Heart disease – cancer – stroke – chronic respiratory disease – accidents – diabetes – Alzheimer’s – influenza/pneumonia – kidney disease -- septicemia

But, if I were to ask us to list just five of the leading causes of life, I am guessing that we wouldn’t even know where to start! 

 

The truth is, very few of us ever think about the leading causes of life.  Very few of us ever think about what kind of life leads to the possibility of more life! In a new book titled The Leading Causes of Life, authors Gary Gunderson and Larry Pray suggest that we, human beings, spend a lot of time thinking about and talking about and worrying about fear and death.  This is how we focus our attention and energy.  Like the threat of the H1N1 virus that headlines the news, we are on constant alert, living in fear of the unknown.  Like the orange alert of the past eight years, we are choosing to live believing that danger is close at hand.  We don’t really believe that the only real miracle is life itself.

 

And who can really blame us?  When war follows war… when diseases triumph… when unemployment is in double digits… when worry for our future is overwhelming… when dreams are dashed and we are left without hope… when the world thrives on bad news, how can we not give in to despair?  But as people of faith we are called to utter those two words – “I’m alive” and claim the miracle of life itself.  We are challenged to believe that through the good news of the Gospel, God calls us to live life with hope and joy. I am not suggesting a naïve, Pollyanna approach to living.  Instead the Gospel calls us to live our lives grounded in the grace and hope and love of God.

 

Over the next few weeks, our worship will be centered on the leading causes of life… those lifelines that will help us faithfully live the kind of life that generates the possibility of more life… those practices which help us find our voices and shout to the world “I’m alive!”  But before we get to those lifelines, we have a choice to make. 

 

This isn’t a new choice.  This morning’s reading from Deuteronomy is about just such a choice.  In the 30^th Chapter we read, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life so that you and your descendants may live….” 

 

Do you remember this story of our forebearers in faith wandering in the wilderness?  The Promised Land was almost in sight when Moses stood before the Hebrew people and asked them to make a choice.  They had been on a forty-year exodus and there on the horizon was the Promised Land.  The trip hadn’t been an easy one.  The people had whined and balked and challenged and complained every step of the way.  “They demanded better food, more water, a shorter route, and they got all nostalgic about the good old days in Egypt when they were well-fed slaves.”*

 

The passage that Duane just read from Deuteronomy is Moses’ farewell speech to the people he has been leading for forty years.  He knows he won’t be going any further with them.  “He will not be making decisions for them anymore… now it is their turn to choose: life or death, prosperity or adversity.”*  So, “reviewing God’s covenant with them, Moses’ reminds them what it takes to live: love God, walk in [God’s] ways, and observe the commandments.”*

 

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him….” 

 

Choose life.  Two simple words that are anything but simple.  Choose life.  But how?  “Turn on the news, read the headlines in this morning’s paper… the language of death… rivets our attention and can’t help but distract us from life.”** Choose life.  But how?  Death comes too early to the ones we love… debilitating illnesses strike our family… the hopes and dreams we have for our children seem lost in the midst of personal crises… the loss of job and income cause us to question our future... marriages and families fall apart and we are helpless to act in face of the pain.  Choose life?  How?

 

In the most difficult and painful and overwhelming times of our lives, the words of Moses can seem almost ridiculous.  We don’t get to choose anything, do we?  Doesn’t it all just happen to us?  What choices do we even have when we are facing the realities of life? 

 

I am not asking us to deny the brokenness and pain that we, as human beings experience.  I am not suggesting that we cover it up and pretend it doesn’t exist.  I am not going to say it is all a part of God’s plan or God’s will.  I am not going to suggest that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.  I am not going to point a finger of blame, saying that there has to be a reason for the brokenness.  I am simply going to ask us to consider choosing life because “…life connects, gives meaning, empowers, blesses, and hopes.”**

 

Choose life.  I read recently of a father whose fifteen-year old daughter – active and inquisitive and full of life – developed a condition that left her legs paralyzed and her body bound to a wheelchair.  The father writes that “…unable to fix the situation, [he] became increasingly aware of the uncertainty of life.  Through all the anxiety and confusion, [he] struggled to be aware of God’s presence.”  As the weeks and months and even years have passed and the illness has taken its toll, he has found strength in the community of faith and he has not given up on God.  In his own words he says, “In times of anguish as well as times of joy, I have known God’s presence.  What I have come to understand is that I am not called to fix life; I am simply called to live it.”***

 

We are simply called to live life.  At a time when we are constantly reminded of the leading causes of death, as people of faith we are called to believe in… to trust in… to live in God’s presence.  Life connects, gives meaning, empowers, blesses, and hopes.

 

The truth is, we all know pain of some kind.  We all will experience death at some time.  We all know despair at some level in our lives.  This isn’t about who has experienced the most or the deepest or the saddest or the most tragic realities in life.  This is about trying to stay connected to God in the midst of those realities.  All too often, when we are facing the hardest times of our lives, we think that God is somehow absent… that we are all alone. 

 

But we are not alone.  God is with us.  As people of faith, finding our voice and choosing life is about choosing to live trusting in God’s presence in the midst of everything that life brings our way.  We know that if we walk out a second-story window, we will fall.  If we hold our breath long enough, we will pass out.  But do we really know that if we keep turning away from God, our lives will be a constant struggle?

 

Some would say that we don’t know what the Hebrew people chose when Moses placed the choice of life and death before them.  But I think we do know.  I think they chose both… both life and death.  Because that’s what we humans do.  We choose to turn away from God in those difficult moments of our lives and we choose to turn toward God in the most difficult moments.  We choose both.  We turn away… we turn toward.  We whisper that we are alive.  We shout that we are dead.  We are human.  We choose both.

 

It is taking a lifetime, but I am learning the necessity of choosing life over death.  Like seeing a shooting star instead of the darkness of the night… like asking a friend to be with me in the midst of deepest pain… like taking a moment to breathe in the new day when I am on the verge of being overwhelmed… like finding cleansing hope in my tears… like rolling up my sleeves and offering my service to someone in need when I am feeling inadequate.  I am finding ways to choose life.

 

It is taking a lifetime, but I am coming to trust… to believe… to know that I am not alone.  In times of incredible joy and deep sadness… in the best of times and the worst of times… I am not alone. We are not alone.  No matter what, God is with me.  No matter what, God is with us.  Our life in God connects, gives meaning, empowers, blesses, and hopes.  There is only one miracle. Let’s choose life.

 

 

*Barbara Brown Taylor, “Choose This Day” in Gospel Medicine

** Gary Gunderson and Larry Pray, “Choose Life” in The Leading Causes of Life

*** Ron DelBene, “From the Heart” in “alive now” – May/June 1991