Choosing Death or Life - Deuteronomy 30:11-20


 

So, would you choose death or life?

I overheard some colleagues talking about it one day about a year ago and figured I wanted to check it out.  I couldn’t really believe that there was a song out there, and if it was, it had to be one of those tongue-in-cheek country-western songs, maybe something by Ray Stevens.  So I checked, and sure enough, the song was out there, and it wasn’t by Ray Stevens, it was by an Australian group known only as Tangerine Kitty.  I would show the video, but some of it can be a little graphic and some not very appropriate, but here’s a sample of the lyrics:

Set fire to your hair/Poke a stick at a grizzly bear


Get your toast out with a fork/Do your own electrical work

Teach yourself how to fly/Eat a two week old unrefrigerated pie


Keep a rattlesnake as a pet/Sell both kidneys on the internet

Eat a tube of superglue/“I wonder what’s this red button due?”

The refrain throughout the song goes:

Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die

It is not until you get to the final stanza that you figure out where this whole thing is going:

Dress up like a moose during hunting season/Disturb a nest of wasps for no good reason

Stand on the edge of a train station platform/Drive around the boom gates at a level crossing

Run across the tracks between the platforms/They may not rhyme but they’re quite possibly

Dumbest ways to die/Dumbest ways to die


So many dumb ways to die


Turns out it is a safety commercial from Metro in Melbourne Australia.[i]  The commercial  takes aim at choices that some people make, whether it is getting your toast out of an electric toaster with a fork, keeping a rattlesnake as a pet, or driving around the gate at a train crossing, that simply don’t make sense, unless it is that the person is choosing death over life.

Moses was not talking about railway safety, yet he was setting before the people of Israel, as they made their way from slavery to freedom, a choice to make…a choice between death and life.  Moses puts it simple, if you want to live, if you want to choose life, then “[love] the Lord your God, [walk] in his ways, and [observe] his commandments, decrees, and ordinances.”  On the other hand, Moses says, “If your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray and bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish…I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life…”

Moses is putting it plain and simple to the people.  You can choose to follow the ways of this world, fall in line with the pagan gods and goddesses of those we encounter, live each day doing whatever you want to, whenever you want to, however you want to…in other words you can live for yourself and yourself only, and you will find death…however, if you want to truly live, if you want to experience the abundant life that God would offer you, then choose God, choose to love Him completely and give your life over to His ways, obey His commands and find peace in the midst of it all.  How would doing what you want to lead to death and living by the law bring life?

First of all, we have to remember that the theology for most of the Old Testament was that if you obeyed God, you would prosper; if you disobeyed God, you would perish.  They lived with the understanding that if you had tragedy come upon you or your family, whether it was the loss of your crops, the death of  your child, or a sudden onset of an illness, then somewhere along the line you had sinned and deserved to be punished.  Consider the conversation between Job and his wife and friends after Satan began assaulting him with the tragic loss of his children, his livestock, and even his own health.  Jobs friend Eliphaz says to him:  “Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off? As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.  By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.”[ii]  This is seen in the New Testament when the disciples ask of the blind man, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”[iii]  This line of thinking is proven faulty by this question alone, how could a man blind from birth sinned in any way, less it was in the womb, prior to his birth?

So rather than think that God arbitrarily set down a bunch of rules that he expected folks to follow because He is some tyrant of the sky and just wants to bully folks around, could it be that many of the laws handed down to Moses and given to the people were laws set for their wellbeing—to insure that they would live and protect them from death.  While I will admit that we might be hard-pressed to do it for all 613 laws, and least without a great bit of work, consider just a few to give us a start.

Construction law: “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof…”[iv]  This was a command to build a protective wall or railing along the roof so that, in a day when folks would bathe or sleep on the roof, no one would fall off.

Dietary law: “Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the meat.”[v]  All the blood had to be drained from or cooked out of the meat.  How often do we get warnings today about the dangers of eating undercooked meat?

Sanitary law: “You shall have a designated area outside the camp to which you shall go.  With your utensils you shall have a trowel; when you relieve yourself outside, you shall dig a hole with it and then cover up your excrement.”[vi]  Many historians contribute how badly the bubonic plague ravaged England during the 1300’s to the fact that sanitary conditions were so poor there that it was not uncommon for households to dump their bodily wastes into the streets, creating a breeding ground for disease.

Retributive law:  “if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”[vii]  While often seen as a command for compensation for a crime against us, this law was actually a restrictive law in order to preserve life in a time where the blinding of a man could be taken as an offense that would lead to the guilty party and his family being slaughtered In retaliation.

With these examples we can begin to see how disregarding the laws handed down by Moses could have deadly consequences while keeping them would preserve and protect life.

Where does any of this leave us in a time where most of us do not sleep or bathe on our rooftops, where we know how to prepare our food without blood, where we have running water and ways to dispose of our waste, and where hopefully we have moved beyond family massacres for retaliation?  Well, we still have to choose between death and life.

No one would really choose death over life would they? 

How many us try to drive quickly under the train’s crossbar or zoom across the tracks when the lights start flashing because we’re in a hurry?

How many of us choose to risk STD’s by engaging in sex outside the framework of a committed husband and wife?

How many of us choose to smoke, do drugs, or abuse alcohol despite the damage it does to our bodies?  How many of us choose to get behind the wheel of a car after consuming the drugs or alcohol?

How many of us choose to vengeance or bitterness over forgiveness?

How many of us choose to hate over love?

How many of us choose ourselves over others?

How many of us choose self-reliance over surrender?

How many of us choose self over Jesus who offered His life to give and poured out upon us His Spirit that we might be free to choose life?

Heaven and earth are called to witness against us today…as we have set before us life and death, blessings and curses.  May we choose life…

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.



[i] http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/t/tangerine_kitty/dumb_ways_to_die.html
[ii] Job 4:7-9
[iii] John 9:3
[iv][iv] Deuteronomy 22:8
[v] Deuteronomy 12:24
[vi] Deuteronomy 23:12
[vii] Exodus 21:12-24

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