word.
Today God’s love will be poured into your life.
Prepare us, Lord, to receive your love.
Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!
Hymn: 663 God whose giving knows no ending
Prayer of Adoration
We worship you, O God, as the one in whom we have placed our hope. We share the desire of your people of old to tell of the blessings you have brought into our lives. When we think about the greatest blessing of all—Jesus Christ—we joyfully acknowledge that our hope in you is not misplaced. We choose to serve you because you chose to touch our lives so graciously in Christ. May our faithful witness and the service of our lives reveal the depth of our love and gratitude as we worship you, O God, and as we praise and adore you in Jesus’ name and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now O God, hear us as we trust in the grace in Jesus and come before you in confession, saying
Prayer of Confession: Unison
God of Israel and God of Jesus Christ, we would not be here if you had not chosen to touch our lives with your love. We confess that we sometimes have trouble in our decision-making when faced with questions of whether we wholeheartedly serve you or not. We are often tempted to put other than you first in our lives—when we are faced with choices which affect how we live as your faithful people. Forgive us when the choices we make reflect not your glory but our own selfishness. Gracious and loving God, strengthen us where we are weak so that the choices we make clearly reveal our identity as your faithful people. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
God comes to us, redeeming all who turn to him, choosing the way of Jesus and the new life he brings. Let us hear the good news: God forgives us, frees us from the burden of our sins, and calls us to a new life and a new purpose. Praise be to God.
The Peace
Passing the Peace
Hymn: 625 Seek ye first
Scripture:
Joshua 24: 1-4, 14-25 p 368
Psalm 78: 1-7 p 914
Sermon: Choose whom you will serve
This is a story of covenant renewal. The location at Shechem is significant, this is where the people of Israel first committed themselves to God as they overcame the obstacles and prepared to settle in the land. It was also the site where they came together following significant events to make new decisions about the relationship between them and God.
It was not always an easy relationship.
They continued to share the land with its former occupants, whose gods and religious practices stood at odds with what God was asking of them. In the natural course of events some married into the other cultures and faiths. Those who believed that they had reason to doubt God often looked to the plethora of other gods whose lure was always before them.
Even in our own culture we see the many things that we can choose in place of our faithfulness to God.
We live in a very diverse world, with people of all races, creeds and faiths living together. Being attracted to what some of what the other cultures offer is a temptation always before us.
But we also have a plethora of things in our own culture that can demand our loyalty.
We often see it in the form of unquestioning patriotism, to allegiance to political parties, or even our jobs
and then there are those leisure activities that demand us to make choices. I spoke with someone this week who talked about the difficulty of raising children to follow the path of faith when their sports activities happened on Sunday and their spouse was not supportive of choosing faith.
And what about us? What football fan among us has succumbed to the desire to watch the Grey Cup game that always seems to happen on a Sunday morning.
The need to choose God above all others is always before us.
Even in the first generation of people living in the Promised Land, there had been many opportunities to choose God, and they had chosen others. Joshua brings them to Shechem as a powerful reminder of what God had done for them, and the loyalty that they owed to God.
He reminds them that God had been their God for generations, as far back as their father Abraham. He reminded them that they had gone down to Egypt as God’s mean of saving them from the drought in their own land.
He reminded them that they had strayed and worshipped the god’s in Egypt. He reminded them, that for the people of Egypt that had made no difference, and they as a people, were singled out and brought into slavery.
He reminded them of the oppression and devastation of those days in Egypt.
He reminded them of how Moses and Aaron had taken on the nation of Egypt, its political leadership and its gods and that God had won the battle.
He reminded them of the escape through the Red Sea, the wandering in the desert and how when the time was right, they crossed the Jordon into the Promised Land, and vowed to choose God as their God.
We are reminded that in the journey of life there will always be moments when we will need to realign our hearts and thinking and choose again to serve God.
This is what Joshua offers the people as he calls on them to choose whom they will serve.
The concept of service is central to this text.
Enslaved people never had a choice about whom they served. And if they rebelled there were always those with whips to enforce their obligation.
Those who had actually served as slaves had died on the journey to the promised land. These people were the new generation; but a generation raised on the tales of enslavement. How do slaves teach their children the wisdom and the power to make choices that are not foisted upon them.?
From the revelation of the Commandments at Sinai, and the dedication of their lives after crossing the Jordon, the people were being encouraged to make their own choice.
Joshua reminded them why choosing God, who had worked tirelessly for their freedom and bought them into the land he had promised them, was for them the best option. By choosing God they chose the one who kept them safe, answered their prayers, brought them into their homeland and opened life up before them.
Yet Joshua was also a pragmatic man.
He warned them that they would be tempted to choose other gods, and that some would choose Baal or others rather than the God who gave them their freedom.
That’s the problem with freedom—there are too many choices.
Then there is the problem that too many choices can cause, because unless we pause to remember what God has done, and to pray that God will guide us, we will choose the next flashy new thing that causes us to be tempted.
So in this moment, Joshua not only calls them to choose God; but also questions the sincerity of their vow to choose God above all others.
He takes an adversarial stance and almost goads them.
He dismisses their commitment.
He accuses them of abandoning the Covenant.
They had done so in the past and they would again.
Joshua recognized that this failure would be a source of much trouble for the people, because God would follow through with disciplining them. He warned them that God’s grace could be replaced with God’s wrath.
Then he reminds them that they are making a serious decision. That decision must be made soberly and with thoughtful consideration of what it means.
Choosing God is not the whim of a moment.
Choosing God means that we recognize that he is the God of our salvation and that he has risked it all in order to bring us into his presence. Choosing God means that we honour God, not only with our presence, but also with our hearts and our service. We are either all in, or all out.
Joshua drives this importance home with repetition.
Over and over again he reminds them of what God has done.
Over and over again he reminds them of how they had sinned.
In the end Joshua focuses on reminding the people that God was the source of all the goodness that they have received and will continue to receive. He reminds them of the constancy of God’s grace and mercy.
Three times Joshua offers them the reasons to choose God and asks them to make that choice.
In what other place have we seen that kind of questioning?
Following his resurrection Jesus sought out Peter. 3 times Peter had denied Jesus during the trial that Jesus endured before being sentenced to death, and crucified. Now on this day, on the beach, he calls out Peter to make a choice, to let go of that guilt and to choose the service to which he was called.
When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep John 21, NIV
It is easy to say I love you, the first time you are asked, then go on and forget. But when you are asked to the point of exasperation, DO YOU LOVE ME?, it is a very different story.
You realize the importance of your words, and in Peter’s case it also reminded them that choosing God, was making the choice to take care of God’s people. That is a frightening and demanding choice.
It is always that way when we take up our responsibility in God’s kingdom.
Our choice for God, came following a great sacrifice on God’s part. When we are pushed to make the choice to accept and to serve, it also requires much from us. We do not make this choice lightly.
It is the same thing here at Shechem.
Joshua says essentially that they are free to make their own choice, but as for him and his family they would serve the Lord.
Some of the commentators have said that Joshua is taking this choice into the smallest possible unit, you (or me) and our family.
Other commentators point out that for the people of Israel family was a lot larger than that. There were 12 households, descendants from one of each of the 12 sons of Abraham.
It included not only the nuclear family; but also multiple generations, grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters and cousins. More than that it also included the servants in that household and the strangers that lived in the safety of their gates.
When those people took those vows to choose God, they also took on the responsibility for a whole community of people. This is not a small calling.
One of the temptations in our world, is to say that our faith is a personal matter and only between God and us. It would seem from the way this choice is presented by Joshua choosing God is not personal at all. To choose God, is also to choose all those people for whom God gives you responsibility.
What does that mean for us?
This congregation.
This community.
Our nation.
All those who are seeking a way out of war, terror, or oppression.
We are reminded that as the people of the congregation of St. Andrew’s we are also called
to choose each other,
the community around us
and our mission to the community,
because how we serve one another is a part of our loyalty to God.
The commentator Jenista points out that when we choose to serve God, we choose to serve him by loving our neighbour, loving the unemployed, the homeless, the widow, the orphan and the stranger. Or as Jesus would say, the lambs, the sheep and the least of these.
Choosing to serve God is choosing to serve the cause of peace and justice. Over and over again the prophets have urged the people to show their choice for God in how they served the world. Micah wrote: And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. 6: 8 NIV
No wonder Joshua called the people to meet at Shechem to repeat their vows.
No wonder Jesus called Peter apart. In our choosing God, we bring the whole world around us into his mercy.
Choose God.
Serve God.
Serve the people of God.
And don’t count the cost.
No wonder we are asked again and again to make the choice and to remember whose we are and whom we shall serve. Amen
Covenant Prayer
I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours.
So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
John Wesley
Hymn: 626 Lord of all power
Offering and Offertory
Doxology 830
Offertory Prayer
Generous God, we ourselves with our gifts, confident that you have a purpose for them and for us. Expand our limited vision to embrace new possibilities. With these gifts we rededicate our lives in your service. May all we offer you, reach beyond the limits of our vision and be a blessing to the whole world and all its peoples. Amen
Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayers of the People and the Lord’s Prayer
Gracious God, we thank you that when we walk close to you in this earthly pilgrimage, the days are always full of wonder and grace. Help us to find the journey laid out before us. May we always rest in your love and be taught by your compassion. May choosing to follow you cause us to bring light and compassion into the world. May hope blossom in all the things we do in your name.
Now, in your name we pray bringing you our joys, and expressing our care for the church, community and world.
JOYS
CHURCH AND COMMUNITY
WORLD
Victims of bus crash in Burnaby
Increase of Evacuations in Gaza---- may the 2 hours cease fires help
Bring forth your new life in us and in all for whom we have prayed, that Jesus may be honoured in every place on earth.
Hear us now as we pray as Jesus taught us, saying,
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen
Hymn: 634 Will you come and follow me
Charge and Benediction
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people. Go into the world to live as God’s people, bringing all into the comfort and grace of God’s presence. And may the love of God, the grace of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit be with you, now and forevermore. Amen
Sung Blessing Go now in Peace.