Does anyone remember a Radio 4 programme called the The Choice? I think it was last broadcast about 15 years ago, though a few episodes are still available to listen to online. Michael Buerk talked with people about how they made life altering decisions, and what the consequences of those decisions were. Many of them were whistle-blowers who made a choice to stand up to corruption in organisations they were part of, some were religious figures, like Canon Andrew White who talked about his choice to stay and work in war-torn Baghdad.
We all face choices in life, some of them are big and have significant consequences. Others are minor and don’t have the same weight – although everything we do does have an impact on the world around us.
The theme of choice is one that runs all the way through the Bible. This is hardly surprising, as it deals with the lives of people, and as we’ve already said, people’s lives are made up of the choices we make. In the early chapters of Genesis we find Adam and Eve having a choice to make. Will they obey God, or will they doubt God’s goodness, be beguiled by the serpent, and choose to do what they think is best?
They choose to go their own way and discover shame and guilt that causes them to hide from God, and to have to leave the place of blessing that they were created to live in. Maybe they thought that it was a small choice, but it turned out to have awful consequences.
As we read on in the story of the people of God we find choice after choice being put before them. I say that, but really it’s always the same choice. Are you going to follow God, and live in God’s kingdom, or go your own way, trying to set yourselves up as King?
A great example of this is found in Deuteronomy. God had sent Moses to lead the people out of slavery in Egypt, out into freedom and towards the Promised Land. They had arrived at the border of the promised land the first time, and had chosen not to trust God, because they were made afraid by reports of giants living in the land. So, they had wandered in the desert for forty years. Now, they are about to have another go, and the whole of the book of Deuteronomy is made up of Moses reminding the people of their journey, and of the law that they have received from God.
In chapters 27-30 Moses makes clear the choice that now faces them. He uses the image of two mountains, Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal. Gerizim is the mountain of blessings and Ebal is the mountain of curses. These chapters are filled with the blessings of choosing to follow God and the curses that will come from disobeying God.
It all comes together at the end of chapter 30, in verse 19
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.”
And how did they get on? What did they choose?
As we read on we discover that more often than not they choose not to love God, not to follow God’s ways, not to obey God’s commands. And the curses came. The land was invaded, it was rarely a place of peace, the kingdom split in two, the rulers and people worshipped other gods, there was injustice and oppression in the land.
Again and again God sent messengers to call the people back, to put the choice before them again, but they were usually ignored.
One of those messengers was a man called Hosea, and we heard from the beginning of his message this morning. He worked around the same time as Isaiah, towards the tail end of the life of the Northern kingdom of Israel, before it was finally invaded and taken over completely. Most of the focus of his ministry was that northern kingdom, with clear warnings about the disaster that was coming if they choose to keep going the way they were.
These opening verses of Hosea are difficult to understand. On the face of it, they seem pretty dreadful. It is tempting to skip over them, pretend they’re not there, or put them in the “too difficult to think about” category.
I’d prefer us to wrestle with them. To allow ourselves to be challenged.
Let’s begin with Hosea’s marriage. What does it mean, “to take a wife of harlotry and to have children of harlotry?”
Some commentators and translators see this as a simple command to Hosea to go and marry a prostitute. There is no indication in the text as to whether this means someone who used to be a prostitute, or someone who is still working as a prostitute. In this reading, it is a symbolic act, a lived out parable, of how God is in covenant relationship with the people, in all their unfaithfulness.
Other commentators, however, take a different view which seems to me to be more likely. This view prioritises the importance of allowing Scripture to interpret itself, and to take the meaning of words from the context in which they are found.
So, in this case the key phrase is the one at the end of this verse. “for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking the Lord.” As in other places “the land” stands for all the people who live in the land. And what is the defining feature of harlotry – how have the people committed harlotry? By forsaking the Lord. By being unfaithful to God. By choosing not to love God, but to chase after other gods.
Here we see that the whole people stand accused of harlotry. So a wife of harlotry means any woman from the people who live in the land, and any child of that marriage would be a child of harlotry because they are part of the people.
In the same way that Isaiah in Isaiah 6 says, “Woe to me for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.” so Hosea could have said, “woe to my family for we are a family of unfaithfulness, and we live among a people of unfaithfulness.”
The grim consequences of the people’s choice to turn away from God and to be unfaithful to God are seen in the names of judgement that Hosea is instructed to give to those children – names symbolising judgement, a break down of love, and separation from God.
In contrast to the Hosea reading, is the reading we had from Luke’s historical account of the life and ministry of Jesus. It seems to me that as Jesus taught his friends and followers this prayer, he was teaching them how to make a choice for God. Let’s take a moment to look at each line and think about how it represents a choice:
“Father, hallowed be thy name.” – We choose to acknowledge God as our Father, we say that we are God’s children, and that we will live as part of God’s family. As part of that we choose to honour God’s name.
“Thy Kingdom come”. We choose God’s rule over our lives, and we want to see that rule and reign in all its fulness over the whole of creation once again. Not like the people of Hosea’s time who were much less interested in God’s kingdom, and instead said, “My kingdom come”.
“Give us each day our daily bread.” We choose to trust God’s provision for us. We don’t go chasing after riches and wealth.
“and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” We choose to confess our own sinfulness and need of God’s forgiveness. We choose to forgive others.
Every line of this prayer is a choice to bring our needs and the needs of the world to God, and each line expresses our intention and choice to follow Jesus and live by God’s word.
Each of us in our own lives faces this choice, whether or not to follow Jesus. Sometimes that is a big, obvious, life changing choice. Some of us will know the day and time that we said to God for the first time, yes, I give my life to you, I will follow you. For some of us it will have been a slower process – perhaps over months or years, but you know that you have made a conscious decision to follow Jesus.
And then, of course, there are the daily choices that we make, the little decisions that we face. To say this kind thing or that unkind thing. To be generous, or to harden our heart a little. To spend time listening to someone, or to pretend that we didn’t notice the pain behind someone’s eyes. To love or not to love. To follow Jesus or to go our own way.
As we go into this week, let us pray for the awareness to see the choices that we are making, to recognise them as choices, and the wisdom and courage to make good choices, that we may experience the blessings that come from good choices, and be free to share those blessings with others.
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