Choices In Life

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days…”

We’ll be switching to our Hebrew Scripture reading this coming Sunday, because it’s one of my favorite scriptures in all the Bible.

The phrase “Choose life” has an unfortunate modern association that does not, at all, capture it’s true and full meaning. You can’t help but know that it’s been embraced by political and social movements in modern America.

I don’t want to get caught in those weeds today.

Instead, I want to focus on the FIRST word in the phrase: “Choose.”

One of the most powerful gifts we human beings have is the power of choice. So long as we feel as if we *have* a choice, we tend to feel sense of empowerment over our lives. It is when governments, religion, society…takes *away* our choices that we feel most disempowered.

This passage comes from a crucial moment in the history of early Hebrew people. They have wandered for forty years in the desert. They are standing on the very edge of the “Promised Land.” They can literally look across the river and see it.

You might think that God’s message to the people would be: “Congratulations! You’ve finally made it!”

But, no. God’s message is instead a sobering reminder. Every day of the rest of their lives, they will wake up with a choice.

God makes it clear that God *hopes* the choice will be for the things that give life. There is no credible sense in which God simply meant to indicate one social issue, or one meaning of the word “life.”

But God also makes it clear: It’s up to *us* to make the choice. Our “free will” is baked into what it means to be a child of God.

God says what we all know intuitively: Every day we face choosing things that give life to us, to our bodies, to our world, to our community; and every day, we face choosing things that bring harm to all those things.

So…choose those things that give wholeness, health, justice….life.

Sometimes, “choosing life” is turning away from addictions to drugs, alcohol, shopping, sex, or food. Many of these things can bring us joy…but they can also trap us in ways that bring death.

Sometimes, “choosing life” will mean turning away depression and self-loathing. It will mean speaking kindly to ourselves and to those around us. It will mean making small steps, small choices, every day.

Sometimes, “choosing life” means remembering to rest, get enough sleep, get enough exercise, and eat foods that truly nourish our bodies rather than harm them.

Sometimes, “choosing life” means finding crucial friends and confidants we can share our struggles with…or moving away from toxic and harmful relationships that “gaslight” us.

Sometimes, “choosing life” means turning away from the harmful beliefs of our youth —exclusionary religious views, racists, sexists, or homophobic views— and turning toward views that give life not just to ourselves, but also to others.

In other words, every day we live, we are bombarded with choices. Sometimes we live unconsciously and as a result we “make harmful choices.” Other times, we live fully aware of ourselves, our bodies, and our surroundings.

There is much new brain science out there that suggests our choices are often subconscious. Our “implicit bias” toward people who look differently than us goes deep into every human being. Sometimes our “decisions” happen within milliseconds, even more conscious awareness.

Further, sometimes the playing field is un-level. Some people —People of Color, Women, the LGBTQ community, immigrants— have to work *twice* as hard to overcome the injustice of the system itself. They *make* good choices, but sometimes the game itself feels rigged.

It’s important to name these last two caveats: That our brains are often rigged to choose tribe over all humanity…that the playing field is often rigged to exclude and make “choice” harder for some people.

All the more reason to work for a world in which CHOICE is honored. Our calling as Christians isn’t so much to critique the choices of everyone else…but instead to work toward an equitable world where everyone understands they HAVE choice.

Only then can we ask:
Are our choices giving us life or bringing us death?
How is our soul?
Do my choices witness to the Great Commandment? Do they show a love for “God, neighbor, and myself?

Here’s what I know.

When you feel most trapped, when you feel most beset by anxiety, when the “hole” you’re stuck down inside feels deep and dark…even on that day…you still have choice. They may be *hard* choices.

But even when we are facing a terminal disease, God still gives us the choice of *how* we will approach our death. The power of choice is ours, no matter what life throws us.

Make small, good choices every day.
Then string one day into the next.

Making choices, “choosing life,” in all our ways, is what helps give our lives meaning.

Eric Folkerth

The Student Loan Forgiveness Debate

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

This morning the world is on fire with conversation regarding “student debt forgiveness.”

I am listening to this debate, as I also meditate on Sunday’s scripture from the Gospel of Luke (Chapter 14), and other Bible stories that speak to us today.

In verse 11 Jesus says, “All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.”

Later, Jesus says this: “…when you give a banquet, invite the poor, crippled, lame, and blind. And you will be blessed because they can’t repay you. Instead, you will be repaid when the just are resurrected.”

The Gospel message time and again grates against human understandings of “fairness.” Time and again Jesus pushes us to understand that what is truly compassionate sometimes feels deeply unfair from a human point of view.

The best example of this is the “Parable of the Workers in the Field.” Economically, this is a disastrous parable about how people who work one hour a day get paid the same as those who suffer through a whole day of hot Sun.

When the workers who suffer through a full-days work complain about getting paid the same as those who worked one hour, the owner of the vineyard —clearly a stand-in for God in this story— responds to them with these words:

“Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you resentful because I’m generous?’ So those who are last will be first. And those who are first will be last.”

Remember as well the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the rank unfairness to the older brother of the Father’s forgiving the debts of the younger son. (The Father here is the stand-in for God…)

“All that I have is yours,” the Father tells that older son, trying to to appeal to his sense of mercy. (We’re never told what the older brother thinks of this response…)

Even in the Hebrew Scriptures we find Jonah complaining about God’s mercy and grace, which strikes him as unfair. He wants to see Nineveh destroyed. But God relents and Jonah reacts with the *same fury* as those workers in the field and older brother.

God tries to reason with Jonah and asks him “Is your anger (at Nineveh repenting, and a shrub that dies) a good thing?”

Jonah is so far inside of his own righteous anger that he shouts back “Yes, my anger is good—even to the point of death!”

So God, unable to appeal to Jonah’s compassion and mercy, simply says, “for my part, can’t I pity Nineveh…?”

So I don’t know what to say about this decision from a macro-economic point of view. I am certainly not an economist. But I *do* know, as I’ve hopefully shown here, that the Bible is filled with stories about how God’s sense of justice feels deeply unfair to we human beings.

I never had any student loans, although Dennise did. So our family did indeed pay off student loans for many years. Additionally, when it came time for our daughter to go to school, we spent decades saving for that. And finally, we found that because of the “Top 10% rule” at our state colleges, Maria didn’t get automatic admission to UT, where I had gone.

I *could* be bitter about all of this…about all that money WE saved for Maria, or paid back when we were young…about admissions rules that resulted in my far smarter-than-me daughter not getting “automatic admission” into the state school I did….

But I am not. Instead, I see these policies as helping others who haven’t had the blessings our family has had. I see them as grace and mercy to those who need it, when we have been deeply blessed. I see it as justice issues that will deeply help our state, now and in the future.

Let me illustrate..

Like thousands of other North Texas kids now do, our daughter went to an out-of-state college. There was never any doubt, for one second, that she would get a good college education. She, and thousands of other extremely smart Texas kids, now look far beyond the bounds of our state for their college choice.

These kids now have life experiences far beyond what I got at their age, when I stayed here in Texas for school. How is *that* bad?

And now? Twenty years of *other* kids —White kids from rural Texas, black and brown kids from inner city high schools— have been afforded the chance to get automatic admission to our Texas state schools.

That is a win-win for our society.

And now comes student loan debt relief. I supposed I *could* be angry, since I paid most of my own way through graduate school, and since my wife had student loan debts. I suppose I could be angry that we spent twenty years saving for Maria’s college.

But, again, I am not.

Instead, this morning, I’m hearing stats such as the following: This new policy will likely forgive the debt for half the Latino students with college debt. Half will find *all* of their debt paid.

BTW: please note, this also means that thousands of kids do NOT have hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from “Ivy League Schools.” The debt relief is for something like 1-4% of the total cost of an “elite” private school. So, please don’t take the bait today: Nobody is going for a four-year ride to SMU and Harvard and walking away with the debt paid.

But, don’t miss that stat: It could be that HALF the Latino students with debt get out from under their “big-to-them” college debt.

Taken as a whole, I see this…

My daughter has gotten a great college education. And many other kids, who never saw college as a possibility before, have been admitted to, or graduated from, college…and now have more of a level playing field as they enter the workforce.

To me, that’s a win-win-win.

I know…I know…

There are plenty of downsides you can point out to me today.
You can talk to me about how college costs must be contained and are out of control.
You can talk to me about inflation.

Fine.

But my view is that the most important long range goal of our society today should be to move towards being a healthy multi-racial democracy. (For the first time in our history…)

And one way to help this is targeted policies that benefit both rural white kids *and* inner black and brown kids. As I look at these policies, these are “win-win-win” for many people, even if they do not benefit ME and my family.

And if you still want to say, “But…”

All I can say is, “I get it.” Some of this might feel unfair, and I’ve not at all addressed that unfairness, or maybe the unfairness to you.

But I know this, from my own experience and from the point of view of the Gospel:

God’s sense of justice and mercy will always feel unfair from a human point of view.
And that is why God is God, as we are not.

Compassion In Times of Grief

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

What gracious kindness I feel in my heart toward you all, dear friends.

I cannot express my gratitude to you all for the cards, calls, and presence that you’ve shown my family these past few weeks. It’s been such a journey of joy and sorrow as we continue to grieve the death of my mother.

You continue to embody what it means to “be the church” in your compassionate and caring ways.

My mother was similarly compassionate toward the grieving and the suffering. She literally taught me everything I know about sitting with the suffering and grief of others.

In a letter she sent to a grieving friend, after the early death of the friend’s husband, my Mom said some words that have been with me throughout these past few weeks.

The friend’s husband had died far too young of cancer…leaving her to raise two small boys on her own. So Mom wrote her a card. We found the draft among her things after Mom’s death.

Here is what Mom wrote to that friend, 15 years ago:

Dear Vicki, Caleb and Ethan,

Dick and I were so saddened to hear of Mark‘s death. Even though Mark had suffered a long time, it is still hard to let it go. Losing a loved one spouse or parent is not like other losses. It leaves a hole in your heart which time gradually makes bearable.

You three took such good care of him during his illness and when Dick and I saw Mark at church events, it was obvious how proud he was of you boys and how much he loved all three of you.

It’s OK to be sad. I remember the first time I traveled to my hometown after my mother passed away; when I walked into the bathroom and saw the shower cap sitting in its usual place I burst into tears. As Eric says, “tears are nothing to be ashamed of. They show you care.”

But there will also be times of joy when you feel Mark‘s presence with you – – – in a beautiful sunset, a birthday party, an accomplishment, a family gathering. He’ll be there.

My mother slightly misquoted me here.

What I say to everyone about tears and grief. What I tend to tell folks is: “Don’t be ashamed of your tears when your loved ones die…if you could get through it without crying, it would be weird.”

I mean, it’s almost the same point, but the change in emphasis reflects the differences between Mom and I.

I know that even during this time of our own family grief that many of you have been wrestling with your own losses of friends and family members. Our neighborhood has seen great recent losses too. I am deeply moved by the compassion you are showing to each other, and to neighbors, during this time as well.

When I think of my mother’s comfort to Vicki in her grief, I think often of the last hopeful section…that our loved ones always stay with us through the events of our lives and who we will yet become. I hope, when you are in your own moments of grief, that those words can speak to you as well.

Frederick Buechner, the inspiring writer and preacher, died this week in mid 90s. Like my mother, he was a person who embraced the sufferings of his life and learned to move through them. Mom became compassionate as she overcame the early death of her own mother. Buechner struggled with the suicide of his own father.

Both of these —Mom and Buechner— teach me a great deal about what it’s like to move through great sorrow and find new strength and life on the other side. As Buechner said about hope and resurrection:

“What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.”

Thanks be to God for our hope in the resurrection.

Eric Folkerth