Choose This Day
October 26, 2014 | Anita Retzlaff

The youth have set before us the pitfalls that are a predictable part of the journey that is ours as people of God.  With Sarah at the helm they spent hours preparing this video and offering their interpretive spin on that trek through the wilderness at which time God gave to the people a guide to live by: 10 Commandments of Highly Faithful People. As the youth so aptly demonstrate, the people of God do not always live up to the calling of these commandments and as a result trouble follows.

Deuteronomy is an extended sermon that goes on for 34 chapters - so no complaints about the 9 minutes that you will get from me this morning.  The Deuteronomy sermon is really a repetition of the Exodus story. Moses guides his people through the wilderness, through deprivation, disorientation and despair and after 40 years finally arrives in the relative safety of the Plains of Moab bordering their final destination, Canaan, the Promised Land.  And here at the place where the wilderness journey is still fresh and real, Moses reminds his people of their story and the choice that continues to govern their lives either for better or for worse. They can choose life and the good that comes from faithfulness or they choose evil and the deathly things that idolatry (worshipping something other than God) provokes. Will they choose to live by the commandments and live in shalom or will it go the other way?

The people of God in Deuteronomy are living at the border where the Promised Land is yet before them and their trek now behind them. They experience life at the threshold. A more contemporary word to describe living on the border, in no man's land, between times is the word liminal.  Liminal means threshold. The people of God live on the threshold of the Promise, betwixt and between the past and the future.  The time is ripe for making choices.  Choose God, walk in God's ways.  Keep the commandments of God.  Live well, exuberantly and obediently. Choose otherwise and there will be yet more wilderness wandering, disorientation and emptiness.
We stand along with Moses and the Israelites today, on the Plains of Moab, with similar choices and our own stories of breaking commandments. We live in liminal space as 21st century Christian Canadians.  (No time machine needed.) Our common experience is ever-accelerating change. The world is in our back yard and vice versa.  Ebola could land in Saskatoon tomorrow.  Canada's experimental vaccine may save lives in this epidemic that is spiralling out of control.  If we haven't figured it out yet our actions are felt around the world in very short order these days.  Religions are fighting each other and extremist groups on all sides are stoking the fires of fear and panic. The events of the immediate past are dizzying and the future seems so unpredictable. I feel like we are standing on the Plains of Moab, like Moses once did, betwixt and between, looking to the future with some anxiety. 

Yet we do have direction.  We have a choice always, even in the small things and maybe especially in the small things; to choose that which leads to life or to choose those things that lead to fragmentation, bad feelings and deathly isolation. As people of God we have a fierce desire to choose life. God has called us to be life-giving witnesses in the world. How do we offer that kind of hope on the threshold, in the in-between places of our ordinary experiences?

John Gormley, Saskatoon talk show host and columnist, in the wake of the lone gunman's rampage of Ottawa's halls of power on Wednesday, writes: "This week many Canadians felt something change. They got angry." (Star Phoenix, October 24, 2014)  Well, this Canadian has experienced somewhat different emotions.  I believe that is it important for us as a congregation to acknowledge the pain and fear and loss of this last week's events on Parliament Hill.  It is a tragedy that unmasks the trouble with which people live. It leaves me sad and shaken and prayerful. My response to this crisis can make a difference in the conversations that will continue to unfold in the wake of this violence. I remind us all that our responses makes a difference.  My choices make a difference in the small circles of family, friends and community in which I live.  Our choices collectively make a difference on a slightly larger scale.  The voices and choices of the people of God make a difference today around the world. "Choose life so that you and your children will live." (Deut. 30:19)

Willard Metzger, Executive Director of Mennonite Church Canada sums up many of my feelings about this last week’s trouble in Ottawa. In a message that he wrote to the people of our Mennonite Church he articulates what I believe to be a choice and a life-giving response in the midst of death. I leave you with his words as he writes to us:
"Like many Canadians I find myself in a place of sadness following the senseless violence in our capital city. I resonate with the voices that lament the sense of loss for our peaceful context. I share the anxiety of how this act of violence might result in our day to day affairs being weighted with new forms of fear through heightened security measures.
I feel sad. I feel a loss.

I mourn that the life of another can be disregarded so easily - and an innocent father is gunned down.

I mourn that the rhetoric of revenge is seen as the best way to re-establish a sense of calm and confidence.

I mourn that religion has become so tainted that the Loving Creator can be grossly misrepresented by acts of violence.

I mourn that our global family is divided by systems of defence and self interest rather than a common commitment of seeking the good for all. 

I pray for mercy. I pray for healing. I pray for peace. I pray that the good in all of us may triumph over the tendency for evil in each of us.

I don't want people to die having to defend me. I don't want people to die trying to get the public's attention. I don't want people to die seeing each other as enemies. Surely as a global family we can find new and better ways of working for the common good of the earth and all its inhabitants.

I will mourn for awhile. My prayers will feel heavy for awhile. My heart will ache for awhile.

May the light of God's love blind hatred and revenge and give us all a vision for the dawn of a new day filled with the power of a love for all our neighbours."