Choose life

Choose life

February 18

Readings – DT 30:15-20; LK 9:22-25

Sometimes when I read the scriptures, it feels like they could have been written just yesterday.

Moses saying to the people, “I have set before you life and death,” feels like a contemporary choice.  Every day we are confronting choices and situations that have very real impacts of life and death in this world.  The COVID-19 pandemic, the racial uprisings we witnessed all across this country and the January insurrection in Washington have revealed in a new way the painful underbelly of the United States.  Inequity, unfairness, violence and oppression have plagued this nation from the start and we have never faced it collectively.  Moses tells the people to “choose life” otherwise their descendants will not live fully.  I think we’re in a similar moment.

But in order to fully “choose life” as a country, we will have to do what Jesus tells us to do in today’s reading.  We must “take up our cross” daily and follow him.  In order for God’s kin-dom to emerge, the systems of the empire that led to all of this injustice and inequity must go – in our hearts and in society.  And taking up our cross is not just about bearing the burdens and difficulties of life.  While this can be hard and taxing on us, when Jesus speaks of taking up our cross he is speaking about dismantling the systems of violence that harm everyone.  Jesus knows that these systems suck the very soul from the oppressor and crush the soul of the oppressed.  And so he asks us to study them, live in the messy tensions and find how they live and move through us.

And notice that Jesus instructs his disciples to follow him.  Not worship.  Not believe in.  But follow.  In taking up our daily cross, we work to pattern our lives on the life of Jesus and his way of revolutionary love and nonviolence.  It requires a daily and constant practice.

Martin Luther King once said that, “we must learn to love together as brother [and sisters] or we will perish together as fools.”  Moses and Jesus remind us that we are still facing that choice. 

13 Comments

    Angela White

    Thank you for that reading, Mike. Our world would be a much better place to live in, if, we felt & showed love to all our brothers & sisters! So many individuals are only concerned about ” things” in this world, & what they will achieve. There is still so much hatred for each other, without love, & respect. We can only hope & pray for peace, & stand up for what we believe in, to make a difference!

      Francene C McCarthy

      Thank you so much for your wisdom and profession if faith. Thank you for the reminder to FOLLOW. How beautiful our world would be if we all remember to do so. Thank you!

    Deb Moffitt

    What a great reminder to ” follow” and pattern ourselves after Jesus. Seems so much harder during these times. I will keep this post in mind, especially during lent.
    Thank you Mike

      Mike Boucher Author

      Deb, thanks for the comment. Yes, following the pattern is a challenge because so many forces offer other patterns that the world is built to accommodate.

    Claire Benesch

    Thank you, Mike! I do so appreciate your expression of your own spirituality. It is always very helpful to me.

      Mike Boucher Author

      thanks, Sue. People only go where they have prepared themselves to go. So anyone who is willing to go into the uncomfortable has already decided to go there!

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