Shema

 Another day in the interesting times we are living in.

Another Sunday seeking to be responsible and safe

            in order to provide Eucharist to as many of 

                                                the Nativity Faith Community as possible.

Another Gospel reading taken from that high tension space of time

            between Palm Sunday and Good Friday.

Let’s see what speaks to us over those 2,000 years 

            that is just as relevant today as it was when first written.

 

In the gospel reading for today the Pharisees 

are putting a question to Jesus.

            They are frequently putting questions to Jesus 

                                                                                                            in the gospels.

In reading the context it becomes clear 

            that they feel threatened by Jesus.

 

            This may seem odd 

because the Pharisees were good, moral, religious people.

            These were the ones 

                        who could be counted on for a generous pledge.

            They were people you could trust your children with.

            They were looked up to as exemplary, 

                                                good examples for the whole community.

Why should they feel threatened by Jesus?

            In thoughtful reading of the gospels it becomes clear 

that Jesus, in their eyes, is a bad example for the community.

            

He has a whole different way of looking at morality, for instance, than the Pharisees,

            and he broke the commandments on several occasions.

Sure, there always seemed to be a good reason to do that,

            but that seemed rather cavalier 

                                    to those who had always played by the rules.

            

So in this case the Pharisees wanted to test this heretic

            in order to have some ground for asserting 

that their authority

            derived from their religious observance and the Law

was not so easily cast aside 

                                                by this problematic, iconoclastic Jesus.

            

 “Teacher,” they asked, “which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

            

You know, 

anyone taking the time to reflect on the commandments

            could probably come up with the answer Jesus gave.

            

Deut. 6:4 ¶ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One. 

            The Shema – the Jewish Creed, the Heart of the Jewish Faith

Deut. 6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, 

and with all your soul, 

and with all your might.

            

This, the great commandment is essentially a positive restating 

of the first of the Ten Commandments, 

“You shall have no other gods besides me.”

 

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart/mind/will, 

and with all your soul/nephesh/breath/life force/self, 

and with all your might/strength, 

                        with the full measure of your devotion.

You shall love God with your whole being.

 

And then Jesus gives them an extra credit addition:

            coupled with this first commandment 

                        is the commandment from Leviticus 19:18

 “You shall not take vengeance 

or bear a grudge against any of your people,

             but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

 

These words, the Summary of the Law, are so familiar to us.

For long-time Episcopalians you will remember that 

those words were spoken at EVERY Eucharist in the 1928 BCP

right after the opening Collect for Purity.

 

“Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith:

    Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart…” (etc.)

 

This is a very important text, important for both Jews and Christians, 

and, I might add, 

an important text for what is at the heart of mainstream Islam.

 

So let’s take a few minutes to look seriously 

at the two greatest commandments on which hang 

ALL the Law 

and ALL the teachings of the Prophets.

 

You shall love God with your whole being.

 

Ah, yes, you may say, that is a very good intention to have, 

to love God with your whole being, 

but when I am honest with myself, I have to say 

that I love God with a whole lot less than my entire being.

One does not want to appear to be 

                                                            a religious fanatic or zealot after all.

There’s love for God there, but it’s not necessarily 100%.

 

Well, so much for being able to keep the first and greatest commandment!

            So much for keeping ANY of the commandments then.

 

Is that the way we tend to think about this commandment? 

            that it’s an ideal we want to try to aspire to, 

loving God with a bit more of ourselves than we did before?

 

Let me turn this around.

            How is it that God loves us?

Isn’t it with all God’s heart, with all God’s being, with all God’s might?

 

Is not this what Jesus showed us, 

revealed to us about the nature of God, 

revealed to us through how he lived and ministered and died 

and went through death to a Resurrection Life 

that was totally for our benefit?

Can you see how it could be 

that this first and greatest commandment 

is actually a description of God’s relationship with us, 

a relationship of love that is utterly complete 

            in self-giving, self-revealing, and self-surrender?

 

May I suggest to you that we are not being asked to do 

what God hasn’t already been doing in us.

But hear, O Israel, 

the LORD our God, the LORD is One.  The LORD is One.

 

There is only One.

No, this is not saying that there is only one God, 

                                                                        but that there is only ONE.

 

We indicate this One Being by the noun God, 

but we also need to remember 

that this is not a separate being from ourselves.

Rather all creation exits within the Heart of God, so to speak.

There is no way we can be apart from God, 

dwelling as we do in the created order, 

that is utterly held in the bosom of God.

 

We are asleep to this most of the time.

That is why for centuries, millennia we have been told 

that the classic and ultimate goal of all spiritual practice 

is to realize union with God.

It is not to attain union with God, 

as something to be achieved, 

but to realize the fact of union, the unity of all being, 

to experience this at the heart of our being, 

far beyond intellectual understanding.

 

There is only One, 

there is God loving us, 

and we in the heart of God, 

and an expression of faith 

that we too can awaken to full surrender in love to God.

Love God and love your neighbor.

To love God is to love your neighbor.

There is only One.

            

I used the word surrender.

We may not particularly shine to that word, 

but it is a good word for us to use.

One definition of the word faith, 

a definition which I think is very practical, is this: 

faith is surrender in trust. 

Does that not describe what it is to have faith in something or someone?

            To surrender in trust.

That means letting go of ourselves into trust.

            

To love God in this full and complete way 

is to be a living sacrifice to God and neighbor.

To love in this way is to move beyond self-possession and self-concern.

            

I said that this text of the two greatest commandments 

is very important for both Jews and Christians, 

and, also for what is at the heart of Islam.

The two fundamental principles of Islam are 

surrender to God and generosity with others.

            

If we were to live our lives this way, 

that is, without self-concern 

and in this full generosity of self-giving for others, 

what an incredible difference that would be.

            

The power of love would dismantle all the positioning for seizing power,

            all the political divisions,

all the violence done in the name of religious beliefs, 

all the greed that leads to huge economic inequality, 

all the exploitation of others and of the planet, 

all the labeling of another as an enemy.

 

So this Gospel lesson for today is very apropos 

            as we enter the last week before a very important election

                        fraught with complications and questions:

                                                what is truth?

                                                who can we trust?

            And so much of it all out of our control.

 

Hang onto this:

            Love God with all your heart and soul and might

and you will be able to love your neighbor as yourself.

 

There is only One.

            God is Love.

                        Trust that Love.

                                    You are loved.