Making Choices

by Amy Houser
July 22, 2007

This I believe: when children witness and participate in the actions of the larger church community, not only are our efforts enriched in the moment but they are multiplied again and again into our future – in ways we can only now dream of. This I believe.

There is something that every person here does every single day. Would you like to guess what I’m thinking of?

Choices! Every day we all get to make choices. Some choices are pretty easy. This morning I chose to have yogurt and granola for breakfast. Some choices are harder, like what should I say when someone is mean to me at school. Can you think of some choices you made already today – easy or hard?

Sometimes we make one choice and then we change it. Like the story of Mary and Martha today that Anissa read. Jesus came to visit his friends Mary and Martha – Mary chose to sit beside Jesus and listen to his stories about God’s love. Martha chose to make a fancy dinner for Jesus. But while she was making dinner she felt cranky – she liked Mary’s choice better than her choice. She would rather be with Jesus than fussing over a big dinner in the kitchen. And Jesus told her it was ok to change her mind and make another choice – a better choice to spend time with him, listening to the stories of God. They could all make dinner together later. And that was a big relief to Martha! Sometimes we change our choices!

And sometimes there are choices we make together as a whole church. This is a very special kind of choice. Often when we are thinking really hard about wanting to follow Jesus’ teachings and really wanting to show God’s love, we make choices with our church family instead of all by ourselves.

I have an example of this. Dumbarton is a peace-loving church – Jesus taught us to make peace and we think it’s very important. And so we often make choices together that show our love of peace. Sometimes we give our money to people working for peace. Sometimes we talk with or write letters to our country’s leaders about peace, asking them to make peaceful choices.

And sometimes we choose to put our voices together and say “No More War” because voices together are much louder than voices alone. Let’s try it and see if I’m right. First I’ll say it: “Choose Peace!” Now, what does it sound like when we all say it? All together: “Choose Peace!” WOW – what a difference!

Last winter Dumbarton carried its peace banner in a big march for peace. I have some pictures to show you from that day. Emma and I went along – here are some of our signs. I saw Savi and her daddy there. I saw Chip Aldridge, Barby & Howard Morland, Harry & Arlene Kiely – raise your hand if you were also at the peace march.

Each person made the choice to use their voices for peace, and by doing it TOGETHER we could carry a bigger sign and have a louder voice and let our leaders know that all these people of God do not want war. We have learned that when many people use their voices together, we see bad things come to an end and good things begin to grow.

Choosing to act together is something very special that a church can do to show God’s love to our neighbors in Washington and our neighbors around the world.

Some friends of mine from college wrote a story called “Praying with our Feet” about their church and this story reminded me a bit of Dumbarton.

Do you see all these shoes on the cover and all these shoes around the front of the church? That symbolizes all the different people in their church and our church who make choices together – why don’t you pick a shoe that is interesting to you and borrow it for a few minutes, and during the story we are going to occasionally make our shoes walk. If you don’t get one of these shoes you can use the shoes on your own feet.

Let’s practice – when I make my shoe walk, you join me with your shoes. And when I stop, you stop too. The sound will remind us that choices made together have a lot of power. We will close with part of this story:

PRAYING WITH OUR FEET

…..and the people of God said Amen.