16th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST PROPER 20

September 20, 2009

the Rev. Ken Kroohs

(Jeremiah 11:18-20, Ps. 54, James 3:13-4:3 & 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37)

WHY DO WE MAKE THE CHOICES WE MAKE ?

St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church, High Point, NC

MAY THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH ... AND THE MEDITATIONS OF ALL OUR HEARTS ... BE ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU --- OUR STRENGTH AND OUR REDEEMER AMEN

Why do you make the choices you make? .... That’s an important question — just possibly the most important question in our life.

“Why” is the basis for the decisions we make so the “why” is even more important than which decision we make. Knowing what makes us tick ... what causes us to move left or right ... spend or save ... work or sleep ... knowing what directs and drives our actions can help us understand ourselves. More importantly, such understanding can help us change if we decide we want to change.

James gives a very simplistic answer to this question. But “simplistic” doesn’t mean wrong. And a “simplistic” answer certainly is one we can learn from – even if it is not totally correct.

James says we are either moved by God ... or moved by evil. End of story.

As I said James’ answer is simplistic but basically true. The problem is that we don’t often see that foundational cause. We don’t see every issue as so fundamentally simple. Frankly, we seldom see ANY issue as relating to God ... or evil. True?

And that may be the exact problem James is attempting to address ... our blindness. We don’t see God involved in the moment to moment decisions we make in our life — and therefore never consider that evil — and God – may be –ARE affecting us.

As I have said before I don’t care what name or explanation you give to “evil” ... is it societal influence? DNA? Bad parenting? Spiritual forces? ... That issue is not important. We simply need to understand there are forces influencing us and some of those influences are evil.

Once we accept there are forces influencing us to either good or bad, we can begin to identify those influences. More importantly we can begin to see those forces at work and decide whether that is what we truly want.

That’s the reason Bible study is so important. Why prayer is so important. Why praise is so important. Why corporate worship is so important. Those activities are what bring us closer to God. Those activities are what make us aware of God. They open our eyes, our ears and most importantly our spirits to know God in our life.

The scriptures for the last several weeks have pointed us in the direction of “choices” - knowing that our lives are controlled by the choices we make.

Sometimes outside forces narrow our choices. Actually that happens all the time we just notice it more when the choices are narrowed to what we consider less than optimum options. But even in those situations, how we respond — what choices we make determine where we go from that point on.

Today we are invited to consider the extremes of our choices ... the obviously good and the obviously evil. The person who gives up their life to save another person – obviously good. The person who kills an innocent person - obviously bad. Sometimes the choices are extreme enough to make the good vs. evil ... God vs. evil extremes easy to pick out.

More often our are choices are difficult to characterize. In fact, most of the time the choices we make are virtually invisible to us. Examples: Whether we take this road or that road when both get us to our destination. Whether we clean the bathroom or the bedroom first. Whether we buy the Ford or the equivalent Nissan.

Those are the type of choices which make me think James is exaggerating – a bit - when he suggests all choices are between God and evil.

But admitting that some decisions, some choices have little to do with the battle between good and evil within us, we miss that MOST significant decisions DO have implications for that war. Most importantly we miss, or ignore that there is such a battle going on ... a battle between good and evil. A battle to influence our decisions. And we miss, or ignore that we have the ability to decide who wins that war.

We need to make the choice of which side we wish to support, and then seriously, deeply consider how each decision affects that choice.

Evil’s strongest weapon is our ignorance. Evil’s most effective tactic is to convince us our decisions do not matter. Evil wins when we just go on blindly, not considering how our decisions impact the bigger picture. working together if we are to win the war. We need

I know – those are all good, almost poetic words! But what do they mean? How do we make those choices? How do we learn to notice our choices and then make the correct ones?

In a way that was the question Jesus was answering when He spoke to the disciples. Jesus was not specifically talking about a contest to see who was greatest. Jesus was speaking about a life pattern ... a decision matrix ... a way to notice the choices and then make the correct one. The disciples were choosing to direct their lives toward a goal of being the greatest.

Jesus says – no, you must be servant to all. Jesus says its easy to notice and decide ... are we being the servant of all? When we make a decision - are we being servants? Not slaves ... not abused but servants.

Example ... one of those “God doesn’t care about this” decisions ... where we park our car. Do we take the best place available because we are the first ones to it? Or do we ask ourselves whether it might be possible that someone else might need the space? Or even more extreme – ask ourselves where a servant would park? (The fact is we might get a bit of needed exercise is just a bonus!)

So we park further away and see some <insert nasty words here> person takes the best available space. ... If we saw a pregnant woman in a wheelchair we might feel good about ourselves but that < > person! Why should I have given up the space so they can take it?

Funny thing ... we are more of a servant when an undeserving person benefits than when we can puff up our chests and brag (silently brag of course!) about what we did.

We are to be servants of ALL ... the reaction of other people is their concern, and God’s, but not our concern. Again, that is not about being abused ... that’s wrong. But being a servant.

I suggest an exercise, and like all exercise it takes a number of repetitions before we get good at it. Go home this afternoon and think about this past week. If you have an appointment calendar use that to remind yourself. Also your checkbook or computer records are good reminders.

Thank about this past week. Ask yourself about all the decisions you made. You will forget about 80% ... we will not notice at least 80% of our choices which is why we need to keep doing this exercise to help us become more aware of God in our lives.

Ask yourself about each decision. Don’t rationalize but ask how God would care about that choice and try very hard to find a reason. Ask yourself how you demonstrated servanthood, or how you could have demonstrated servanthood and try very hard to find a way.

Then – take a little more time and consider the decisions you never even considered. The choices you made by not even considering the options.

Decisions like making an effort to grow closer to God through an increase in study, prayer and praise. Did we even consider doing that? If we did not consider that choice — we still made a choice. It was the choice to do nothing.

Or decisions like NOT intentionally serving “the least of these” = serving God’s beloved children who need it the most. If we did not even consider such actions then we made a choice. It was the choice to do nothing.

We find there really are two parallel sets of fundamental decisions we make all the time. We make these decisions — we just seldom if ever notice them. One set of decisions are about growing closer to God. The second set is about serving others - being the servant of all.

These are fundamental. All our other decisions ... ALL OF THEM ... all the decisions we make about our lives ... the big decisions and the tiny ones ... all of them relate to those two fundamental questions: will we grow closer to God and we will serve God.

These two decision sets intertwine in the sense that if we grow closer to God we will serve other people. No choice. We know we have grown closer to God by an increase in our desire to serve others.

And when we serve others we will grow closer to God. It will happen.

So just for the moment let’s consider the possibility we have tentatively decided we want to follow this path. We want to grow closer to God. How do we do it?

Fortunately for us, our loving God gives us lots of opportunities and lots of chances. A good plan would be to make the decision ... set our calendar or checkbook ... to do one recurring thing that relates to God. Make the decision to start one recurring thing this week. Not sometime in the future but this week.

Then focus on how that action is about our relationship with God. If we serve in the homeless shelter – don’t just do it because it is ethically right. Think about, pray about how it is God’s commandment which sends us there.

Repeat the exercise weekly to begin to understand the “why” of our decisions – and learn to answer “why” with: “because it draws me closer to God.”

AMEN

We have previous sermons on our website. To read an earlier recent sermon just enter: www.st-christopher.org/sermon.html.

CLICK HERE TO RESPOND: I would enjoy reading your comments about this sermon. Please feel free to discuss content or presentation. (If you wish to use another email system send your comments to: ken@st-christopher.com)