Dr. David D. Young
August 13, 2006
Joshua 24: 14-15
John 14: 1-6a
''Choosing Is Confusing''

I want to begin by taking a moment of pastoral privilege and just mention - I think most of you know that my mother passed away a week ago yesterday and we just returned yesterday from going back to Indiana for her funeral which was a joyous celebration of her life and it was good to be together. I’m one of five children, so it was good to be together with family and extended family and the church family I grew up in. (Where they know more about me, than I hope you’ll ever know, as a youngster running around in the church.) But it was really good to be back and it’s equally good to be back here in our church home here. I want to say a word of thanks to many of you who expressed love and support to us during these days. So thank you very much - it means a great deal.

To live, to exert control over the world around us, to express our individuality – is to choose. But I’m here this morning to say that choosing is confusing!

We’ve been doing a lot of college shopping lately – and for many teenagers looking at different schools and universities – the whole process can be a bit confusing. It reminded me of hearing about an institution of higher learning (a seminary) that began the year with an anti-orientation session designed to confuse incoming students. Could you imagine going to an orientation session to get ready to choose all of your classes – only to discover that everything was mixed up and confusing.

The difficulty some people have in making choices when things aren’t even intentionally confused is evidenced in the story of a woman who decided to travel and went to an agent with the improbable name of Patrick Finnegan O’Riley. She told him of her plans, and he said, ''Madam, perhaps you would be interested in a safari to Africa.''

''Oh, no,'' she said. ''I couldn’t stand the smell of animals, much less killing them.'' ''Well, perhaps a trip to India and a visit to the shrines.'' ''No,'' she said. ''India is full of diseases, I am told, and also Hindus. I really wouldn’t want to go there.''

''How about a trip to Ireland, to the old country?'' ''No,'' she answered. '' I understand that Ireland is cold and damp and full of Catholics.'' ''Well then, madam,'' he said, ''how about going to hell? I understand it is hot, dry, and full of Protestants.''

Now, lets bring this confusing element of choosing home for a moment. How many of you have done what I have done? You’re getting ready to go somewhere, a social gathering, a program for the arts or perhaps even church, and you stand in front of the closet for several minutes trying to figure out what to wear. Choosing is confusing!

I had a professor in college who solved that problem – he got rid of everything in his closet except for two outfits. That way he merely had to remember which one he had worn the day before and alternate.

Many people decide every Saturday night or Sunday morning whether or not they are going to church. And like standing before the closet – they stand before the Sunday morning decision spending considerable time going back and forth on what that particular weekend choice will be.

My sister and brother-in-law had a long talk once about church and what it meant to them, their values, their children, their own growth and faithfulness and they decided - yes – let’s go every Sunday, unless we’re sick. That way they didn’t have to spend a lot of time and energy every weekend deciding if they were going to church. The issue is not going to church fifty-two Sundays a year, but – that one choice can help eliminate a lot of hassle and confusion.

We’re not here today to talk about choosing which shoes we’ll wear with which pants or dress. We’re here to talk about a faith choice. And so I want to move to a different level of choosing by letting our text, which Peter Garlid read for us from Joshua, frame the question,

''Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River, and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if you be unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.''

Now look friends, our gods are not the gods of the Amorites or ones from Egypt. Ours are much more subtle. Inordinate amounts of time and energy are put into pursuing money and materialism, power and prestige, security and status, ego and recognition, self satisfaction and the list could go one.

Archbishop di Contini-Verchese has well said,

''Our God has given us free will. And with that gift comes the burden of choice.''

Each of us made a choice to participate in this celebration of worship today. (Either by being here or tuning in on the radio.) But if you are like me sometimes really choosing and following Christ is confusing. And so like Thomas, we may be thinking or feeling,

''Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?''

It’s like saying, ''Lord we choose you,'' as I hope each of us does, ''but how does that get worked out?''

For that after all, is what we recognize is our business, our work as Christians, is to live out the Christ choice. If one’s Christianity is taken seriously – all other busy-ness pales by comparison.

Well, our text from John offers three Christ choice clues. Simply put, they are,

Letting go! Letting in! Letting flow!

The first comes from six brief, yet challenging words when Jesus says,

''Let not your hearts be troubled.''

But how hard it is to let our hearts not be troubled. Jesus has said it before,

''Be not anxious.''

Yet isn’t that just like us, to be anxious and troubled about something. And our reaction is to hang on for dear life. It’s hard to let go of all the things that make us uptight.

A delightful story you may have heard is told of a woman who was walking along the edge of a cliff when suddenly she fell – but luckily was able to reach out and grab a branch. Now – while she was hanging there she called out, ''Is anyone up there?'' To which God replied, ''Yes.'' The woman inquired, ''I need your help, what should I do?'' The voice replied, ''Let go!'' After a long silence, she then asked, ''Is anybody else up there?''

There is a poster, which says,

''Some say it’s holding on that makes you strong, sometimes it’s letting go.''

Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not advocating letting go of everything – because another whole sermon could be preached on not letting go of the vine – for remember Jesus also said,

''I am the vine and you are the branch.''

No, but I am saying letting go of anxieties, fear, worries, and troubled hearts. Because that’s all they are: anxieties, fear, worries and troubled hearts – and nothing more. They seldom, if ever, help a situation.

In her book, Be Somebody, Mary Crowley, writes,

''Every evening I turn worries over to my Creator because God’s going to be up all night anyway.''

That’s not a bad philosophy for releasing our cares of dizzying confusion – by letting go!

Our text goes on from ''Let not your hearts be troubled,'' to,

''believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.''

To believe in God, to believe in Christ, and to believe in this promise involves a process of letting in! Jesus’ going to prepare a place in his father’s house where he will let us in to be with him – is a powerful symbol for us as it has been for me and my family this past week. In the meantime we can open our place of dwelling – that is our heart – and letting in Christ.

Out of Eastern culture comes the image of a man who wanted the sea, so he went down to the ocean shore and waded out into the water and tried to clutch the sea. But each time he clutched it he had nothing at all – he came up empty handed. After a long period of frustration he heard a voice say, ''open your hands and you will have the ocean and so he did.

Or as William Barclay says in these slightly adapted words from his book, Prayers for Young People,

''Often God cannot give us the things we need until we are prepared to consent to take them; and letting in means asking God to give us the things which God knows we need, and telling God that we are ready now to receive them.''

Letting go – releasing, opens us to (leads to) Letting in – receiving which leads us to Letting flow!

For Jesus says,

''I am the way, and the truth, and the life.''

The Christ choice involves a process. Those early followers of Jesus were not called Christians initially, they were known as followers of the way. Jesus as way, truth, and life is an unfolding process and flowing through us.

The following is an account from George Whitefield’s Journal – while crossing the Atlantic to America, (taken from a much earlier period of our countries’ development.)

''Our allowance of water now is but a pint a day, so that we dare not eat much beef. Our sails are exceedingly thin, some more of them were split last night, and no one knows where we are; but God does, and that is sufficient.''

We are like that – floating on the sea of life – flowing in the way of God. Our living is truly that way, truth and life only, said the saint, Mother Teresa, ''in so far as we permit Christ to work in us and through us with his power, with his desire, with his love.''

The choice we’re talking about is the Christ choice. The Christ choice will not make life easier or less painful – it can however help eliminate a lot of confusion – by letting go, letting in, and letting flow!

Hear once again our text for this morning,

''And if you be unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.''

''Lord we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?''

Choosing is confusing!

But when we make the Christ choice we are involved in the process of:

Letting go – releasing! Letting in – receiving! and Letting flow – Christ in and through us!

Letting go! ''Let not your hearts be troubled.''
Letting in! ''Believe in God, believe also in me.''
Letting flow! ''I am the way, and the truth, and the life.''

In closing, I share these words of writer Louise Haskins,

''I said to the man who stood at the gate, Give me light that I my tread safely into the unknown! And he said – Go – Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of god – and that shall be to you better than a light and safer than a known way.''

Choosing is confusing!

Letting go!
Letting in!
Letting flow!

Thanks be to God this day for giving us our choice and his choice – the Christ choice!

Amen.