(Please see end for Green Ridge United honoring of Grandparents.)

I set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous. The Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish.  Deut. 30: 15-20

These are beautiful, poetic words written by a gifted artistic writer no doubt. But this creative writer did something of a twist here. Moses had been dead for 600 years and the author makes it look like Moses is living again. The original Moses story was when the Israelites were oppressed by the Egyptians in Egypt and were forced into slavery in Pharaoh’s brickyard making bricks, and God calls Moses to lead the people to freedom, to the promised land. Moses goes up Mt. Sinai and chisels out the ten commandments, explicit instructions from God. The people of God get tired of waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain and so they decide to make their own little golden god to worship, their golden calf and God gets real angry. Moses manages to calm God down and then they all make a covenant with God on Mt. Sinai, promising always to never worship another idol again—ever!. This is the foundational story of the whole Hebrew Bible that is taken and used over and over again in the whole Hebrew Bible. God made the people who were no people at all into a people of God. That story written in 1225 BCE is called the exodus. Today’s story (which contains the same old words as the exodus), written in 587 BCE is called the exile. The people in the exile in 587 BCE are in trouble—again. Their religion, their families, their clans are all gone…taken over by the Babylonian Empire. Succeeding generations were at risk of being born outside the traditional faith. Once that happens God’s people are no more. So they make a decision to dust off Moses’ 600 year-old words and they eventually chose again to say them together before God. Committing to those old words—We will have no other gods before us—was an urgent matter of life and death to these people who were heading for death with their little gods. Choose to allow the mess in front of you to overtake you and die or choose to love, follow, and obey God and live. Which one will it be? Life or death?  A lot is on the line. The people have a weighty choice before them. God or gods?

It sounds like a no brainer. Of course we would choose God, wouldn’t we? Well I’m not so sure. It turns out that the choice for the little gods that ends in death is an attractive one too. If your heart turns away and you do not hear and are led astray by other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, you will perish. It’s hard to keep the little gods away. There’s a story about a pilgrim who settled down to sleep one night at the edge of a village. An excited villager soon appeared saying, “Give me the diamond. Give me the diamond.” “What diamond?” asked the pilgrim. The villager replied, “I had a dream that you have a diamond of great value and if I asked you for it you would give it to me and I should be rich forever.” The pilgrim reached into his bag and pulled out the diamond. “You may certainly have it”, he said and settled down again to sleep. The villager looked at the diamond in amazement for it was the largest diamond he had ever seen. He took the diamond and walked away. He tossed and turned all night unable to sleep, and the next day he returned to the pilgrim and said, “Give me the wealth that makes it possible for you to give away this diamond so easily.” Sometimes it is not the wealth or the stuff, but the hold we have on it and the hold it has on us that keeps us choosing the little gods. The little gods hold up money, security, prosperity, comfort, convenience, power, prestige, physical beauty, intelligence, reason, community traditions, and even family loyalty hold up beautiful, attractive lovely things for us if we choose them. Anything that exists on this earth we can chisel into a little god. We have Yahweh waiting with open arms that promise meaningful, deep relationship, and richness in living as humans. But I tell you, I catch myself going for the intelligence, the influence, and reason over a promise of abundant life for some poor group in Africa who can’t find food. I am part of the system that keeps the hungry hungry. The urgent choice between life and death is not as easy to make as it looks when the little gods hang around showing us where the gold is. Too often it is easy to go on our own and choose the little gods and way harder to move together and choose God.

But there is hope. Jim Sinclair, the previous United Church secretary visited the students at Vancouver School of Theology when I was there and he said in his travels he has noticed that United Church Boards are turning more and more towards God when there are weighty decisions to be made. The Boards are praying and making God a part of their deliberations and decisions, taking risks in how God guides them. That’s risky business to do that. There’s no telling what God will want us to do.

This congregation has made a life-decision to involve God in making a promise to the Sunday School children, teachers, and the congregation as it gathered before God to re-commit to an earlier promise. When these very children were baptized this congregation spoke rather old words that went something like this,

“As a baptized and baptizing church, we commit ourselves to support and uphold this child within the community of faith. May God grant us all the grace to live out our baptism.”

When these children were baptized we were in effect saying, “We welcome you into the Church of Jesus Christ” and specifically into St. Andrew’s United/Dominion City United/Green Ridge United church. This is your church family. We look forward to watching you grow and sharing your faith with us. We look forward to seeing you lighting candles in worship, reading scripture, being in church plays, singing, playing instruments during worship, and in every place else you choose to exercise your ministry. With God’s help we will take time to appreciate the miracle that you are and learn from you too, and how you enrich the community and all who know you. We look forward to grow with you in church school, and to celebrate the person that you are. You are a valuable member of the body of Christ.” Today we took those same old words of baptism and re-committed ourselves to it. These are words of life that bind God, us, our children, and everyone together in rich, deep relationship.

It is not enough to know that God is here always. We need to make a conscious choice to open ourselves to God's presence. That is making a choice for life.

Moses’ 600 year-old words are now over 3200 years old. And they’re still alive and well. They are out there, calling us yet again to choose to include God. To choose God and live. If you don’t choose God and go on your own you will perish. The choice is ours. The choice is yours. The choice is mine. Choose well my friends!

In response to the invitation: White a memory you have of your grandparents the following were collected. (There was not enough time to read them all during children’s time.)  

• The Australian way my Grandpa played the violin and Grandmas cooking and always put a $20 bill in my hand when I left.

• A short pleasant lady in a flowing black dress adorned with a white apron and always had a peppermint for me—I was 4-5 years old.

• Grandma and Grandpa would take us to town and we would all get ice cream and the corner store—5 cents I.C.

• My grandmother taught me to ask God for help and strength but more important—put your shoulder to the wheel.

• Grandparents not known.

• Saying grace before a meal too quietly for me to hear!

• Grandma’s cabbage borscht, cookies, and her hard working. Grandpa—$2  bills at Christmas time and Candy

• Riding in the tractor with my pepere.

• My Grandma helped my dad look after me when my mother died. I remember she used to let me have brown sugar sandwiches.

• My Grandpa came to visit us twice that I can remember and stayed a few days.

• Sleep overs. Taking holidays with them.

• Lemon pie.

• Visiting Grampa and Grandma Pott kiddy corner from Woodmore Hall. Their love for flowers.

• As a young girl, staying overnight and listening to her stories from the old country.

• Only knew my grandmother and I enjoyed her visits.

• Gramma Grier’s Lemon Pie.

• Hard at work, full of love and teaching, Buggie rides, the family time in sharing what little they had—25 cents and socks at Christmas.

• Grampa always brought us in the tractor. Gramma always brought us to the Can—Am. Gramma always made us treats.

• Visits to their house during summer vacation. English expressions like, “I’ll knock you up in the morning” [meaning I’ll knock on your door and visit in the morning].” and “”Bed—lunch”.

• My grandparents always working hard, doing farm chores or preparing huge meals.

• On Dad’s side we spent a lot of week-ends with them as I was about eight when they were gone. On Mother’s side they had bees—lots of bees—so we had honey.