Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
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. ²And 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—lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods. ³Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac; now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.
¹⁵Now 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; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” ¹⁶Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; ¹⁷ for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed; ¹⁸and the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.” ¹⁹But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. ²ºIf you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm, and consume you, after having done you good.” ²¹And the people said to Joshua, “No, we will serve the Lord!” ²²Then Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” ²³He said, “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” ²⁴The people said to Joshua, “The Lord our God we will serve, and him we will obey.” ²⁵So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made statutes and ordinances for them at Shechem.
I was able to get one of those under $100 round trip airfares on Spirit Airlines and went to Cleveland for under 48 hours to see Bo the past two days. I don’t know how many of you fly Spirit, but moving down here, I have become the queen of the budget airlines and have flown them all. Ft Lauderdale is a great place to fly out of for cheap! I love it! And so does my husband Bo!
However, to keep the fare low, you cannot have a bag with you and you do not get to choose your seat so there is always a good chance that I will be sitting in the middle seat with people who have no sense of boundaries and private space. So…. I bring a book or download a movie onto my phone and get into my private zone and endure it…. I mean what you expect for under $50 each way…. You certainly can’t drive it for that price!
And the #1 rule when I fly this way is if I get an overly friendly seat-mate who wants to know all about me is that I never, never, ever tell them what I do for a living.
I’ve made that mistake. First, I am usually reassured by the person that they had a friend growing up whose aunt was a nun. Somehow that is supposed to bond us together I guess. And then the rest of the trip becomes a confessional about why the person does not go to church. It’s better if I tell them a white lie about how I am excited about my new job as a seasonal sales person at the Buy Buy Baby store and get back to my book. After all, we won’t see each other again…. You see, I have come to realize that many people suffer a form of PTSD from their childhood experiences of church. Threatened with hell and damnation or experiencing a church that seems hypocritical at an early age, they opt out of traditional religion and usually explain to me with sincere conviction my absolute least favorite phrase… I consider myself spiritual and not religious.
Something went very wrong. Something went very wrong.
So, here is my response to all those people who have divorced themselves from formal organized religion and have taken a private approach finding their private and personal spiritual life.
First, I am so sorry. It makes me very sad that people did not have the same church upbringing that I did where I was taught from my earliest memories that God loved me, that Jesus came to tell us about that love, and that we are to model that ethic of love to others. My Sunday school teachers were a group of men and women who were committed to sharing this knowledge with the children and youth in our church. They lived out their faith and demonstrated a great love for humanity and God’s good earth so that we might live that way too. My family was not an overtly religious family. I am not a PK (preacher’s kid) and did not have to live with the sigma my kids did….. but church was always there.
And we went to church. I grew up within a community of the church. I grew up with an intergenerational support system, I learned a beautiful cultural heritage of music and prayers, and I was taught the stories in the Bible. I learned that through my actions I could do God’s work and make a difference in the world and was given opportunities to do just that. My only negative experiences at church were suffering through a few bad sermons and my mother not allowing be to wear stockings with my Maryjane’s and sending me to church with white socks in middle school which I confess were taken off in the bathroom immediately and stuffed in my pockets upon entering the Sunday School wing of the church.
And as I matured, I realized that ‘God’ was a choice I had to make. There were competing things to take my attention from my relationship with God and the church and although I was not like the religious zealots at my college who we called the God Squad, I was happier when I was within a community of believers who shared the same ethic of love and values that I had. You see, the reason I am so sad when people tell me why they don’t go to church or believe in God for negative reasons is because my reasons for following God and being in a church community are because it feels good. I feel right. I feel whole. They are missing something special by being spiritual but not religious.
The passage I read from Joshua to me is Joshua trying to explain this phenomena to the tribes of Israel. Their forefathers and mothers chose to follow God and they the following generations have the opportunity to make the same decision. ‘Choose now who you will serve’, he tells them. They have the option to follow other ways but in doing so they won’t be truly happy. Joshua talks about following other gods leading to unhappiness and pain. And we know that in his statement is a great truth. We can only be truly happy when we have our priorities in order and hold of greatest value those virtues and ethics we know from our relationship with God and the example of Jesus. Everything else falls short.
Another question asked by the person on the plane if I have made the mistake of confessing my career is ask how I knew I was called into the ministry. The answer is quite simple but then hard for the unbeliever to understand. When I follow where God leads me, I am happy and feel right with myself. When I go in a different direction, I feel distant from God and am not happy. So, I knew I was called to the ministry because even though it was not as extreme as Jonah trying to escape his mission in Nineveh and being swallowed by a whale, I found a nagging in my soul and my life direction until I answered my call and found peace.
And I think that is what church is all about. Church should make you feel good. It should be when you feel whole, when you are surrounded by a loving community who supports and cares about you. It might not always be perfect…. there are the sermons like last weeks that went on too long and sometimes we feel as though we are the kid in the ankle socks while everyone else is in stockings….. but there should be a purpose, an acceptance, and a feeling that you have a purpose in caring for others than yourself when you walk in these doors. And Joshua understood it. You can fight with your relationship with God, you can try and make a go of it alone without community, but in doing so, you miss out on some really great benefits.
Church should make you feel good. It really should. Which brings me to the title of my sermon and your probable anxiety you have been feeling all morning about my mentioning stewardship and money from the pulpit. Each week these past two months members of our church came forward voluntarily and talked about their tithing patterns and reasons for pledging their resources to the church. And not one of their reasons for giving was out of pain, out of guilt, or out of coerción from the Stewardship Committee. Each of them gave out of joy and a sense that they were a part of something meaningful here at Riviera Church. And I believe that your giving pattern should not be painful. Oh, I do believe you should feel it as you are giving to something you hold of great value but the gift should be given out of joy. We are not asked to give until it hurts, but to give until it feels good.
Church should be joyful. Amen!