Serve the Lord (21st Sunday in Ordinary Time)

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The end of the book of Joshua is a covenant renewal ceremony between God (represented by Joshua) and the people of Israel. Here, they are reminded of all the good things that God has done for them, from the calling of Abraham out of the Land of Ur to the present day (vv. 2-14). They are then instructed to choose whether to continue following God or to serve other gods whom they had not known (vv. 15-18). Finally, they are warned that if they transgress the Covenant and serve other gods, God will punish them by allowing them to fall into the hands of their enemies (vv. 19-20).

This ceremony mirrors the pattern of Deuteronomy, which also begins with a historical prologue detailing all that God has done (Deut. 1-5), followed by stipulations (Deut. 5-27), and then a list of blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience (Deut. 28). Later on in history, we see that these blessings and curses were prophetic, as Israel will go through many cycles of obedience and disobedience, with the periods of disobedience becoming more and more severe, before Israel finally suffers the ultimate punishment stipulated in Deut. 28, which is exile from the land.

Joshua knows that this will happen, so he tells the people that they will not be able to serve the Lord (v. 19). We later learn that although Joshua and his immediate generation kept God’s law, their descendants would not do the same, as recorded in Judges:

Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred ten years. So they buried him within the bounds of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. Moreover, that whole generation was gathered to their ancestors, and another generation grew up after them, who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. (Judges 2:8-10)

The spiral into disobedience is recorded for us in the rest of Judges, and continued into the later historical books.

This pattern of obedience followed by disobedience can be observed in almost every period of history, including our own. One generation may be faithful to God, while the next will forget Him and become unfaithful. We are all faced with the choice of whether we will choose the path of faithfulness or unfaithfulness. Like Joshua, we must all choose whether or not we will say “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” We must pray that, by God’s grace, we will make the right choice always.

J. Luis Dizon