We will serve YHWH

This is the sight that greeted me on my Monday morning walk.  August 20?  It just ain't right!

This Sunday we will be treated  to the only passage from the Book of Joshua that made it into the lectionary.  It's in the last chapter (24:1-2; 15-17; 18b.)  The tribes of Israel have settled in the "Promised Land" and things are at peace.  Joshua, Moses' successor, has grown old.  He calls the tribes together and asks them what gods they will follow.  "As for me and my household," he says, "We will serve YHWH (God's proper name that God gave to Moses.)  The tribes respond that it was YHWH who brought them out of slavery in Egypt.  "Therefore we also will serve YHWH, for he is our God."  Both this reading and the Gospel challenge us to make a counter-cultural choice to let God draw us into our Father's household.