Proper 16B 2006 Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-25; John 6:60-69

Choices. We are faced with choices all the days of our lives. Constant little choices: Tea or coffee, to begin with. Regular or decaffeinated. What do we want for breakfast; what shall I wear today; what do I do first; where shall I have lunch; where do go for dinner tonight; what do I watch on television tonight; do I play golf – go fishing/hunting on Sunday or go to church – or just sleep in.

Recurring middle range choices: Do I call the plumber or should I try to fix it myself; Do I want to change InterNet Service Providers, do I want dialup or DSL Broadband; do I work on this painting for the art show tonight or do I work on Sunday’s sermon instead; Do I paint this room myself or do I call a professional painter; do I want wall to wall carpet in my new house or do I want hardwood floors with Oriental rugs; do I replace the faltering electric stove with a new electric range or a gas one?.

And for many of us, choices that can seem very large: Do I need to downsize to a smaller house or go to a Continuing Care Retirement Community, like Rappahannock Westminster Canterbury or just try to stay here until they carry me out feet first. Do I need to replace my old vehicle or not. Do I replace it with a Mercedes, Toyota, or good used car. Can I keep sailing or do I need to switch to a smaller motor vessel. Do I move closer to children or stay where I am.

Our choices have shaped who we are; what we have become; the content of our character; and whether or not the world is a better place for our having lived in it. Take education, for example. To go to college or not, is the first choice we make during our high school years. If we choose to go, then which college or university.

It has been interesting to read the most recent US News and World Report. The issue was entitled America’s best Colleges: An Exclusive Guide to the Top Schools, with articles on Our Exclusive Guide to Getting a Great Education, Hot Tips on Getting In; How to Boost your SAT Score; Making your Best Case; Five simple steps to choose the college. I was pleased to note that in the category of engineering schools whose highest degree is a bachelor’s or master’s that two schools who only offer a bachelor’s were tied at third place in the country: The United States Military Academy (we don’t play football too well any more but we’re doing something right) and the Naval Academy. The Air Force Academy was tied in seventh place. Over all not bad. A good return on the tax payers’ investment in those three institutions. But I digress. On purpose.

And it is true these days that choosing a college is one of the earliest very large choices we make in life. WWE often make either our permanent or choice of a first spouse during these college years. We choose which career path we wish to follow -- at least at first.

It is even more interesting to note among the young and very wealthy the pressure to choose the right pre-Kindergarten and private K-12 school for their children. It’s also interesting that church schools are very important in this role.

And so as we baptize Owen Carl today we pray that he and his parents will make the right worldly choices so that he will have the potential to make the world a better place for his having been in it.

But the fact is, these are only penultimate choices. Our Old Testament lesson and Gospel remind us sharply of the ultimate choices, the choices that are for all time and eternity, Chronos and Kairos.

At the end of his life, with the conquest of the Promised Land of Canaan not yet complete, with the tribes and people of Israel bedazzled and tempted by idols and other things, Joshua gathers them together at the Great Assembly of Shechem – the first great assembly of the Chosen People sense they lay encamped before Mount Sinai as Moses brought them the Ten Commandments straight form the mouth of God and engraved in stone by God’s fiery finger.

Choose you this day whom you will serve, Joshua challenged the Chosen people -- and challenges us to day with the ultimate questions. Choose you this day whom you will serve, the idols among which you find yourselves or the false gods of the past or choose you this day to serve Lord your God.

One of the things we are doing in Holy Baptism is reminding parents, god parents, and grandparents that in the vows and promises they make they are echoing Joshua’s promise: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” And to prepare young Owen to make this ultimate commitment on his own as grows in wisdom and stature.

And to remind him of Peter’s answer to the Lord’s challenge when many of Jesus’ disciples were complaining that Jesus’ teaching, that the Good News, was too difficult to accept. Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you also wish to go away? Do you also wish to disbelieve? Do you also find the path I lead you on too difficult?”

And this time Peter got it right. Simon Peter answered Jesus, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” And that is your task, parents, and god parents, and grandparents: to make certain Owen gets it right, too.

AMEN

Wicomico Parish Church
PO Box 70
Wicomico Church, Virginia 22579