Gettysburg Presbyterian Church

Making Hard Decisions in a Real World
Luke 9: 51 – 62
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Rev. Daniel T. Hans
August 05, 2007

The decisions we make in our best times guide us in our worst times. This claim addresses two experiences we prefer to avoid: making decisions and facing our worst moments. In our passage from Luke, Jesus is confronted with both. His decision to “set his face to go to Jerusalem” occurs between the best time in his ministry and the worst time.

I
At the best time in his ministry, his disciple Peter answers Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?” with the proclamation: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” Jesus’ identity is finally being grasped by his followers. Peter’s claim comes at the end of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, his home turf, where his teaching and healing meet with favor. Rather than stay in Galilee, basking in popularity and praise, Jesus prepares his followers for the struggle that lies ahead for him and for anyone who will follow him in faith.
Jesus travels toward Jerusalem, where the opposition to his ministry will mount an attack that will lead to his execution on the cross – the worst time for Jesus and his followers.

By leaving behind the popularity in Galilee and setting his sights on the opposition in Jerusalem, Jesus makes a decision – a decision to pursue God’s purposes for his life regardless of personal risk and sacrifice and regardless of personal pain and anguish. The decisions we make in our best times guide us in our worst times. Three lessons can be gleaned from the Jesus’ decision to go to Jerusalem and from his subsequent words to his followers.

II
Lesson # 1 - Life Cannot Be Lived in an Ivory Tower.
People who believe life should be pursued with the least amount of risk and struggle possible wonder why Jesus does not remain in Galilee enjoying the safety, security, praise and popularity. Contrary to popular belief, we are not created with the primary goal of life being personal happiness and comfort.
The reason for our existence centers on committing ourselves to a purpose greater than our own joy. The God to whom we make such a commitment often leads us into situations that require decisions on our part that result in anything but tranquility.

As Jesus moves toward Jerusalem, his first encounter is opposition and rejection by some Samaritans, the religious rivals of the Jews. Our Lord is not shaken or even angered by this hostility. He moves on, aware that his ministry is being conducted in a world filled with arrogance and ignorance.
We have to dismantle our dreams of ivory towers where everything goes our way and where personal fulfillment is the highest goal.
We have to live out our faith in a world filled with Samaritans:

where marriage partners fail to fulfill promises;
where terminal diseases force painful predicaments;
where young people die in traffic accidents;
where terrorists redefine the rules of diplomacy;
and where things are not as they should be and could be.

Yet, we long for an ideal ivory tower world:

where following Jesus is the path of least resistance,
where God makes the truly tough decisions for us, and
where obedience to God always brings favorable blessing.

But such is not the world in which we live. So the moral and ethical decisions we make must take into account the reality and the complexity of human sin and suffering. Such decisions are seldom made easily and never made in an ivory tower.

III
Lesson # 2 – Faith Has No Place for Armchair Quarterbacks.
With the NFL summer training camps underway, we are fast approaching the kickoff of another football season. The TV announcers in the booths will soon be telling us what the coaches on the field should have done or what play should have been called. This “wisdom from on high” in the press box comes after the fact, usually after several instant replays.

It’s easy to analyze life after the fact but life calls for decisions to be made beforehand. Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said:
Life is understood backwards but must be lived forwards.
We long for life to be nothing more than a safe and detached commentary on past events. But, life is like the coaches on the field who have to make decisions now without benefit of seeing the outcome in advance.

In our passage, three would-be followers of Jesus are unwilling to take the risk of making an informed decision about faith. They want to retire to the press box and talk about the game rather than live it. Jesus tells the first man that following him requires a willingness to do without some of life’s luxuries, even do without certain conveniences, and that it isn’t enough just to talk about it. To the second man, who wants to wait to bury his father, who in all probability is still in good health, Jesus says that the decision to live for God must be made now – not later. Jesus tells the third man, who can’t stick to his decisions but constantly second-guesses himself, to concentrate on what lies ahead and not to keep looking to what lies behind.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian and pastor during Hitler’s rise to power, faced the temptation of being an armchair quarterback in his faith. He had joined other Germans in leaving his homeland at the onset of the Third Reich; but, later he changed his mind and returned to Germany. Of that decision he wrote: “I have come to the conclusion that I have made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through his difficult period of our national history with the Christian people in Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share in the trials of this time with my people. Such a decision each person must make for himself. Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose; but I cannot make that choice in security.” (The Way to Freedom, p. 246)

After his return to Germany, he was imprisoned for his opposition to the Nazis and his role in an attempt to assassinate Hilter. The day before his prison was liberated by the Allies, Bonhoeffer was hanged. The decisions we make in our best times guide us in our worst times. Life cannot be lived in an ivory tower and faith has no place for armchair quarterbacks.

IV
Lesson # 3: Love Makes Hard Decisions in a Real World.
It is love that leads Jesus to set his face toward Jerusalem:

a love for God the Father whom he desires to obey and
a love for all people whom he desires to help.

Jesus makes his decision in the face of opposition and death. The world did not then and does not now need people who stand still waiting until conditions become more favorable. Love requires us to make our decisions in obedience to God and in compassion for others.
Love requires us to make our decisions:

even when we lack all the needed information
even when we are uncertain about the outcome
even when we don’t like to make decisions and
even when love for God and love for others seem to be in conflict.

Last week I visited my 58-year-old cousin in Florida who is completely senile, does not now know me even though we grew up together and lives in a nursing home. His wife faces hard decisions about the quality of life and about what to do if he should become seriously ill, how to treat the illness and even if to treat it.

The decisions she faces bring to mind a decision I once faced. As a young father I faced a decision I did not want to make. My three-year-old daughter was terminally ill with cancer that was attacking her central nervous system and causing much pain. There was no hope of healing, only the hope of quick death. I had at my disposal a large supply of morphine to control her pain. However, the drug’s relief was short-lived as her pain returned. Watching her suffer and eyeing the morphine, I realized how easy it would be to administer an overdose and to end the pain forever and no one would know.

Ethicists call it the law of double effect – giving a drug to control pain when in reality the drug ends life. With each passing day, overdose seemed the more loving action. Living in this real world where cancer’s agony is no respecter of age or innocence, I could not escape to the protection of an ivory tower or passively reflect in the comfort of an armchair. I had to act and to do so in love – love for my God and love for my daughter.

Such decisions cannot wait until we are thrust into a crisis. The decisions we make in our best times guide us in our worst times. Sitting there in my living room, as my daughter was dying in pain, was not the time for me to debate my views on euthanasia. I thank God that, in better times, I had thought through my convictions about life and death. I would not administer an overdose because I could not do so. I had resolved not to end her life prematurely. However, I must confess that had her dying lingered longer my resolve might have changed and the law of double effect might have prevailed. And, since that time, I have wondered if I would and even should do otherwise if faced with the same decision again.

We do not want life to include such decisions, but it does. We do not want to face such choices, but we do. Like our Lord, who had to decide between retreating to the comfort of Galilee or setting his face toward the suffering of Jerusalem, you and I must make our hard decisions in this real world.

A word of counsel from one who has been there – don’t wait to decide your moral and ethical convictions until circumstance thrusts you into a crisis or until your worst case scenario is upon you. Begin now to think about and pray about what obedience and love for God and for each other requires of us because the decisions we make in our best times guide us in our worst times.

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