Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen
Choices matter.
Choices have consequences.
And to not make a choice, is to choose.
Moses puts before the people of Israel, in the strongest
terms possible, the choice that was before them.
“Choose Life!” was his admonition.
Of course the alternative is to choose death.
Underlying that choice is both a promise, and a warning.
It goes without saying that we are more comfortable
listening to a promise. Promises are
good. Make the right choice and
wonderful things will happen. We
especially like the second part of that sentence: “wonderful things will happen”. “The Lord will bless you” Moses says. We’d like to leave it like that.
What we often overlook is the first part of that sentence.
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, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land
that you are entering to possess.
If you obey –
If you make the right choices –
Then you will be blessed.
Choices, you see, matter.
They have consequences.
And we bear some responsibility.
Take, for example, the fourth
commandment that God gave us:
“Honor your father and your
mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is
giving you.”
This commandment is not about
children obeying their parents, though that may be what we think about when we
hear it. This commandment is about how we
take care of the elderly. Honor your
father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord
your God is giving you. God promises a long life, if we
honor our parents.
The flip side of that is the
warning about what will happen if we don’t honor our parents. Our own lives will be impacted when we are
old. Choices have consequences.
It’s not that God is hell bent on
punishing us if we make the wrong choice.
God warns us of the consequences of making the wrong choice.
Let’s fast forward from ancient
Israel to today.
How do we honor our parents and
care for them in their old age? And what
difference does that make? And how will
the choices we make today, affect our lives tomorrow when we are old?
Now, I’m going to tell you what
you all know. There are two major issues
facing everyone as they grow old. The
first is how will they survive financially, when they are no longer capable of
working? And the second is how will they
be cared for as they face the health issues that always come with old age?
Do you realize, that our answer to
these questions is specifically related to the fourth commandment, and honoring
our fathers and mothers? God cares about these things.
To begin with, we have sought to
address these issues as a society in two primary ways: we have “Social Security” and “Medicare”, and
if needed, “Medicaid”.
You know the basics:
We all pay into Social Security so
that each of us will in turn receive at least a bare minimum income during our
retirement years and into our old age.
And likewise, all of us pay into
Medicare and Medicaid so that as we age, we too will be able to receive the
medical care that is needed.
On the surface, it would appear
that we have “honored our fathers and mothers” by providing for these two basic
needs. But anyone who listens to the news
knows that there are also problems.
We are making choices that will
have consequences.
One of the choices that we are
making, for example, is whether we raise taxes to pay for the increased cost of
health care for the elderly, or simply reduce the benefits.
I learned a bit about this when
the congregation I served in Sandpoint built Luther Park, a senior housing
facility. One of my dreams was that we’d
be able to offer the best in senior care for everyone, regardless of their
ability to pay. And then the painful
reality set in.
What I discovered was that there
were two major problems facing our residents.
The first was finding a doctor.
We had many residents who moved to
Sandpoint from out of the area, and of course, when they got here they had to
find a primary care physician. The
problem is that many of the primary care physicians in Sandpoint simply could
not accept anymore Medicare patients. It’s
not because they didn’t like old people. The problem is that Medicare does
not reimburse doctors enough to pay for the care that seniors require. Doctors, as a result, can only allow a
certain percentage of their patients to be Medicare patients, otherwise they
will go bankrupt. I have a friend who
did go bankrupt because he could not turn away the elderly.
Second problem: The high cost of care for assisted living and
nursing homes is beyond what many seniors can afford. The average cost of assisted living is between
$3,000 to $3,500 a month, and if one needs nursing home care, you can easily
double or triple that. After a few
years, what assets a person has are often gone, and then they are reliant on
Medicaid.
But, there is a problem with
Medicaid. The amount Medicaid reimburses
is not sufficient to cover the cost of providing that care. Luther Park, for example, can only afford to
have a few residents on Medicaid.
Otherwise it would have to shut its doors.
And so what happens to our fathers
and mothers?
That’s the question.
Now what is the point of all this?
The point is:
Choices matter.
Choices have consequences.
And to not make a choice, is to choose.
Moses puts before the people of Israel, in the strongest
terms possible, the choice that was before them.
“Choose Life!” was his admonition.
Of course the alternative is to choose death.
It would be nice if God would
simply make everything right, regardless what choice we make, but it simply doesn’t
work out that way. The choices we make
have consequences.
And God, in his love, warns us of
the consequences.
God, you see, loves us enough that he would like to spare us
the pain of dealing with the consequences that come from poor choices, and so
warns us. It’s not that he wants to
punish us. It’s that he doesn’t want us
to suffer. And so he puts the choice
before us, and hopes that we will choose life.
There are all sorts of examples of choices that we will make
that will have consequences.
Many of our young people are concerned about things such as
Global Warming. They, you see, strangely
enough, are concerned about what the world we live in will be like in 50 years,
because, unlike many of us, they will actually be alive in 50 years.
It is easy to say that this is a political issue and to frame it in the
differences between liberal and conservative politics. Actually, it has nothing whatsoever to do
with politics.
Either the oceans are warming, or they are not. It doesn’t matter if you are democrat or
republican.
Either the ice on the polar ice caps is melting, or it is
not. It doesn’t matter whether you are
liberal or conservative.
Either the weather patterns throughout the world are
changing or they are not. It doesn’t
matter whether you live in a democracy, or a communist nation.
And either the choices we are making are having an impact on
this, or they are not.
The reason scientists are warning us about global warming is
that they actually stick a thermometer in the ocean and measure the
temperature. Novel thought.
The question that drives many of our young people crazy is
whether we are willing to take responsibility for our actions, or not.
When God puts before us a choice, are we willing to base our
actions on the promises he offers, and heed the warnings he gives?
A number of years ago, I received a very personal
warning. I share it because it gets to
the point of this whole matter. I was going through a very deep depression, and my doctor
was understandably concerned. Suicide is
too often the tragic outcome of depression, and so the doctor had a warning for
me. “The likelihood of dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound
is much higher if you actually have a gun.”
His point was that my choices, at that time in my life,
might make the difference between living and dying.
Make the right choice was his admonition.
Choose life! God says.
Choose life, and surprisingly enough, you will live.
One of the gifts God gives us is freedom.
We have the freedom to choose.
And our choices make a difference.
We are not the helpless victims of fate.
God gives us his law to guide us in making the right choices
so that we might live a good and blessed life. But in the end, the choice is ours.
“See, I have 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,
and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are
entering to possess.” “Choose
life so that you and your descendants may live.”
Amen
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