But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 25:15)
Although
not nearly as complete as we usually assume, this is effectively the end of the
campaign for Canaan . The tribes assemble and
receive from Joshua a challenge to make a commitment. Serve the Lord, or don't
serve the Lord, but don't try to have it both ways. The Israelites reject their
foreign gods and pledge their fealty to Yahweh.
Have
you ever stepped from a dock into a rowboat, or from the boat back to the dock?
That's no time to be indecisive. If you pause too long between those two worlds
– one foot in the boat and the other on the dock – disaster is almost
guaranteed (or at least some airtime on America’s
Funniest Home Videos). You've got to make a choice and commit.
The
first commandment insisted that God's people put God first. Maybe Joshua knew
that they couldn't have it both ways, and that vacillating between Yahweh and
foreign gods was every bit as deadly as rejecting Yahweh completely. Remember, Joshua
begins the Deuteronomic history, in which Israel's failures to keep the first
commandment are tallied up, very possibly to explain to an exiled people (500
or more years after Joshua’s time) why the unthinkable has happened – why
Jerusalem has been destroyed and Israel taken into captivity.
Are you
on the dock or in the boat? You can’t have it both ways.
Do
you need to make a commitment? What’s stopping you?
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