The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today point in a dualistic manner to the extreme choice of a path to life or death that we make by our actions.
The Two Ways
The reading from the Book of Deuteronomy presents the choice Moses puts before Israel, urging them to choose life.
As Moses’ third speech in the book of Deuteronomy winds down, our passage calls for a selection between two options: life and death. The Common English Bible translation stays close to the Hebrew wording: “life and what’s good versus death and what’s wrong.”1
Psalm 1 compares the two ways of life.
* [Psalm 1] A preface to the whole Book of Psalms, contrasting with striking similes the destiny of the good and the wicked. The Psalm views life as activity, as choosing either the good or the bad. Each “way” brings its inevitable consequences. The wise through their good actions will experience rootedness and life, and the wicked, rootlessness and death.2
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus describes the conditions of discipleship that call us to take up our cross daily.
* [9:23] Daily: this is a Lucan addition to a saying of Jesus, removing the saying from a context that envisioned the imminent suffering and death of the disciple of Jesus (as does the saying in Mk 8:34–35) to one that focuses on the demands of daily Christian existence.3
Tamora Whitney comments there are choices we have to deal with all the time. Every day we choose. We can choose to follow God, or we can choose to turn away from God. And the ramifications of those choices are life and death.
Last month for my reflection, and last week at Mass, the Psalm response was “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Every day we choose to hear God, or not. His voice is always there. It’s our choice to hear the voice. It’s our choice to listen for it. It’s our choice to respond, and how we respond. Will we harden our hearts, or will we follow God?4
Roger Dawson SJ, Chaplain to Wimbledon College, discusses a fundamental choice between the way of Lucifer and the way of Christ that Saint Ignatius Loyola included In the Spiritual Exercises as the Meditation on the Two Standards. It offers us a means of imagining these two ways of life competing for our commitment.
In contrast to Lucifer, Jesus does not trick or seduce us, but invites us and frees us. Even though it seems paradoxical, he is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We see this paradox throughout the Gospels: he calls us into poverty, to take up our cross every day and to renounce ourselves. He tells us that if you really want life you are going to have to lose your life and if you want genuine richness you have to be poor. It may be challenging, but once we make that step, then we begin to share in the richness of God and to see that all we have in this world is given to us by God. When we appreciate these gifts as gifts, rather than something to which we are entitled, we can learn a genuine sense of gratitude, wonder and awe for these gifts, and we can begin to realise that the only possession we ever need is God. In this relationship I see myself as I really am and more importantly know that I am loved for who I am, not because of status, title, job, money or possessions – none of these lasts and ultimately none of these matters. That is what the Meditation on the Two Standards is showing us.5
Don Schwager quotes “God calls us to conversion,” by Saint Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 AD.
"God calls us to correct ourselves and invites us to do penance. He calls us through the wonderful gifts of his creation, and he calls us by granting time for life. He calls us through the reader and through the preacher. He calls us with the innermost force of our thoughts. He calls us with the scourge of punishment, and he calls us with the mercy of his consolation." (excerpt from Commentary on Psalm 102, 16)6
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 9:22-25 comments that by asking us to “lose” our lives, Jesus is asking us not to hold on too tightly to our desires and plans so that we are free to embrace his desires and plans for us. Often, this means having to sacrifice something to serve God and his people, but look what we gain: his divine life flowing through us. And that is infinitely greater than anything we may have to give up.
Of course, it isn’t always easy to lose our lives in this way, especially when it comes to the day-to-day choices we face. For example, at the end of a long workday, Netflix may sound more appealing than reading our child a bedtime story. Or maybe we wish that we didn’t have to attend Mass one Sunday so that we could sleep in and have some extra free time. Or how about failing to listen to someone in distress because we are preoccupied with something that seems more important or attractive at the time? When you find yourself yet again trying to “save” your life by preferring your will over God’s will, reach out to Jesus. You could pray, “Lord, I have committed my life to you, and I give it to you now once again. I trust you to fill me with your own strength and grace so that I can do what you call me to do, not what I’d rather do.”7
Friar Jude Winkler comments that Moses is not allowing a response that involves sitting on the fence. Jesus as Son of Man connects to words from the Book of Daniel and the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. Friar Jude reminds us of the Gospel irony that the more detached we are the more we find joy in giving of ourselves as we experience the grace of love and mercy.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, comments that in cultures that have kept alive the knowledge that we are all one, woven in the same fabric of life people honor the reciprocity of the universe through ritual and tradition. Botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Robin Wall Kimmerer elaborates on this teaching.
The ceremonial giveaway is an echo of our oldest teachings. Generosity is simultaneously a moral and a material imperative, especially among people who live close to the land and know its waves of plenty and scarcity. Where the well-being of one is linked to the well-being of all. Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away. Hoarding the gift, we become constipated with wealth, bloated with possessions, too heavy to join the dance. . . .8
The path to full life brings us to experience the love and mercy of God that we may not know well as a consequence of choices that divide through selfishness and pride.
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