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We make them every day. Most of the time, we’re not even aware that we’re doing so. Yet they can be vitally important, and some of them are certainly not easy to make. What am I talking about? Choices.
In the Barr household, there was the choice of who to support in yesterday’s rugby international between Ireland and England – an easy choice for one of us! This morning, we’ve doubtless already made several choices - what time to get up, what to wear, what to eat for breakfast, what to do next, and we’ve chosen to come here. As today unfolds, our choices will continue - choices about food, choices about how to spend the rest of the day, what to watch on TV, who to be in touch with, as well as choices about how we respond to other people or situations that we encounter.
Life is about choices. Like it or not, we all have to make them. Even not making a choice is itself a choice. Of course, some choices we make have little significance, while other choices are clearly of major importance – e.g. education choices, career choices, relationship choices, and accommodation choices.
Life is about choices. Choices which can reflect our attitude, and affect our actions. In JK Rowling’s second Harry Potter book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Professor Dumbeldore reminds Harry of the importance of choices: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
The choices you and I make have consequences for others, as well as for ourselves. One example has to do with our role as consumers. This year’s Fairtrade Fortnight (which runs from tomorrow until 11th March) urges us to Change Today, Choose Fairtrade. A message which reminds us that our consumer choices have consequences for others.
But you and I may hesitate. How can what we choose to buy really make any difference? Given the scale of economic and environmental challenges facing our world, it is tempting to sink into apathy. Yet, whenever you and I choose to buy a product with a Fairtrade Mark from our local shops, then we are actively choosing to do something positive to help farmers and workers in developing countries to get a better deal. And we are also sending out a signal for justice in wider international trade. We are choosing to light candles of hope, rather than wallowing in the darkness of despair.
This Lent here at the Priory, we are invited to Love Life Live Lent. The little booklet of that title – copies are available at the back and on the bookstall if you haven’t already got one, or would like to give one to a friend - provides us with 50 suggested actions, which we can choose to undertake, ranging from praying for someone to joining an environmental cleanup. Writing in the forward to the booklet, our Archbishops Rowan and John remind us that our choices do matter, and that together we can make a difference: “Our world can be a difficult and fearful place. It’s all too easy to feel that we are powerless to make a difference. But the truth is, with God’s help we can change the world for good a little bit every day .. by the little choices we make.” Today we are invited to light a candle and pray for someone. If you’d like to do that here this morning, then the candle cross is available in the north aisle after the service for you to use.
Life is about choices. And choices can be either constructive and God honouring, or else they can be destructive and idolatrous. Whatever you and I choose to do with our time, talents, and treasure, reveals much about our attitude to life and our own priorities. For example, when it comes to money, are we people of open-handed generosity, or those of clench-fisted meanness? Do we offer God the first-fruits of our land and labour – ie our possessions – and so acknowledge – as Moses encouraged the Israelites to do in the reading from Deuteronomy - that all things come as a gift on trust from God? Or do we effectively deny this, by choosing to hold onto what we’ve got, and instead seek personal wealth and material comfort above all else?
Today’s Gospel reading reminds us that Jesus also knew what it was to be faced by some fundamental choices. During a time of testing in the desert, Luke tells of how Jesus was confronted by three tempting choices. Choices that went to the heart of who He was, and what He understood that God was calling Him to do. Testing choices in which there are echoes of the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden, and of Israel in the Wilderness.
Having chosen to be baptized by John, and having then heard these words – “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” – Jesus was now faced with choices which would affect the way He went about His mission and ministry. How was He to be the One through whom Israel’s destiny was to be fulfilled? How was He to bring about the real liberation, not just from Rome and other political foes, but from the arch-enemy the devil himself?
We’re told that Jesus responded to the devil, not by attempting to argue, but by quoting scripture. And scripture, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, enabled Jesus to distinguish between the seductive satanic voice that whispered attractive lies, and the voice of God. Yes, physical needs matter, but loyalty to God is more important. The path to God-given authority is humble service, not a devilish seeking after status and power. And God’s power is to be used for the wellbeing of others, not for a cheap stunt.
Led by the Spirit, and obedient to the Word of God, Jesus chose to follow the path of humility, service, and finally death. This freely chosen resolve would be tested again by the enemy at key moments, such as in the Garden of Gethsemane. Yet His resolve could not be broken by the world, the flesh, or the devil. And so God’s Son would fulfil His vocation as the Saviour of God’s people, and of God’s world.
While we may not be tested in the same way Jesus was, you and I can be sure of this. Whatever important choices we face, they will test our resolve to live out our baptismal undertaking, time and again – to be counted as those who fight valiantly as disciples of Christ against sin, the world and the devil, and who seek to remain faithful to Christ to the end of our lives. Yet in this we are not left on our own. The Word of God and the Spirit of God are given to help us in making those testing choices.
We are called to follow Jesus in the path which leads to true glory. In that glory lies true happiness, true fulfilment, which neither the world, nor the flesh, nor the devil can provide. So may God keep us faithful to our baptism, and lead us in the light and obedience of Christ. Amen.
John Barr
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