“The Choice”

Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost

September 7, 2025

Standing at the crossroads.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Luke 14:25-33

Children’s Message:

What is something you own that you just love? It’s your favorite thing in the whole world. Maybe a stuffed animal?

This cross is something I value very much. I got it while on vacation with Mark. It’s not expensive, but it’s beautiful. And I love it. But, what happens if I were to drop it in this vase? I can get my hand in, as long as my fingers are open and long. But as soon as I close my fist around the cross, I can’t get my hand back out.

Did you know that there are places that would capture monkeys using this technique? They’d put something shiny inside a hole. The monkey could reach in, but they couldn’t get their hand back out. And they wouldn’t let go of the shiny thing. So they were captured.

Today’s readings are about choices we make. Deuteronomy says, “Choose life so that you might live.” Does this look like life to you? Wouldn’t I be better off without this necklace if it meant being free? Yeah. God promises us life and freedom and hope. But sometimes we hang onto things we love so tightly that we can’t experience what God wants to give us. That’s not life, is it?

Let’s pray. Dear God, you love us too much to let us live as slaves. Help us let go of unhealthy things so that we can love you back. Amen.

Message:

Today’s gospel lesson is one of those times when you absolutely can’t take it at face value. When you ask, “What?” Because it simply doesn’t fit the Jesus we read about in other places. You know, the Jesus that says, “Love your neighbor. Love your enemy. Honor your father and mother.” It just doesn’t make sense.

So, what are we to do with this? Well, first off, we need to understand the word hate as it is used here. Two chapters later in Luke, Jesus tells the disciples that a slave cannot serve two masters, for he will hate the one and love the other. It’s a simple one-or-the-other situation. Hate, in this case, is not a feeling. Just as love isn’t a feeling when we are told to love our neighbors as ourselves. We aren’t being asked to summon up warm feelings. We are being asked to serve our neighbors. It is a choice. And hate is a choice being made.

In our first reading, God tells us, “I have set before you today life and death. Choose life so that you might live—by loving God, obeying God’s commands, and clinging to God.” So the choice of life is the choice of loving God above all others. Even above family. Above self. And Jesus says that choosing God looks like choosing the cross—a tool of torture and death.

So, paradoxically, choosing life means choosing the cross. It’s a head-scratcher, that one. First, because the cross in the context of this passage has nothing to do with resurrection. This conversation was before Jesus’ death. All the cross means for the disciples at this point is that Rome wins. Second, what does choosing death have to do with life and love and God? Jesus came so that we would have life and have it abundantly. So, how does choosing the cross and choosing life make sense together?

Something I read this week made me think about the series, “The Good Place.” I’ll try to explain it without giving away too many spoilers, but if you haven’t seen it, you need to. There are four main characters who have died and found themselves smashed together as residents in what they are told is ‘the good place.’ Now, they are pretty sure that someone must have made a mistake. It turns out that it really is more of an experiment because good and bad isn’t always so easily identified—which you’ll see in a moment. And then there’s the architect of this experimental good place.

At some point in the series, one character tries to teach the others about ethics by using a philosophical thought experiment called ‘The Trolley Problem.’ In this problem you imagine yourself as a trolley conductor who is speeding toward a switch in the rails. If you go straight, you will hit and kill five workers who are on the rails before you. If you switch rails, you will hit and kill one person stuck on the rails. Which do you choose?

It’s an impossible decision. Especially when you start factoring in alternative scenarios. What if the one person is someone you love, or an enemy, or a famous person? How does that change your decision? Now it’s fine as a thought experiment, but what happens when you’re really faced with such a decision? When it’s really happening to you? Who do you kill? Who do you allow to die? Who do you choose to live?

Several episodes later, the architect and one of the residents find themselves trapped. Only one can survive without being caught. And the architect says, “I’ve finally figured out the answer to the trolley problem. You sacrifice yourself.” And he pushes the resident out of the way, allowing himself to be arrested.

Choosing life means choosing the cross.

This is the choice Jesus faces as he sets his sights toward Jerusalem and his own arrest. To love God means not taking the easy way out. To love and choose God means being prepared to say goodbye to people, positions, and possessions—through self-sacrifice.

Jesus warns the crowds that until they can reconcile themselves to this kind of reality, they cannot follow him. Not that he doesn’t permit them, but because they simply don’t have the capacity. Their hands are still stuck in the jars, holding onto the things they love more. We can’t follow Jesus until we can set aside our own self-interest for the sake of others. Because Jesus is going to the cross and death. And if we are going to follow Jesus, that is where we must be prepared to end up. This is what true life and true love look like.

It’s choosing people over profit. It’s choosing sacrifice over violence. It’s choosing living deeply over simply surviving. It’s choosing right over might. It’s choosing we over me.

Choosing life means choosing the cross.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE