Shaped By God's Word           

Rev. Dr. Michael Stotts

Du. 34:1-12

Two summers ago, Peggy and I had one of those trips of a lifetime on our summer vacation.  We drove all the way across the country--at least as far as South Dakota, where we visited Badlands National Park.  I had lived in that park for a summer many years ago as a student minister holding services for the tourists on Sundays and being the pastor and co-worker for others park workers during the week.    And it was a gorgeous setting to be for a whole summer.  The Badlands look like a beautiful moonscape, for that National Park is  made up of thousands small hills, or buttes  as they're called, each with many different of colors--all variations of reds and browns, all layered in each of the buttes.  The buttes were formed over centuries as first different layers of sediment were laid down by rivers and inland lakes, then as the waters dried up the wind and rain, slowly, day by day, month by month, century by century sculpted the buttes, giving them the pointed tops and sharp edges and all kinds of different shapes.

I was reminded of those buttes this week, as I thought about our scripture lesson--because just as God's wind and water  shaped those buttes over the centuries there in So. Dakota, so too does God's word and the spirit of God shape you and me, as we hear that word over and over in our lives in our worship together, and as God's spirit works on us to shape the kind of person we will become.

In our lesson,  Moses had led his people in the wilderness for 40 years, as they wandered on their journey to the promised land, after first escaping from the captivity of the Egyptians.   And here, in this passage from Deuteronomy, Moses is taken  up to the top of a mountain by God and is allowed to see the promised land in the future.   Now because of some sinful times along that journey with his people, God says Moses will not be allowed to enter that promised land with his people.  But because he was otherwise faithful the Lord allowed Moses to see that hope in the future---he wasn't there yet, but at least he could see the hope that lay ahead.

What's interesting then about this passage is that for the Jews, as they were many years later held in captivity again,  this passage was the closing scene in their early Hebrew Bible and was for some time.   And so with that ending to their Bible, their faith was shaped with all that all important message of hope.   As they heard their holy scripture read , even though they found themselves in captivity, yet still they could have hope.  They had that image in their minds and hearts of hope in the distance in spite of whatever wilderness they found themselves in, in the present, and so their lives, instead of being shaped by despair while in captivity, were shaped by that hope.

It's interesting then, isn't it, to think about what it is that shapes our lives today, as a people of faith.  Certainly one would hope that as Christians, because we hear them so often,  our lives would be shaped by the two great commandments that Jesus shared--the ones we used as our called to worship this morning--that we simply love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and says Jesus to us, that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Well if just hearing those commandments often, as we do in worship together were the only things that shaped our lives, we'd be in good shape, wouldn't we?  But unfortunately,  there are also other things that help to shape us.   For example the choices we make--the decisions we make day by day--decisions that either make us just that much more loving, on the one hand, or just that much more--what?  Hateful? Uncaring? Selfish?--on the other hand?

The great author and Christian thinker,  C.S.  Lewis  put it well --and those of you who have worshipped with us often, will recognize his words as one of my favorite quotes.   I shared it again with our congregation not long ago, because his words are ones we need to think about often.   He said,

 "Every time you make a choice you are turning that central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.  And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or into  a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself .  To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is it is joy and peace and knowledge and power.  To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy rage, impotence and eternal loneliness.  Each of us," says Lewis, "at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other."   

So you see, we can be shaped God's word -- as we heard it from Jesus Christ--a bout loving God and neighbor --or we can be shaped by--lured by-- the more selfish and too often hateful messages of our world --and each moment, as Lewis said here, the choice we make helps to shape us into one kind of person or another.

So as Christians, part of our calling, and a crucial one needs to be letting the word of  God and God's son Jesus Christ be what shapes our future, and to be intentional about those choices--consciously realizing: with every choice we make--we bring either hope to our lives, and our world--like Moses gazing out at the promised land--or we shape our lives, and the world into something horrific.   What shape is your life in today.   The great thing is it's not too late to begin shaping it differently,  if you find you're on the wrong track.  Because God is loving and forgiving, and we learned through Jesus Christ that our sins are forgiven, and we can forgive others--over and over again.  So we can start again.   So how wondrous you see, the word of God is, making it possible for our lives to have hope, and to be therefore reshaped, as we start again to make right choices in our lives rather than wrong choices.

Speaking of making wrong choices, and thereby shaping our lives in the wrong way. That clearly had happened to a woman who awhile back wrote to the Dear Abby column, in the newspaper, seeking advice?  She wrote the following.  "Dear Abbey: I am a 23 year old liberated woman who has been on the pill for two years.  It's getting pretty expensive and I think my boyfriend should share half the cost, but I don't know him well enough to discuss money with him."    Yes, it's true, that was an actual letter.   Clearly she had not been intentional about a very important choice in  her life--not thinking through who she shared her bed  with,  so her life was shaped for her--a partner who didn't care about her enough to share a medical expense and yet to whom she apparently casually shared herself, even though she, by her own admission, didn't know him well.

Well while most of us hopefully are more intentional than that about our actions, our choices and where and to whom we give our lives, perhaps that woman's plight can be a warning for us--for are there areas where we give, you and I , our time our money, our allegiance our agreement or who we follow- without thinking?-- and thus help to shape a future world for ourselves, and others--a world that is unloving, or a world that thinks wars are the way to solve human problems, or a world that thinks that the poor must be that way because they want to be, or a world where some people die lonely because no one was intentional enough about living their faith of love, to notice them?

The good news is that through Jesus Christ  we can always start again, begin to shape our lives in a new direction with each new day.   How are you shaping your future today.  And how are we shaping the future as a people.  For after all, God made us to work best together, and indeed we need each other because we do sometimes mess up--make wrong decision, and need help to turn our lives around.  That's what that love commandment was all about.  So how are we shaping our world today.    Let's seek to work together with love, brothers and sisters in Christ.  And if we will, even though we're not quite yet to the promise land,  we can then begin to see it in the distance and have hope.   And the good news is Moses people made it one day, to the promised land.   And what got them there was the word of God, shaping their lives with hope, and their decisions in the right direction--toward the world God wanted them to have.  May it also be so for our world today!   That we might one day soon be in good shape.  Thanks to God!  Amen