“Choose ye this Day, whom you Shall Serve”: – Fr Stan Chu Ilo

“Choose ye this Day, whom you Shall Serve”: The Burden of Freedom and Choice (21st Sunday)

In 1957 when Ghana became the first African country to gain independence, Martin Luther King Jnr then in the early stages of the Civil Rights Movement commented that: “There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom.” At the end of the Second World War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was adopted by the whole world which affirmed that all human beings are created equal in dignity and rights and endowed with freedom. The Christian religion teaches that every human being is created in freedom. Every human being is created in the image and likeness of God. We are born free as children of God. Freedom is God’s greatest gift to us; it is also God’s greatest risk because of the human tendency to abuse human freedom, or deny this freedom to others.

The readings today remind us that we are free people, but that our freedom is given to us in order that we may make the right choices. It is important to note that freedom has consequences—choosing God or rejecting God as Joshua told the people comes with some consequences. In the same way in the Gospel, Jesus also respects the disciples’ freedom but give them the opportunity to choose to follow him or to leave. When the rest of the people were deserting Jesus, he says to the twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”  The Lord does not force us to follow him; he gives us the reason to follow him, and the grace to help us to follow him. But for anyone who responds in faith, and freely follows the Lord, there are showers of blessing, words of eternal life, grace for each day, and the way, truth, and abundance of life.

Authentic freedom is one that is exercised in choosing what is good, holy, true, beautiful, lovely, and worthy of praise. Our freedom is not absolute and must be exercised in a responsible manner. Indeed, true human freedom consists in choosing God. Desmond Tutu once said that God will allow anyone to freely go to hell rather than force anyone to come into heaven. This is how much God respects our freedom. But the questions arise: Why do we need freedom? Why did God give us the freedom of choice and moral autonomy?

Viktor Frankl once wrote that no circumstance can take away our freedom of choosing how we respond to what happens around us in these words: “The last of the human freedoms: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you become the plaything to circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity…”

For St Augustine, the problem is with our desires not with our will or the circumstances we face: “We should not find fault with silver and gold because of the greedy, or food because of gluttons, or wine because of drunkards, or womanly beauty because of fornicators and adulterers, and so on, especially since you know that fire can be used to heal and bread to poison (De Lib Arb. 1; 15). So, it is about the desires of the heart and the abuse of the things which God has created including our human freedom. So, everyone has a choice to make. As a

person of faith, you ought to always enter into that interior castle of your soul to find hidden in you the temple of God where you can converse with God and with yourself and the world about the path to take.

This is not an easy proposal to make in our times because any good choice you make, costs you something; freedom is not free; freedom is a burden because it requires human responsibility. However, in our world today there are many who will argue that we are not really free. There are strong arguments made on destiny, determinism, fatalism, social reproduction, genetic predisposition, and social pressures and social factors; some others blame parental and family factors, socialization, past history etc. for their actions. Some even blame God when things go wrong as if God put us all on auto-pilot. Is God the so-called deus ex machina who has the remote control of our lives and orders our choices according to God’s whims and caprices?

So, we come to the readings and we see how they all add together in our understanding of the great responsibility we have as followers of Christ and the promises that lie ahead of us if we serve God and walk in God’s ways. The law of God which Joshua asks the people to choose is not simply a draconian set of ordinances that are meant to cow people into submission with the threat of hellfire or punishment here on earth. God’s law, to borrow from Augustine, is ‘the law according to which it is just that all things be perfectly ordered.”

God’s law is the divine wisdom that has been written into the arc of human and cosmic history since the beginning of creation; God’s law of love is written into my very being because it brought me into being, sustains me today, and will lead me home. Because this law is written in our hearts; it is the source of our life and our true destiny. Our true and genuine desires can only lead us to this Love, and when we desire or act contrary to this desire, it is an abuse of our freedom. Indeed, our true human freedom is in doing good and avoiding evil. The bread of life which Jesus is offering to the people and asking them to eat always will give them life in abundance. But some people walked away from Jesus. He did not coerce them back. God respects your choice.

So, ‘if you choose’…. you can embrace the spirit of the law or become a slave to the dead letters of the law; if you choose you can forgive and be reconciled with your neighbor or hold on to grudges; if you choose, you can live a life of purpose, love, service to God and your neighbors; if you choose you can worship God in spirit and truth; if you choose you can live a life blaming your past, your parents or circumstances for your lot in life…. if you choose you can be a model of a good Christian life; if you choose you can make excuses for your mistakes rather than learn from them, admit your errors and seek God’s mercy. Most things in life depend on our choice and how we use our divinely given freedom. When we abuse our freedom and walk away from the light and from goodness we have pain, but God’s restorative mercy, justice and love can bring us home if we are humble enough to confess our sins, correct our ways and continue on the journey to God’s house. Choose ye this day to serve the Lord, and God will become your permanent travelling companion leading you deeper into love and fullness of life.

We want to thank the Lord for loving us this way. We want to thank the Lord for giving us the freedom to serve God and to love and enjoy the good things of life. How wonderful to know that God has given me so much freedom to apply myself in bringing healing to the world! How wonderful to know that I have such a wonderful responsibility in the sight of God and that

I have the freedom to do so much good even in my weaknesses and limitations. Thank you, my Lord, for revealing these mysteries to us mere children who are ready to be used by you even as broken vessels!

© Stan Chu Ilo is a research professor at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University, Chicago, USA