The Rev. Dr. British Hyrams
Deuteronomy 6:1-9 9/8/24
Our passage today is from the well-known book of Deuteronomy which is considered by some scholars to be at the center of OT theology. It is also one of the most quoted Old Testament books in the New Testament.
In Deuteronomy, Moses is on borrowed time at this point. The Israelites are on the cusp of the promised land and Moses knows that he will not go with them – the consequence of his disobedience described in Numbers 20. The book of Deuteronomy chronicles the last of his leadership and wise exhortations and prophecies to the Israelites in an effort to instruct them, warn them, and move them to action with the hope that their pattern of behavior will be different in the future.
Moses begins in Chapters 1-4 by recounting key moments in Israel’s journey from Mount Sinai to the plains of Moab, located across the Jordan from the promised land. In Chapter 5 he then re-presents the Decalogue and discusses some of the events that transpired when the Ten Commandments were given including how the people were afraid to hear from God directly.
Moses gives a no-nonsense reminder before he relays to them the law for the way of Yahweh in the promised land.
I wonder if you have a parent or grandparent, aunt or uncle, in your life who tells the same story over and over again? You can tell when it’s coming because the warm-up is the same. It may go something like, “You know when I was a child growing up in XYZ place…” Once you hear that introductory sentence you know the string of stories related to the differences in the times is coming, likely how things were better or worse then, etc. and maybe the same old stories about family members that were funny the first 2x you heard them!
Or perhaps YOU are that parent or grandparent, aunt or uncle? If you are – I’m sorry, no harm or judgment intended!
My sanctified imagination wonders if the Israelites felt this way about Moses. After his warm-up in chapters 1-5, were their ears ready and waiting to hear or were they hearing “Wah-Wah-Wah” like in Charlie Brown?
Moses is not talking to hear himself talk! Because he has a message crucial to their well-being! The message version puts it this way in verse 3 – Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you’re told so that you’ll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as GOD promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.
And honestly, we have lots to learn and appreciate from the stories of the wise and the elders among us, and we would do well to listen and learn and document in writing and digitally while we can!
Ah, but if only it were so easy to sort out the wise these days, especially when it comes to matters of faith and so much more! Competing voices seek to influence us regarding, what our Christian life “should” look like, what we “should” believe, what one “should” obviously think about the issues of the day IF you are a REAL Christian based on their beliefs and interpretations of the biblical witness and other sources of wisdom (science, AI, political figures, etc.)
Beloved, I am a living witness. Our youth and young adults are bombarded by all kinds of theologies and ideologies on social media – the platforms are too many to name and Facebook usually isn’t even one of them. They find them in various churches and campus ministry groups and so forth. Between that and their own natural seasons of doubt that many face, and those wrestling with the deconstruction and reconstruction of their faith; they can become all kinds of confused. Many youth and young adults have experienced “church hurt” like you would not even care to know!
Beloved, issues of identity and worthiness, cycles of addiction, abuse and self-harm are still raging – as surely indicated by the rise in mental health concerns in the overall population. Overall, access to more information via the world wide web has not been all that beneficial in many cases when it comes to matters of faith and more.
When Pastor Steve told me the scripture text for today, I was a bit intimidated. I was intimidated because I know this is a key text in the Old Testament. But as I prepared, I was excited. Why? Because you see, here I found the essence of what God wants from us, as Moses states it to God’s chosen people, the Israelites, and as backed up by Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.
Deuteronomy 6:4-5, I submit, are the Old Testament version of grounding scriptures by which all demands upon our life of faith are made. Here we find the crux of the matter!
The crux: heart, essence, most important point, there are people in my nuclear family, actually, one person in particular, who shall remain nameless, that might say that I am a person who is prone to wanting to know the “bottom line” first, then fill in the details. So, I suppose it was not surprising that this crux, this core, this centering place, this “bottom line” caught my spirit with its great meaning and importance!
You see, this passage includes the key statement of what the Lord expects from the Israelites as they stand on one side of the Jordan River, waiting to cross into the promised land. Everything else Moses says will be the particulars that support this statement.
4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.
5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you might.
Verse 4-9 are called The Shema; we share a reverence for the Shema with our Jewish siblings. Verse 4 starts with the words “Hear O Israel.” Shema means to hear.
Complete devotion to God is not recommended but commanded in verse 5. Love God, and this love is not an emotional love based on feelings but a love of obedience, done with your heart (inner man, mind, will), soul (living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotion), and might. (muchness, force, abundance). Finally, one scholar just abandons the descriptions to say, “Love God with your “everything!”
I certainly agree and the MSG paraphrase of the Bible pretty much agrees, too. It says in verse 5, Love GOD, your God, with your whole heart. Love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!
Yes, it’s a big ask, with each sunrise we are blessed to see and each breath we are granted we have a chance to try it again.
In the New Testament, Jesus essentially repeats the same mandate in both Matthew and Luke.
Interestingly, in Luke it is the precursor to the parable of the Good Samaritan where the presenting question is how to inherit life in God’s kingdom. In Luke 10:25, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27 He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”
In Matthew, Jesus’ interaction with Pharisees and Sadducees is about the greatest commandment. Matthew 22:34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, thirty-five and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
In these texts, we find solid ground, a “home base” of sorts, to give followers of Jesus to stand on. Home base can be your actual home, or any other place of assurance, a place against which all others are measured. Pointing God’s beloved here, as a starting point when they are being accosted by voices crying out from their devices, other people, and all manner of communication methods, here is a place they can call home, here is the crux of the matter from the NT perspective.
Now beloved, I can’t tell you how I resonate with verses 4 thru 9, Why? Because I love learning and teaching! Whether I am good at either of those things may be up for debate, but my passion does not wane!
The last 4 verses of the Shema speak to the primary teachers, the ones in the home, and to the secondary teachers, the ones in the church which of course includes those in the official roles, but really includes the entire faith community…
Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.
It’s very Presbyterian! (smile) Because it doesn’t take long when you hang around the PCUSA to catch on that education is quite central for this denomination! – lol
Recite them to your children (NRSV) means to teach the words of God incisively- intelligently, analytically, and in a clear-thinking manner. Beloved parents, teachers, and youth leaders, the time you spend that is not seen, studying, preparing, and thinking creatively, so that you yourself, children, youth and young adults, and adults develop in their life of faith is in fact love of God and service to neighbor.
Talking about the words of God means to speak, to declare, to sing, these words of God. This is sacred work! It is work done with the help of the Holy Spirit. It travels everywhere all the time and includes all the ways God has gifted each of us to participate in nurturing the next generations whenever and however we can.
I recently started a Bible study on campus, it consists of about seven athletes. There is a variance in the level of biblical knowledge, but I am glad they are in Bible study!
In this space we journey together personally and as fellow Christians. I ask open-ended questions and I do not tell them what to think. In fact, I consider myself a co-learner! I do provide what knowledge I have, I tell them when I need to research something I don’t know. Ultimately, we are letting the Holy Spirit do what she does as we dare try to grasp the mysteries of God.
What I want most for them is to have this protected space to study and learn, to ask ANY question, and feel safe as we endeavor to grow in our faith and relationship with God – in order to witness and work in the world to the glory of God.
That too, for me, is also the crux of the matter.
Thanks be to God!