"Choose Life"

I think Moses had a full, rich vision of what happens when people choose life.  

Navigational rock cairn at Zion National Park NPS/Caitlin Ceci

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

September 7, 2025

Dr. Todd R. Wright

If you know any of Mary Oliver’s poetry, it is probably this line:

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”[2]

It is so famous it has been quoted on Facebook and in articles and taped to mirrors.

You may even have seen it on a bumper sticker.

It asserts that our lives are valuable beyond all measure and, in her view, not domesticated.

It assumes that we get to decide how we will spend our lives.

And, a few lines earlier, after describing her day, it asks, “What else should I have done?”

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Moses knows nothing of Mary Oliver or bumper stickers.

So he doesn’t ask what do you plan to do with your life, he simply orders, “Choose life!”

He probably could not have imagined that his words – Choose Life! – would be co-opted, politicized, and used as a stick to attack those with opposing views … or that the opposition would respond with equal ferocity and fierceness.

Instead, I suspect he is thinking of his mother choosing life by placing him in a basket and pushing him away from the riverbank to save him from Paroah’s soldiers and their order to kill all the male babies born to the Hebrews.

Or maybe he is thinking of the way Israel chose life by following him out of Egypt, leaving behind their bricks and straw and the master’s lash, trusting in God to save them.

Or maybe he is thinking of all those critical moments in the wilderness when Israel had to choose gratitude or grumpiness, a golden calf or the God who appeared in a pillar of cloud by day or of fire by night. He saw how God saved them with manna from the sky and water from the rock.

Or maybe he is thinking of the Ten Commandments, starting with have no other gods and ending with “You shall not covet … anything that belongs to your neighbor.” How those rules were designed to save this new community from a mess of trouble!

In short, I think Moses had a full, rich vision of what happens when people choose life.  

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So how do we choose life? Many things will promise life that cannot deliver it. How do we know what is the right path, the way to life?

When I leave worship today, I’m headed back onto the Appalachian Trail for the rest of the week with my hiking buddy, Bob. The trail is well marked with bright white blazes on trees and rocks. Places without so many trees use rock cairns instead. They point you in the right direction.

A few scholarly cairns for this text:

Terrance Fretheim reminds us that this is not about choosing salvation:

“It is important to recognize that [Moses delivers] this word of God to a people that had already been redeemed by God.[3] This is a word from God to God’s chosen and redeemed people. So, when they are called by God to ‘choose life’, this is a word given to them from within their relationship with God, not a means by which they could become the people of God.”[4]

Second, Doug Bratt claims that not all choices are equally important:

“I’m not sure God cares much whether we choose to eat oatmeal [and] fresh fruit [or bacon] for breakfast. However, God does very deeply care, in some cases even more than we naturally do, about some of our choices.”[5]

So the trick is discerning which are life and death choices and which are trivial.

Over and over God calls Israel to make choices that lead to justice, that demonstrate compassion, that show generosity, especially when dealing with the most vulnerable.

It follows that choosing life is not just an individual decision. What we choose impacts others. We are called to seek their good as well as our own.

Finally, a bit of Hebrew grammar: there is a particular word used for choose here: behar.

Scholars say this is the only place in the Old Testament where it is used to describe human choosing. Usually when it is used, it is God doing the choosing.

So what does that imply?

Just this: we have been given god-like power. We can choose life or death, and do so repeatedly. Every one of those choices molds our future. They change the lives of others. Do not choose lightly!

Choose life!

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But … don’t let the weight of the decision twist your gut or paralyze your hand.

Before Oliver asks her question – “What [will you do] with your one wild and precious life?” – she describes spending the day strolling through fields and feeding a grasshopper with sugar from her hand. She admits to being idle.

But it seems to me that she is not wasting the day.

She is taking notice of the world the Creator has made and called good; drinking in beauty.

Some might even describe it as worshipping; as communion!

I think she is choosing life!

There are many ways to do that. What will that look like for you today? Amen

[1] Navigational rock cairn at Zion National Park NPS/Caitlin Ceci

[2] From her poem, “The Summer Day”, see https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/item/poetry-180-133/the-summer-day/

[3] See Deuteronomy 7:7-8

[4] From his reflection on the text for workingpreacher.org, 9/4/16

[5] From his reflections on the text for cepreaching.org, 2/12/17