"Choosing to Belong"
October 30, 2005: 24th Sunday After Pentecost, Year A
The Rev. John MacIver Gage, co-pastor
United Church on the Green, UCC: New Haven, CT
www.newlights.org

Scripture:
Joshua 24:1-15
Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel; and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors—Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor ("Our ancestors")—they lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River Euphrates and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac; and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in its midst; and afterwards I brought you out. ("God brought us out") When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, you came to the sea; ("We came to the sea") and the Egyptians pursued your ancestors with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. When they cried out to the LORD, God put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and made the sea come upon them and cover them; and your eyes saw ("Our eyes saw") what I did to Egypt. Afterwards you lived in the wilderness a long time. ("We lived in the wilderness") Then I brought you to the land ("God brought us to the land") of the Amorites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan; they fought with you, and I handed them over to you, and you took possession of their land ("We took possession") and I destroyed them before you. Then King Balak son of Zippor of Moab, set out to fight against Israel. He sent and invited Balaam son of Beor to curse you, ("They cursed us") but I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he blessed you; so I rescued you out of his hand. ("God rescued us") When you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, the citizens of Jericho fought against you, and also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I handed them over to you. I went like a hornet ahead of you and drove out before you the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword ("Not our sword") or by your bow ("Not our bow"). I gave you a land. ("God gave us a land") a land on which you had not labored ("Not our labor") and towns that you had not built ("Not our building") and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and oliveyards that you did not plant ("Not our planting") I gave you a land and you live in it. ("God gave us a land") Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve God in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. Now if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living ("We choose."); but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD ("We serve.")."

Sermon:
So the year has rolled around, and it's time once again for the annual fall congregational meeting of the tribes of Israel. Joshua, their leader, is slated to address the crowd gathered together at Shechem, a place made holy by the faithful lives and even more faithful prayers of their ancestors. In the shadow of the great spreading oak, old in Abraham's day, he rises to speak.

What to say on such an occasion? There's the budget, of course, and the stewardship campaign, all the routine busy-ness of community life. But it's always good to start off with a story, so Joshua does. He begins with the people's own story—not the misty myths like Noah and his ark or Joseph and his coat, but the real history, the stories of his listeners' great-grandparents. It's their salvation history—not an abstract theological proposition, like "God saves" but a concrete thing, a living memory: "God saved us."

Joshua bends his telling to drive home that point. "Remember," he says, "Remember the suffering of our forebears as slaves in Egypt, and God saved us. Remember the war machine of Egypt marshaled against us, and God saved us. Remember being driven by the devil to the deep blue sea, and God saved us. Remember losing our way in the wilderness, and God saved us. Remember the peoples arrayed against us, determined that we should not survive as a people, remember Amorites and Perizzites and Hittites, remember Girgashites and Hivites and Jebusites—and God made a place for us. God saved us."

But this year adds a new and different chapter to their story. After a generation wandering in desert places and years more spent in the struggle to carve out a place for themselves in the new landscape, the tribes have arrived at last. Just as their grandparents did on the shores of the Red Sea, or their parents on the banks of the Jordan, the tribes gathered in the shade of the holy oak today are facing a future that lies before them still murky and uncertain.

It seems like all they have ever known is conflict and confusion, but such has been their way. It's how they understand themselves—people of the flight, the fight. They have come to recognize one another by their bruises. And now, the God who uprooted them and brought them out of bondage, the God who walked beside them in wasted places and fought for their survival against all odds is the God who plants them here. They are no longer only seekers. At last God has made a place for them and brought them in. By the will of God, they now are to be finders, builders, and stewards, too.

But the people do not yet belong in the land of God's promise. God is doing a new thing, calling them to become a new thing in this new territory, but, as we all know, belonging is a matter of more than just geography. Orchestra seating doesn't make me a member of the band. I can hear the music from there, it's true, I can enjoy it, but I'm not part of making it. It takes intentionality to belong. So at the end of his recitation, Joshua puts the question to them: "Choose this day whom you will serve."

The same question is before us today. As part of receiving new members into our community, we will reaffirm our commitment to being a part of the new thing God is doing here at United Church on the Green using the old, old words of the Salem Covenant of 1629, updated with inclusive language, of course. But on a deeper level, as we are every Sunday—ever day, for that matter—we're being asked to choose who will be in the world, and whose. As individuals and as a community, will we be the people God is calling us to be in this place, no longer seekers only, but finders, builders, stewards... members? Will we be part of the band, or are we here simply to nod our heads to the pretty music?

It's not an easy question. Which is why, as the text goes on and the people affirm their commitment to God, Joshua asks them twice more, "Is that your final answer?" Where will we place our loyalties? For there are many other gods out there vying for our allegiance: money, success, security, personal freedom, power, ease, sweet-faced gods and fearsome gods, old gods and new gods, even gods whose bear a striking resemblance to the church—but despite their appeal, they remain lifeless idols, promising peace and pleasure and a world they did not make and in the end cannot deliver, even as they demand the sacrifice of our lives and, often, our children's lives. Their empty mouths devour us whole.

Now don't misunderstand me: Choosing the God whom we have come to know in Jesus is no walk in the park, either. There's a reason Joshua asks the people to choose whom they will serve, for to love God with all our heart and all our mind and all our strength and our neighbors as ourselves, as Jesus taught us, means a lifetime of service. The way of Christ, they way of the Christian, is a hardscrabble upward way that leads past the cross, a way that also demands the sacrifice of our lives. But unlike the many lifeless idols that clamor for our attention, God receives the offering of our broken lives and blesses them and returns them to us mended, made new, made whole, made more.

This is the territory that lies over Jordan, the resurrection life that lies beyond the cross. This is the land of God's promise to which God calls us, is calling us once more today. And though we will always be God's beloved children, destined for this far country since before we were born, heirs not by any action of our own but by God's grace alone, we will not belong here, we will not enjoy the fruits of the land, until, grateful for all God has done for us, we finally choose to enter in. We will not be citizens until we make ourselves servants of God and one another, until we belong to God and one another.

This, also, is no easy task—not for us. The descendants of lost generations, the road is all many of us have ever known. We have wandered so long in the wilderness, we have forgotten what home looks like, feels like. We are seekers, certainly, but we're no longer sure just what it was we'd hoped to find out there. Like the tribes of Israel, we, too, are a people formed by flight and fight, uncomfortable indoors. How can we bring ourselves to enter in? But until we do, we will remain strangers, even in our own pews, strangers to the promise, the power of God to plant us and bring us to blossom in the garden of God's delight.

It is not easy. It will take courage and humility and grace. Above all, it will take trust. And I do invite you to trust. Listen to these stories of God's faithfulness in the distant past. Share with one another your stories of God's faithfulness to you and yours in the present, the kind of stories that bring these new friends to choose to risk joining us as members of this community of faith this morning.

And through them all, in and through these things, hear again the promise of God, reaching forward to us from the Revelation to Saint John and back to us from God's future and the completion of God's purposes on earth:

See, the home of God is among human beings. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his people, and God herself will be with them; she will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away... "These words are trustworthy and true... I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. I will be their God and they will be my children" (Rev 21:3-7).

So to this congregation gathered here today, I say, There will be time enough for talk of budgets and stewardship, all the routine busy-ness of community life.

But while we are here, gathered in worship in this place made holy by the faithful lives and even more faithful prayers of countless generations before us, beneath this broad spreading roof, hear this, for these words are trustworthy and true: Choose this day whom who you will serve, trusting, as you do, that in love God has already chosen you.

But choose anyway, choose to belong, choose to claim that promise for yourself. The story of God's salvation is our story, your story, too. Remember and choose to serve God and one another. Choose to enter again—or for the very first time—into this new and scary territory where grace rules and life abounds, not as a stranger, holding out, holding back, but as a full citizen, confident that the God who has brought us through the wilderness thus far will bring us, and make us, home.