Proper 18C’25
7 September 2025
Deuteronomy 30.15-20
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
North Little Rock, Arkansas
The Rev. Carey Stone <+>
I have set before you, life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live… Amen.
Perhaps you can relate to this morning prayer:
Dear Lord, so far, I’ve done all right. I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or overindulgent. I’m really glad about that. But in a few minutes, God, I’m going to get out of bed, and from then on, I’m going to need a lot more help. Amen!1
In the morning when we get out bed and start our day, we end up crossing several thresholds; those raised surfaces on the floor of doorways that we step over as we go from room to room, and when going in or out the front door. That’s the literal meaning but thresholds can also have figurative meanings. In the morning when we get up, we are crossing over the threshold of a new day. We can be ‘on the threshold’ of a new school year, a new job, about to get married, or to become a new parent. These thresholds are moments or seasons in time, that can turn out to be turning points in our lives. The Church has been aware of some of these thresholds in our lives where significant transitions occur. Baptisms, weddings, funerals, and seasons of the Church Year: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany Lent and Easter, help us mark these thresholds with intentional and conscious rituals.
Today marks one we traditionally call ‘Rally Day” and it has been around for the past century and a half. It marks the official end of summer in the Church year and the beginning of fall opportunities for worship, Christian for formation for all ages, and to take back up our places of service inside and outside the walls of the church building.
Thresholds present us with changes, chances, and choices. The choices we make will either contribute to the well-being or the erosion of our relationship with God, with ourselves, our neighbors and with all of creation. We are given the chance to be intentional with how we spend our time, how we spend the resources we’ve been given, and how we put our gifts to their best uses. As our opening hymn this morning reminds and encourages us to, “Ponder anew, what the Almighty can do”2 (in and through us) to make our lives more abundant, and our church, and our world a better place.
Our first reading this morning just happens to come from the longest sermon in the Bible (thankfully mine will be much shorter).
The setting is in the land of Moab a mountainous region 4,300 ft above sea level of the Dead Sea. It was situated in modern day Jordan and it looked out over the Promised Land. This is the culmination of a forty-year journey through the wilderness where the people of God journeyed after being delivered from Egyptian bondage, and where Moses received the Ten Commandments. The reason it took them so long to get to the land of promise was due to their unbelief. This was a period of suffering and purification they had to go through in order to be ready to go into the Promised Land.
On a map they could have made a straight shot and been there in only a few weeks. How often can we relate to them, so close yet so far, our disobedience and willfulness resists God’s leading and it always costs us more than we had planned on, and takes longer to reach a better place in our life’s situations.
This is Moses’ last sermon – his last words to the people of God before they begin their new lives in the promised land – so what he has to say might just be pretty important. What does he say? In word pairs he shows that there are really only two paths to choose from Life or Death: “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity (then he gives them the determining factor),
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.”
In Christ we have been shown The Way, the Truth, and the Life, which is none other than the way of Love, love of God first, then love of our neighbors as we love ourselves. (Moses then issues a warning) “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; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.”
Moses then shares his greatest hope and desire for their future with a powerful closing argument:
“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; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” For Christians the Promised Land is not a geographical location but a condition of our hearts and souls as Jesus reminded that “the Kingdom of God is within each of us.” (Luke 17.21) When we receive the love of God, ponder it in our hearts, and share it with others an abundant life becomes a real possibility.
A parishioner who will remain nameless had been doing just that praising God and receiving God’s love, and pondering it in their hearts when they saw that they had new neighbors. They walked over to the neighbors who were working in their yard and introduced themselves. They also shared that they went to St. Luke’s and told them about our church. The husband, wife, and son got excited and said they would like to visit! Way to go Anonymous St. Luke’s parishioner!
So here we are on Rally Day 2025 – and once again we are being invited to choose: Life and Prosperity over Death and Adversity to turn toward God and be willing to listen and obey the commandments of Love over turning away from God, bowing down to false gods, and refusing to listen.
Finding our places here at St. Luke’s can help us do just that by receiving God’s Love, by choosing life and sharing it with each other and with those who are all around us who are hungry for the love of Christ and the Christian community – who really are Episcopalians – they just don’t know it yet!
“Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days…” AMEN!
1 https://www.beliefnet.com/prayers/protestant/morning/morning-prayer.aspx
2 “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty the King of Creation” Lobe Den Herren by Joachim Neander, c.1680 Hymn#390