Sermon 2

In the turbulent 1920s, poet Robert Frost penned memorable lines about life choices:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Frost captures here the universal human experience of having to choose one course of action over another: the regret we often feel over choosing one when that means foregoing the other; our procrastination and hesitation evoked by that regret; our anticipation about what the future might hold, tempered by equivocation over the exact future we desire. We wish for some precedent to follow, some path commended by familiarity and consensus; failing that we want to “have our cake and eat it too,” taking one path now and the other later. But in the end we resign ourselves to the reality that life isn’t likely to let us have things both ways. In closing, Frost gently prods us to accept that the memory of the road not taken will haunt us forever, and that the road we do take will change us forever.

Frost doesn’t give us any autobiographical hints about the particular situation that prompted his poem, so we are free to fill in the blanks for ourselves…what about you? When have you found yourself standing at a life-changing fork in the road?

Whether to change sides in the feud, find new friends, move, start a new career or a new marriage

Whatever moment from your own life story comes to mind, chances are you’ll agree with Frost that your choice has made you a different person than you otherwise would have been.

Our lives are always in flux like this, from cradle to grave. At the beginning, in childhood, time hardly seems to pass. We take life as it comes because we have no other way of taking it—parents do all the really big choosing for us. But as we leave youth’s innocence behind, clocks and calendars dole out our days, and we realize that the accumulation of weeks and months is definitely taking us somewhere.

We testily join our parents as co-authors of our own lives, and increasingly it is we who write the script. At first we are heady about the possibilities, and mindless about the consequences. Sheer momentum can carry us clear to midlife, when most people pause to count the cost, and wistfully remember some roads not taken.

Sometimes memories make us crazy, and we suffer a panic attack over the choices we’ve made. Terror overtakes many in mid-life, as we face a crisis of confidence that we have really chosen the right career, the right spouse, the right lifestyle, the right friends—suddenly life feels like a dead end. A pair of billboards posted recently in Florida captures the catastrophe. On reads, “Do you have any idea where you are going? (signed) God.” The other reads, “Will the road you are on get you to my place? (signed) God.”

But there’s a good habit we can get in that keeps things from getting this bad. It’s the habit of looking at each choice before us with the ultimate end in view. It’s a matter of asking, “Which road leads us closer to God, and which leads us away?” Today’s readings bring the habit home home.

In our reading from Deuteronomy, people are nearing the Promised Land. Moses sums up all that they’ve experienced in their decades of desert wandering by asking one life-defining question: have you, or have you not learned to make God your North Star, your guiding light, your point of reference, for all you do?

Moses puts it this way: I set before you life, prosperity and blessings; and I set before you death, adversity and curses. You either chart your course in light of God’s ways, or else you set out on your own. You choose.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus faces another crowd and he tells them that choices have consequences. They’re only kidding themselves if they keep dilly-dallying around Jesus, forever just about ready to give their hearts to him but never quite doing it.

Jesus puts it this way: If you come after me calling my name, but insist on bringing with you a whole bunch of distractions and excuses, you’re only kidding yourselves. You’re backing your soul into the future. You’re facing the wrong way.

Moses and Jesus point out a bottom line we all draw closer to day by day, until all our days are used up. It is now, while we still have time, that each new choice gives us a chance to set God as our North Star and guiding light.

We do this in obvious ways every we time we worship on Sunday morning rather than sleeping in or getting a jump on our chores

When we tithe our blessings back to God, rather than spending most everything on ourselves

When we seek God’s guidance in prayer throughout the day, rather than simply going on auto-pilot.

We do it when we choose to work on our marriage, put in an honest day’s labor for a day’s pay, and take care of our friends.

We do it when we welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, and deal fairly and compassionately with everyone.

We do it when we give thanks for our food, confess our faults, and commend our souls to God as we slip into sleep.

Day by day and choice by choice, we form the habit of choosing life, choosing life eternal.

“ I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Amen.