Today I Set Before You Life And Death…Choose Life

Our scriptural tradition wastes no time in getting down to business on this Lenten journey. It lays out the nature of the road that we are on.

Deuteronomy 30 – our first reading today – pulls from a passage at the end of Moses’ life. He has gathered the people before him and is imparting some elder wisdom to them. In the passage he says, “Today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and doom…So choose life.” 

Choose life. What does that mean to you in the context of your everyday life? How do we know what supports “life” these days?

Moses is trying to get the people to see that aligning with God’s ways is not just a “good thing” or something we “should do.” He’s trying to tell his people that following God’s ways is a matter of spiritual life and death.

Furthermore, Moses is not just talking about doing the right things or holding the right beliefs. He is talking to the people about heart-level change that enables them to remain connected to God and each other. (Remember, just yesterday we heard God ask for people to return with whole hearts).

Then in our gospel from Luke 9, Jesus says, “If anyone wishes to come after me, they must deny themselves and take up their cross daily…”

Jesus is actually picking up a theme from Moses here suggesting that the path to life (that Moses suggests) is not necessarily an easy one. It will require sacrifice and counter-cultural action. 

And every time I hear this phrase, “pick up your cross,” I think back to the words of liberation theologian Jon Sobrino, SJ, who said that picking up our crosses is not just about enduring the hardships of our everyday lives. It is about confronting injustice and working to embody justice in the world. It requires taking a stand.

Jon Sobrino, like Jesus, knew that this world had fallen far from its intended state, and that we live in a fractured world. Furthermore, certain people and groups of people have a vested interest in keeping it as it is. Thus repairing this world will require effort and sacrifice. It will cost us something. 

Dietrich Bonhoffer, a Lutheran pastor, theologian and Nazi dissident was killed in a concentration camp in 1945. Bonhoffer knew the cost of discipleship (in fact, this was the title of his 1937 book) and tried to urge other Christians to move more fully into this invitation.

Bonhoffer talked about what he called “cheap grace” – the grace that costs us nothing and has no transformative power. He said that it is often what the world offers us – something for nothing – and went on to say

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance…[it is] grace without discipleship, grace without the cross.

Costly grace [however]  is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it [someone] will go and sell all that [they have]. It is the pearl of great price  which the merchant will sell all [their] goods in order to buy. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a [person] will pluck out the eye which causes [them]  to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves [their] nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a [person]  must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and… is costly because it costs  [someone their] life, and it is grace because it gives a [person] the only true life.

As we begin this Lenten journey, may we seek to “choose life” and seek “costly grace” again and again – knowing that this is our true path to life.