When our children were little, one of their absolute favourite books was called ‘You choose!’ The idea was very simple: each large double-page spread asked a question: ‘what house would you choose to live in?’ or ‘what food would you choose to eat?’ The pages offered dozens of ideas, from fairly sensible to totally crazy, and we would all put our fingers on the ones we liked best. We never tired of imagining what sort of life we would like to lead… if only it was that simple!
Today’s passage is a much more serious version of ‘You choose!’. As the people gather at Shiloh for Joshua’s farewell message, he reminds them of all that the Lord has done for them. It’s a long list, occupying verses 2-13, with the remarkable conclusion that, as a result, ‘I (God) gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build… and olive groves that you did not plant.’ (v13)
This was all the Lord’s doing, and his great desire was to continue to bless them. However, if the people decide to abandon the Lord and follow other gods – the deities of the tribes around them – they will forfeit this blessing, and disaster will surely follow.
So, it comes down to this: you choose! ‘Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve….’
What happens next is brutally honest: the people all agree to serve the Lord, but Joshua has been around far too long to take that at face value, and calls them on it: ‘You are not able to serve the Lord’ – at least not for any length of time! But the people insist: ‘No! We will serve the Lord.’ So Joshua erects a stone to act as a witness to the commitment they have made, and the gathering ends (along with the book).
Was Joshua being cynical? I don’t think so – what he wants is to make them understand the gravity of the situation. It’s easy for us human beings to take God for granted, and the Israelites’ track record was patchy, to say the least. And with the benefit of hindsight, we know how quickly it all unravels – you only have to flick on a page to Judges 2:10-11 to see why Joshua wasn’t optimistic.
But, as we close our reflections on this book, we can’t finish in a better place than Joshua’s own concluding remark – v15: ‘But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.’ In other words, whatever other people do, whatever ups and downs we face, whatever life throws at us – there’s only one good choice to make: as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
If this book could be distilled into one message, it would be this: choose God! The God who is with us, who contends for us, on whose blessing we rely. So may Joshua’s final prayer be our prayer, too. Why not pray that for yourself today, and also pray for the others reading this: that we all might choose – and keep choosing – the One in whom is life, and life in abundance. Amen.