The Two Ways

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore, choose life, that you and your descendents may live. . . .”

-Deuteronomy 30: 19

In spite of all he had done for the Israelites in leading them out of bondage in Egypt, through forty years of wanderings in the desert, through every kind of trial and tribulation, Moses did not attain his ultimate goal, though his people eventually reach it for him. There is a universal truth here about all our best laid plans: often they do not come to fruition, at least in our lifetimes. Sometimes we come up a little short. We are not gods, after all, we are mortal; and as mortals we are limited in our power. To believe otherwise, said the ancients, is to be guilty of the sin of pride.

Moses sees the Promised Land, then dies, and we are told that “no one knows his burial place to this day.” “Moses,” we are told, “was one hundred twenty years old when he died, his sight was unimpaired and his vigor had not abated.”

Would that we could all be so lucky! Moses’ age is likely an exaggeration--he was, after all, larger than life--but even if he was only, say, ninety years old, to die with “sight unimpaired” and “vigor . . . not abated” sounds pretty good. Who would not wish to live a long and full and healthy life, and to die having been spared the far more typical decline of powers associated with great old age?

Shortly before his death, Moses spoke the words which I have included on your orders of service; they are in the nature of a last will and testament: “. . . I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore, choose life, that you and your descendents may live” [my emphasis].

The ancient Israelites did not believe in an afterlife. They did not speculate about what happens to us after we die. For them, life assumed some kind of moral agency. It is something we can “choose.” It is not just an abstract idea. It is not just about biology. The Israelites were much more concerned about what we do while we are alive and here on the earth than about just being alive. That is, they were interested in lived life.

For them there were two ways of living: the way of life, and the way of death. As biblical scholar Marcus Borg writes, the two ways “are not about eternity (about heaven and hell), but about two different ways of living this side of physical death.” In the wisdom tradition of the Hebrew Bible, which includes the biblical books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job, the two ways are also sometimes described as the way of wisdom and the way of foolishness or folly. To fail to live wisely is a kind of living death.

As I mentioned, this was not some abstract idea of “life.” It was not life for life’s sake. God has mysteriously given us a life to live, and it is up to us to live it well and fully, as well and fully as we are able. Moses and his followers believed only in the life that is, and in the responsibility to obey God’s commandments, to treat each other fairly, and to walk in the way of wisdom.

Why do we fear death so much? My colleague Mark Morrison-Reed, reminds us that

We are all dying, our lives always moving toward completion. We need to learn to live with death, and to understand that death is not the worst of all events.

We need to fear not death, but life--empty lives, loveless lives, lives that do not build upon the gifts that each of us has been given, lives that are like living deaths, lives which we never take the time to savor and appreciate, lives in which we never pause to breathe deeply.

What we need to fear is not death, but squandering the lives we have been miraculously given.

So let me die laughing, savoring one of life’s crazy moments. Let me die holding the hand of one I love, and recalling that I tried to love and was loved in return. Let me die remembering that life has been good, and that I did what I could.

But today, just remind me that I am dying so that I can live, savor, and love with all my heart.

One of the issues that the case of Terri Shiavo, which has been so much in the news this week, raises for me is when does “life” stop being the supreme value for an individual? Is life in and of itself ultimately valuable if we are no longer even conscious of it? Isn’t consciousness at least part of what we mean by Life?

Is “life” life if it is separated from all its meanings? Is simply being kept alive the be all and end all of our existences? What about persons whose lives are cut short? They are not necessarily without meaning. Sometimes death speaks more loudly than life. Are there not lessons in death both for us and for those who will live on after us? To me, life without the things that make life meaningful is not life. And I do not wish to be kept alive when all that makes life beautiful is gone. But what if I am unable to make the decision for myself?

These are difficult and challenging questions, questions perhaps better left to those who need to answer them and make decisions about them on a daily basis. The saddest thing is that Terri Shiavo has been used as a political pawn in a game about an abstract notion of life, a notion of life that, by the way, does not even seem biblical to me.

Simply being alive is not “living life.” Do we really want the United States Congress telling us or our loved ones when they can or cannot die? Whom do we trust to turn off the feeding tube when it is our turn to die?

As I told the children this morning, life is about the freedom that we all have to make choices. We can’t make people choose the way we would like them to be or act, but perhaps we can influence them by our examples. “Choose life,” said Moses. If we are no longer able to make choices, or if we refuse to make choices, are we really living our lives?

True religion has always known that life is more than biology. And it has always known that death is not the worst of all possible outcomes. Someone has written that, “Death is the most profound and significant fact of life; it lifts the very last of mortals above the greyness and banality of life. And only the fact of death puts the question of life’s meaning in all its depth. Meaning is linked with ending. And if there were no end, there would be no meaning to life whatever.” Otherwise, why the saying that there is no greater love than this: that a person lay down his or her life for another? Especially if one believes in God, why would she fear death so completely as to hold on to life at all costs? Is that really what God wants or expects?

Life is at least in part about socialization, it is about being a member of a family and of a community, it is about being able to experience beauty and being able to love and be loved. It is also about being able to make moral choices, to act for good or ill.

Are all forms and states of life equal? Is being maintained in a “persistent vegetative state” really Life? Is that what Moses meant when he urged his followers to “choose life”? I know these are hard questions, even dangerous questions, but we need to ask them.

Many of us will reach the point in life where death is not the worst of all possible outcomes. Dr. Sherwin Nuland, in his book How We Die, has written that, “When it is accepted that there are clearly defined limits to life, then life will be seen to have a symmetry as well. There is a framework of living into which all pleasures and accomplishments fit--and pain, too. Those who would live beyond their nature-given span lose their framework. . . . The fact that there is a limited right time to do the rewarding things in our lives is what creates the urgency to do them. Otherwise we might stagnate in procrastination. The very fact that at our backs, as the poet cautions his coy mistress, we ‘always hear/ Time’s winged chariot hurrying near’ enhances the world and makes time priceless.” Many people who live beyond “their nature-given span” of life wish they could die. In this sense, certainly, all life is not equal. And I cannot personally believe in a God who would intentionally keep someone alive at that point. I cannot believe that this can be in God’s interest.

Today is Easter. It is a celebration of life, of the gift of life we have all been miraculously given and that is ours on this day. We can cheapen or glorify it in the choices we make.

We do not know what happens after, but that does not mean we cannot hope.

So let us celebrate the life that now is even in the face of its sometimes terrible questions. Let us celebrate life, knowing its limitations, and knowing that it ends. We do not have to be happy that it is so, but we need to accept it if we are to live our lives to the last full measure. That is what I believe we are meant to do. Moses said “choose life.” Ultimately, life transcends our individual lives. It is that reassurance and reality that gives me faith in “the life that hath no end.” Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock