Sirach 15:15-17 “If you will, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water: stretch out your hand for whichever you wish. Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him.” Today's episode talks about how we may choose one thing but our actions choose another thing. It also talks about how our choices aren't a one time only choice. We need to keep making the right choices all throughout the day. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Would You Choose Fire or Water, Life or Death?
Sirach 15:15-17 “If you will, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice. He has placed before you fire and water: stretch out your hand for whichever you wish. Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him.”
This is one of those verses where it sounds a lot easier than it is. If you will, you can keep the commandments. Which one of us would say, “I want to break the commandments?" Who would say, “I think today I will decide not to do what God commands us to do?" I don’t know if there are any of us listening to this podcast who feel that way. If you are listening to a podcast called Walk Boldly with Jesus then you are probably trying to do your best to live as God commands us to live. It seems to me it is not as easy at it sounds though. It would be nice if everything were black and white, but we live in a world of grey. We look at the commandments and we say, those seem pretty easy to follow and on the surface level we are correct. It is not all that difficult for most of us not to steal and not to kill someone. Most of us don’t worship other God’s, we know God is our one true God. Honor you Mother and Father, that’s not too hard to do, right? Do you see what I mean about how they seem pretty easy to follow on the surface level.
However, if we really look into our behaviors we will see things aren’t so cut and dry. There are lots of ways where are behavior is breaking a commandment and yet we don’t realize it. For instance, if we were asked we would probably say that we do not worship any other God. We know God is the only God there is. But then when we look at how we are living our lives what do we spend most of our time doing? Are we giving our TV, our phone, or our video games god like status? We may say we aren’t worshipping them, but is it the first thing we turn to in the morning and that last thing we turn to at night? When we are upset are we turning to God or are we turning to our phone or TV to sooth ourselves? What are we placing first in our lives? Is it God? For many of us, it isn’t.
What about the commandment “You Shall Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor?” Have you ever passed on a rumor that you heard about someone? Have you ever gossiped? I am pretty sure we have all gossiped at one point or another. Have you ever stretched the truth to make someone else look bad or to make yourself look better? Have you ever said something untrue and unkind when you were angry? Or maybe when you were embarrassed. When I was younger I was at a friend’s house. We asked to use her brothers video game and he said no. We used it anyway and then he got super angry and it started a big fight. My friend told her mom that her brother said we could use it. I knew it wasn’t true and I didn’t speak up. Have you even been in a scenario where you didn’t lie and yet at the same time, you knew someone else was lying and you went along with it?
The next part of the first line says, “to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.” This is something else where I think there is a lot of grey. Yes, ultimately it is your own choice and yet it doesn’t feel that simple in the moment. Think about how many times you have been in a situation where you did something you weren’t proud of because you felt you didn’t have any other choice. We live in a broken world and sometimes none of our choices are good choices. For instance, you can stay in a marriage that is abusive or you can get a divorce, neither one is a pleasant choice. Sometimes our choices aren’t that drastic and yet we still don’t feel like we had much of a choice, especially when we are younger. How many times when you were in school did you do something you knew was wrong because everyone else was doing it or because the older kids dared you to do it. Peer pressure is a thing and not just when we are little kids. Adults cave to peer pressure also.
Tony and I are going away this weekend and the friends was are staying with are not Catholic. I am not sure if they attend a church service or not. I wanted to look into what time mass would be in their town and I instantly hesitated. I didn’t want to inconvenience them by asking them to plan their morning around my plans to go to mass. What if they wanted to go out to breakfast, what if they wanted to head out to go somewhere early, what if it was an inconvenience to them? Now, they are super sweet and they wouldn’t care a bit if I said I wanted to make sure I attended mass. I know this and yet I still feel weird fitting mass in when we are supposed to be visiting them. I made sure to go to daily mass today in case I don’t make it this weekend. While at mass, or just after mass, I had this though come into my head. “You don’t want to mention mass to your friends because you are afraid of what they may think, but you don’t care what God will think.” Wow, that hit home for me. Why are we more concerned with what others will think when we should be concerned what Jesus will think? I say we because I know I am not the only one that thinks like this.
The Next line in the verse says, “He has placed before you fire and water stretch out your hand for whichever you wish.” That seems like a pretty easy choice. I would definitely choose the living water of God versus the fires of Hell. I can say that with certainty and yet, if you look at the day to day choices I am making, would my actions support that claim? Am I choosing on a daily basis the living waters of God, or am I giving in to the temptations of this world. We may be strong in Spirit and yet weak in the flesh. We may want to choose heaven and yet inadvertently choosing hell. Here is one way that just came into my mind to help describe what I am thinking. I have a choice, I can either be healthy or I can be unhealthy. I choose to be healthy. I don’t think any of us would choose to be unhealthy. However, if you look at my daily choices would they support this? Currently, I would say no. Today I had several spoonfuls of raw cookie dough, I had pizza for dinner, for the third time this week, and I had some of my son’t birthday cake, his birthday was Tuesday. My choices do not support the fact that I choose to be healthy. I have plenty of salad ingredients in my fridge. I could have easily made a salad for dinner. If I truly choose to be healthy, that would have been my choice.
The last line of this verse says, “Before a man are life and death, and whichever he chooses will be given to him.” This again seems to be an easy choice. I choose life! I think the important thing to remember is that this is not a one time thing. You can’t just choose life once and it will be given to you. You have to choose life over and over again with your actions. You have to choose life when you are deciding to go to the gym or watch tv. You have to choose live when you are deciding between drinking a 12 pack of beer or drinking some water. You have to choose life when you are deciding between staying in bed all day or getting up and calling a friend. You have to choose life when you are deciding between committing that sin you know you shouldn’t do or just saying no and putting God first. We get to choose and we get to make that choice over and over again, so if we choose wrong, we usually get another chance to choose the right the next time. God is good like that. He is a God of many, many chances. Choose wisely and remember, the stakes are high. We are choosing between water and fire, life and death. Which do you choose? Would your actions agree?
Dear heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord you are amazing and we are so grateful you give us a choice. Please help us to choose wisely. Please help us to realize the consequences of our actions. Help us to see that ever choice puts us closer to life or closer to death. Give us the strength we need to choose correctly. We may be strong in Spirit and weak in the flesh. Help us to make the right choice. We love you Lord, you are such a great Father. You teach us the right way to live and then you let us make up our own mind. You don’t demand our love, you ask for it. You are so good and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to seeing you again on Monday. Remember Jesus loves you and so do I. Have a blessed weekend!