The Joshua Principle
Thought for the Day
Choose this day whom you will serve. – Joshua 24:15
Prelude
Welcome
Call to Worship
Leader: O God of Joshua and Moses, we bless you for leading us through the wilderness.
People: Great is your faithfulness, O Lord.
Leader: Faithful God, we have turned from your ways and served strange gods.
People: Forgive us and turn our feet again toward your kingdom. This day we choose again to serve the Lord. May God have mercy upon us and give us grace to serve faithfully.
*Hymn of Praise # 569 Count Your Many Blessings
Invocation (the Lord’s Prayer) O God, we do choose to light the lamps of your presence. Brighten their glow among us, that we may see more than we have seen and know more than we have known of your wisdom. Be our inspiration this day, Holy Spirit, for we come in humble faithfulness
Gloria Patri
Our Offering to God Both the Old Testament and gospel passages today seem tough. If you haven’t made the right choices and therefore are not ready, then you are basically left behind. Of course, all Bible passages must be read alongside all the other passages that tell us about the nature of God and the love and grace that God has for us. However, Jesus makes a point. In each moment we do make choices about what we will give pre-eminence in our life and how we will sustain and grow who we are. The reign of God is not really about grabbing bits of it at the last moment when we suddenly see its importance. It is very much about faithfulness – not necessarily anything near perfect faithfulness, but life which tries to maintain its connections with the life of God.
*Offertory Sentence Come, let us bring our offerings: gifts that keep the light of God’s love burning in the world.
Doxology
Prayer of Dedication Holy One, you give us more than our hearts can desire or our minds can conceive, and yet our gifts to others often are miserly and mean. Shame our selfishness with your generosity; enlarge our imaginations with visions of your reign; and make us as glad to give to others as we are to receive your bounty; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Scripture Reading Matthew 25:1–13
The parable of the wise and foolish maidens elaborates on the image of the bridegroom as an image of the Messiah and the wedding feast as an image of the kingdom of God.
*Hymn of Prayer # 36 The God of Abram Praise
Pastoral Prayer On this communion Sunday we come before you Lord with confession, we do not pretend to be those who carry the light of your life in absolute faithfulness. We are those who hold it in delight one day and forget all about carrying it and nurturing it on the next. We are those whose commitment wavers in the face of distractions and forgetfulness. We are those who press on with our plans and then suddenly remember that we have left you behind. Forgive us for expecting your blessing even when our worship is false. Turn our hearts again to you, set our feet upon firm ground, and make us steadfast in your service. // The door of Christ’s life is never closed to those who come in faith. // Hold out your hands for the relighting of the lamps of hope, for we are forgiven and given another new day. //
Wake us up, O God, if we slept the sleep of those who take things for granted. Shake us in our certainties as we look at the world around us and confront us with a word that carries us beyond our comfortable places. // Light a new light among us and the situations we face today. // Take the oil of your joy to those who mourn and the warmth of the flame of your care to those who are in pain. // Place in our hands your work and your kindness, that justice may blossom in all the earth and the people sing glad songs for the future.
Faithful God, we pray that you would send faithful shepherds to guide your pilgrim people. Give our pastors the boldness of Joshua to challenge our complacent ways. As you raised up Moses and Joshua to lead your people, so raise up leaders who will seek justice and pursue peace. Bring wholeness to those in pain and weakness. Comfort the broken-hearted. In all things we raise our hearts and voices in prayer and praise to you, Holy One, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
*Hymn of Praise # 571 Thanks to God for My Redeemer
Thanks to God for My Redeemer is one of the favorite thanksgiving songs of Swedish heritage. It was written by August Ludvig Storm, a Salvation Army officer, and first published in December 5, 1891. Author Storm gives thanks for many of the negative aspects of life – tears, storms and pain – He had himself experienced a partial paralysis from the age of thirty-seven.
Scripture Focus Joshua 24:1–3a, 14–25 Joshua rehearses Israel’s saving history from before the time of Abraham to their arrival in the Promised Land. His narrative moves from gift to demand. The Israelites respond by echoing Joshua’s narrative and reaffirming their allegiance to the Lord.
Message The Joshua Principle
Joshua reminded the Israelites of God’s faithfulness in leading them through the wilderness, and challenged them to put away false gods and worship the Lord alone. Today we are tempted to give our hearts and lives to the false gods of power and success, rather than to the true God.
Call him a spiritual pilgrim of the capitalist persuasion.
His name is Tom Chappell, and he’s the CEO of the natural-toothpaste company Tom’s of Maine.
Eighteen years ago, when Chappell was 43, he had just guided his company through a period of aggressive growth, and now he had more money than the sultan of Brunei. Chappell himself, however, rather than experiencing satisfaction and fulfillment, was feeling drained — emotionally and spiritually. The usual advice for business leaders when they hit that point is to sell the business, buy a sailboat and travel the world, but Chappell instead found direction from a question his pastor’s wife put to him.
“What makes you think Tom’s of Maine isn’t your ministry?” she asked.
What this CEO decided to do was stay with the company, but also to enroll in Harvard Divinity School, a move that so surprised the school’s admission office that for Chappell’s first semester, they would only let him enroll as a provisional student.
The agreement Chappell worked out with his company was that he would spend half of each week in Kennebunk, Maine, doing the CEO stuff, and the other half in Cambridge, Massachusetts, being a theological student. The business ran just fine while he was away, so his coworkers suggested that he stay at the seminary and keep praying.
///Stay and pray. Sometimes that’s what we need to do. Stay and pray.///
So he did.
Four years later, after graduating from the theological school, Chappell asked one of his professors to meet with his company board and help them draft a mission statement and business road map based on moral and ethical principles, concepts that are the bread and butter of religion. As a result, Tom’s of Maine promised to honor its commitments to all of its stakeholders, including employees, owners, vendors, consumers, the community and the environment.
The company also adopted a plan based on a concept put forth by the theologian Martin Buber that committed the business to start a series of three partnerships each year that promote the common good, such as saving America’s rivers, community gardening and support of a local dental clinic for the poor. In short, Chappell challenged his company to decide what sort of a business it would be — one driven only by the bottom line or one with allegiance to other values.
In the years since, other business people with no intention of leaving the world of trade and commerce have also enrolled in divinity schools, seeking personal direction as well as input for importing the values and ethics of faith into their commercial dealings. You do not have to go to divinity school to follow the principle found in today’s reading.
It’s called the Joshua Principle. In today’s text, the aging leader of the Israelites challenges his people to decide what sort of a community they would be now that they had a homeland, - and homesteads, a mortgage, an SUV, an iPod, two dogs and a cat. The people had to decide whether they would obey the Lord, who had proven his trustworthiness, or obey the local gods, which were only man-made idols. It’s easy to slip into a quiet rebellion—going about life in your own way. But the time comes when you have to choose who or what will control you. The choice is yours. Will it be God, your own limited personality, or another imperfect substitute? Once you have chosen to be controlled by God’s Spirit, reaffirm your choice every day.
He asks them to decide to whom their allegiance would be given. Joshua couched that challenge in a question about commitment: “So honor the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord alone. 15 But if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.” (24:14-15).
The way we live shows others the strength of our commitment to serving God.
The people responded that they would follow Joshua’s lead: “We will serve the Lord our God. We will obey him alone.” (24:24).
All the people boldly claimed that they would never forsake the Lord. But they did not keep that promise. Very soon God would charge them with breaking their contract with him (Judges 2:2, 3). Talk is cheap. It is easy to say we will follow God, but it is much more important to live like it.
Of course, the challenge Joshua issued to the Israelites also confronts us, whether we are a captain of industry or a private in someone else’s business. We still must choose whom we will serve and what kind of people we will be. That choice affects all of our lives, including how we function on whatever rung of the corporate ladder we find ourselves.
In this regard, Tom’s of Maine is instructive because it shows that making a profit doesn’t have to be the only mission of business — or the driving force in our own lives. A few who, like Tom Chappell, are in the position of corporate leadership can shape the stated values and goals of our workplaces.
The rest of us seldom have that option, and most of us have no choice about whether or not we will work. But we nonetheless have the same challenge Joshua put before the people of Israel: What kind of people will we be, and to whom will we commit ourselves? The answer to that is not a secondary decision in any way. Most of us spend the major part of 250 days every year at our place of employment, so when we decide what our values are as workers, we are actually talking about how we will live our lives.
While we may not be able to influence the corporate mission where we work, we can and should make the personal decision about how our Christianity will play out in the workplace and in our lives. To follow God requires destroying whatever gets in the way of worshiping him. We have our own form of idols—greed, wrong priorities, jealousies, prejudices—that get in the way of worshiping God. God is not satisfied if we merely hide these idols. We must completely remove them from our lives. The covenant between Israel and God was that the people would worship and obey the Lord alone. Their purpose was to become a holy nation that would influence the rest of the world for God. We are called to the same purpose, to influence the rest of the world for God and to bring glory to God in the process. /////
At minimum, that decision is this: I will be a moral, ethical, loving person, committed to following Jesus. And its corollary is, I will accept the consequences of being moral and ethical.
Another part of that decision can be the one Chappell made in response to the question from his pastor’s wife. He decided that his work would also be his ministry. And we can decide the same: My work will be my ministry.
Consider, for example, a Cleveland, Ohio, mail carrier by the name of Bill Merriman. He was featured several years ago in that city’s newspaper because someone had noticed that Merriman did more than simply bring the day’s mail.
Most of his time was spent sorting and delivering mail, but he also took time to listen to the people on his route. That alone was a big help to some shut-ins, but Merriman also offered more specific help to others.
He aided some recent immigrants in his delivery area in finding English language tutors. He referred battered women to places where they could find shelter. Since several families on his route were Hispanic, he took the trouble to learn Spanish. He carried a list of social work agencies with him in case he needed to refer someone. After a letter carrier on a nearby route saved a toddler’s life, Merriman took a course on CPR so he, too, would be prepared if a situation where such help was needed ever arose. One day, he found a business on his route that needed a secretary, and around the corner, he found a woman who needed a job. He helped the two get together. Merriman’s work was clearly more than employment aimed at earning a paycheck.
For another example, consider the foreman of a moving crew who moved a family from Pennsylvania to New York. The man was impressed with the care that this man took with their things, and mentioned it to him. The man responded, “Moving is hard for most people. It’s a very vulnerable time for them. People are nervous about going to a new community, and about having strangers pack their most precious possessions. I think God wants me to treat my customers with love and make them feel that I care about their things and their life. God wants me to help make their changes go smoothly.”
Another man put it this way:
In a job you give something to get something;
In a ministry you return something that has already been given to you.
A job depends on your abilities;
A ministry depends on your availability to God.
Joshua had made himself available to God all his life. Nearing the end of his life, he suggests that ministry and meaning are all about making choices.
Joshua doesn’t make it complicated. You don’t have to read The Purpose Driven Life.
The Joshua Principle: Seven words of advice for those would be highly effective in mission, ministry and life: “Choose this day whom you will serve.”
*Hymn of Response # 448 Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
Communion
Communion Hymn # 288 Amazing Grace
*Sending forth May the oil of God’s creative life be ours each day, the hands of Christ be wrapped around ours as we cherish the lamps of love, and the Spirit keep us awake as we journey on.
*Postlude
Theme
Are we worshiping the God who brought Israel out of Egypt and raised our Lord Jesus from the dead, or do we worship gods of power and success?
1 Then Joshua summoned all the people of Israel to Shechem, along with their elders, leaders, judges, and officers. So they came and presented themselves to God.
2 Joshua said to the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Your ancestors, including Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River,£ and they worshiped other gods. 3 But I took your ancestor Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him into the land of Canaan.
14 “So honor the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord alone. 15 But if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”
16 The people replied, “We would never forsake the Lord and worship other gods. 17For the Lord our God is the one who rescued us and our ancestors from slavery in the land of Egypt. He performed mighty miracles before our very eyes. As we traveled through the wilderness among our enemies, he preserved us. 18It was the Lord who drove out the Amorites and the other nations living here in the land. So we, too, will serve the Lord, for he alone is our God.”
19 Then Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy and jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and sins. 20 If you forsake the Lord and serve other gods, he will turn against you and destroy you, even though he has been so good to you.”
21But the people answered Joshua, saying, “No, we are determined to serve the Lord!”
22“You are accountable for this decision,” Joshua said. “You have chosen to serve the Lord.”
“Yes,” they replied, “we are accountable.”
23 “All right then,” Joshua said, “destroy the idols among you, and turn your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”
24 The people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God. We will obey him alone.”
25So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day at Shechem, committing them to a permanent and binding contract between themselves and the Lord.