Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
November 9, 2008

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

More than three thousand years ago Joshua, the successor to Moses as the leader of the Israelites, asked the people a question that was crucial in that time and place: Which gods will you serve? It might seem a strange question, but his people had a lot of choices when it came to gods. Our reading from Joshua, where we hear of the question he asked, mentions at least three choices that the people had, namely, the gods of Mesopotamia far to the east whence Abraham had come many years earlier, the gods of Egypt, from which the Israelites had just recently escaped, and Yahweh, the actual god of the Israelites, referred to in our reading as “the LORD.” The people had at least one other choice too, one that Joshua doesn’t mention but one that a lot of Israelites chose over the years, namely, the gods of the Canaanites, here called the Amorites, in whose land the Israelites were living. In our story from Joshua, all the people say we choose Yahweh, the LORD, our God. Joshua says OK, but you’d better mean it. It’s not going to go well for you if you say you will serve Yahweh, and then you don’t.

Which is all very interesting, I suppose, as an historical matter. It’s interesting that in those days people had so many choices of gods near at hand from which to choose. It’s interesting that there was an issue with the Israelites after they got to the Promised Land whether they would stick with Yahweh, who they believed had delivered them from Egypt and given them that land—something that was probably news to the Canaanites, but never mind. All of that is interesting enough, but you may well be asking “What does any of it have to do with us?” After all, I doubt that very many of us are tempted to start worshipping Marduk, the chief god of ancient Mesopotamia. Or Aten, the sun god of the Egyptians. Or Baal, the chief god of the Canaanites. Or even Yahweh, at least not by that name and not as he was understood in Joshua’s time. So you may be thinking that Joshua’s command to the people to choose which gods they will serve doesn’t apply to us. We aren’t surrounded by multiple sets of gods the way the people of the ancient world were. So we can just move on, right? We don’t have to worry about Joshua’s command. Right?

Well, not so fast. Here’s the thing. If we think that Joshua’s question to the people about which gods they will serve doesn’t apply to us, it’s probably because our definition of “god” is too narrow. When we hear Joshua talking about the gods of Mesopotamia and Egypt, we probably think of made up, supernatural beings that people thought of as gods but who don’t really exist and never did. That is of course one meaning of the word god, spelled with a lower case g, albeit a very simplistic one. Let me suggest, however, that it isn’t the only meaning of the word god. There are other, more sophisticated meanings of the word god. One of those meanings is what the great theologian Paul Tillich called “ultimate concern.” In this understanding, “god” refers to whatever it is that represents our highest values. Our god is that which is the most important thing in the world to us. Our god is that which gives our lives meaning and purpose, whatever that particular thing or value may be.

We all have one or more gods in this sense. We all have something that represents the most important thing to us. We all have something that represents our highest value. We aren’t always aware what those things are, but we all have them. We all have something to which we would sacrifice everything else. We all have something that is more important to us than anything else. Tillich says that that thing, whatever it is, is our god.

When we understand the word god in this way, it becomes readily apparent that Joshua’s request to his people that they choose which gods they will serve applies to us too. We do in fact have lots of gods among which to choose. Actually, we make that choice of gods every day whether we are aware of it or not. Perhaps that statement will make more sense to you if we look briefly at what some of our god choices are. We saw one of them as a slogan of one of the major contenders for the Presidency in the campaign that just ended. In that campaign Senator McCain used the slogan “Country First.” He may have meant it as a reminder of his campaign’s baseless charge that Senator Obama put himself before his country, but on its face the slogan means more than that. If we really do put our country “first,” that is, if we make everything else in our lives second-ary to our country, then our country is our god. And, of course, a great many Americans—and not only Americans but people in other countries too—do put their country before everything else. That is, they make their country their god. As Tillich says, they expect what amounts to salvation from their country. They look to their country first to protect their physical and material well being. More than that, they look to their country to give their lives meaning and purpose. Their country truly is their god.

But country isn’t the only god choice we have. For many other people, money is god. They make everything else in their lives secondary to the quest for money, both to obtain it and to retain it. They look to money for what amounts to salvation. They look to money first to protect their physical and material well being. More than that, they look to money to give their lives meaning and purpose. Money truly is their god.

There are other gods we can choose too. Prestige perhaps, or good reputation. Or our families—that’s a very common one. And there is of course God—capital G God—as a god choice we can make too. You see, all of those other gods in the sense of all of those other things that we can and do put first in our lives, are not really God—capital G God. They are all finite things, even material things. They are all in the end human things not divine things. Another famous definition of God—capital G God—is “that greater than which nothing can be imagined.” And it is of course very easy to imagine something greater than anything finite. The infinite is greater than the finite. It is very easy to imagine something greater than the material. The spiritual is greater than the material. It is very easy to imagine something greater than the human. The truly Divine is greater than the human. Tillich would put it that all of those other gods are not truly ultimate. They are not the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. Only God—capital G God—is those things.

And here’s the important thing: Because all of those other things—nation, money, prestige, reputation, family, what ever it might be—are not ultimate, because they are not the greatest things that we can imagine, because they are gods but not God, they can and will ultimately fail us. Many of us have felt that our nation has failed us in recent years or recent decades. Many of us know that money ultimately fails us as our god. I used to make a whole lot of money, and doing what it took to make that money nearly killed me. If we live for prestige or for a good reputation, nothing is ever enough. We worry constantly that someone may say something bad about us, that someone else will be thought of more highly, will be better liked by someone than we are. Even our families can and sometimes do fail us. Relationships break down. People make choices with which we cannot agree. Hurtful things are said. All of these finite things can and usually do fail us.

Only God—capital G God—never fails us. God properly understood never fails us because God is greater than anything that can fail us. God never fails us because failure is less than the greatest thing there can be, and God, while not a thing, is the greatest reality there can be. This is the truth that St. Paul expressed so powerfully in those two verses from Romans that I so love to quote: For I am convinced that neither life nor death nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God. Romans 8:38-39 All of those things in all creation that Paul refers to can fail us. God and God’s love never fail us. God and God’s love can never fail us. Only God and God’s love can never fail us.

So, choose God. Capital G God. If we will set our hearts and minds on God as our highest value, as that from which we expect salvation, that to which we look for ultimate security, peace, and meaning, everything else in our lives will fall into its proper place. All those other, finite things still can and will fail us; but we will not be failures because we will know that we stand in God’s grace and God’s love that never fail us. Choose God, the one true God, and not the petty, finite, fallible gods that the world offers us. They will fail you if they haven’t already. Some of them have failed me. God hasn’t. God never will. God never can. So choose God. Amen.