“Shema” 

Ruth1:6-9,16

Mark 12:28-34

Hebrews 9:11-14 

Wouldn't it be nice if we could just simplify the rules of life?   Reduce all the finance rules to a simple: pay your bills on time and do not cheat others.  Perhaps the vehicle code could be simplified to yield to those on the right.  A flat tax code, send 10% of what you made to Uncle Sam, would make April so much easier.  Yet we have complex banking and finance rules, bankruptcy rules, investing rules; driving and vehicle rules that are important simply because we do not always yield to those on the right; tax codes that require yards of shelf space.  Wouldn't it be nice if we only had to understand a few basic rules of life? 

The scribe asks Jesus exactly that.  Rabbi, can you simplify these rules, 

what in the most basic most important rule?  The job of the scribe was to keep all the rules, make sure that others were keeping all the rules, record the details the keeping of the rules.  His life and income depended upon rules.  Clearly he knew rules; clearly he sensed that there was something more important than an endless list of rules. 

   Jesus started his reply with the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-9; the great statement of faith that was repeated twice daily by all Jews.  Shema is Hebrew for hear; not just a casual hear or listen but an imperative, really listen!  “Hear O Israel” for this is really important; not only hear, but do this, obey these words!  “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”  The scribe, and any Jew who was listening, would have automatically added the rest of the prayer to what Jesus had voiced:  “Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” 

When we keep these in our heart day and night, meditate on them all the time, even then we may still not fully grasp all that Jesus meant by these words.  The Lord is our God; we hear the phrase over and over that we are God's people and God is our God.  There is a relationship, a covenant relationship, that defines who we are.  We are the people of God.  God has made a covenant with us, an agreement that will not be broken, that God will always be God, will always love us and, if and when needed, will call us back if we go astray, call us back with open and loving arms. 

There is one God.  We do not worship one of many different Gods, a different God each day of the week, keeping a special God reserved just for Sunday worship.  This is the same God who created heaven and earth, male and female.  The one God who called Israel, calls us, into a special relationship.  The one God who has revealed himself throughout the Bible; being fully revealed in the person and life of Jesus.  To rephrase the comercial, “After all, you know this God.”   

      Let's look at the rest of the Shema, the part Jesus left unspoken.  We are to keep the words, the commandments, in our hearts; for the Hebrew, the heart was the center of the intellect, of understanding and of strength.  We are to teach them to our children, talk about them wherever we are, when we go to sleep and get up in the morning.  Put them on bracelets, write them on hats, engrave them into the entry way of our homes.  I can see sermons here, many sermons on evangelism, on children's programs, on daily prayer, on constant prayer all within these verses.  Coburn mentioned a cartoon from last week.  A pastor at the church door, calling out to the circle of police cars around the church saying that it was a false alarm, not a hostage situation, just an extremely long sermon.  To avoid a hostage situation, an extremely long sermon, let me stress the idea of keeping the commandments and encourage you to reflect on the other parts later.

This idea of commandments isn't easy.  Last week Dee did a great job of addressing the 10 Commandments and how they fit into the two catagroies of loving God and loving neighbor.  The scribe was probably aware that there are 613 distinct commandments in the Old Testament.  Just to understand what it means to love God is a theme that wanders throughout these, sometimes stressing obedience, in another place stressing proclaiming God as Lord of all, in other places serving those around us.  Wherever loving God is amplified with another statement, it involves an action verb.  Love is not just an emotion, it is an action, an action that takes all of our heart and mind and strength.  Love helps define, is defined, by the essence of who we are, what the Hebrews called our soul. 

Rabbi's were careful not to say that some of these commandments and ideas were more important than others.  However, they were always looking for a simplification, an easy way to summarize them.  One rabbi would quote Psalm 15 and see 11 basic rules; another would find 6 in Isaiah 33:15+16.  I like Micah 6:8 with three simple principles: “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  The Message, a modern translation, makes this even easier to understand: “It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don't take yourself too seriously - take God seriously.” 

So the first half of what Jesus said is to love God, the one God who has called us to be his people.  We love God by obeying God's commandments.  The idea of love and commandments being linked is not unique to the Old Testament.  Jesus says in John 15:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” and again in verse 21 “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.”  

Jesus did not stop at loving God; we must also love our neighbor.  Unlike the Rabbis, Jesus made this connection explicit as he included Leviticus 19:18 as part of his answer: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Yet, most Hebrews thought that “neighbor” referred to “the sons of your own people;” in other words, neighbor and family and Jew were the all same thing.  Thus, describing the Good Samaritan as a neighbor was both scandalous (Samaritans did not believe the same things the Jews believed) but also a radical extension of loving those who are not family, who are not like us.   

The Greek of the New Testament uses many words for love.  The love that one has for brothers or family is phileo; hence Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love.  One was expected, was required, to love those who were part of the family, even a very large extended family.  But Jesus uses a different word for love, agapao.  This is much closer to the Hebrew concept of loving God, a love that is both an action and a decision.  This is a type of love that one decides upon.  A person determines that they will love in this manner regardless of what may occur.   Even when one is disappointed or upset by another person, one still can make the decision to love that person.  This is the type of love that God has for us: regardless of what we do, of how disappointing we may be, God still loves us.  It is the type of love that Jesus, even when betrayed, demonstrated to all of mankind as he died on the cross.  This is the type of love that we are called to demonstrate to one another.   

This is the type of love that we are to live - with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength.  I had often wondered why Jesus added 'mind' to the original Shema.  No doubt the answer is due to the different languages.  In Hebrew, the heart was the center of strength, of rational thought and understanding.  The Greeks thought of the heart more as the center of moral and intellectual life.  However, the use of heart was more and more referring to the seat of emotions and passions, much as we think of it today.  The Greeks were starting to attribute understanding as more a function of the mind.  Jesus was using Greek, adding the mind, to express the continuity of thought between different languages and usages.  Any way you look at it, Jesus is calling us to love with everything that we are.  We are to love with an understanding of who God is (and who we are), we are to love with passion and emotion, we are to love with all of our strength.  And we are to love with our soul: the essential core of what we are; in Hebrew, the literal translation of soul is 'to have breath' or to be alive.  

And this type of love is to be a decision, not just an intellectual exercise.  The scribe saw the wisdom of what Jesus said and was commended by Jesus with the words that he was not far from the kingdom of God; knowledge gets us close.  But we need to put this knowledge into action.  As in the Shema, we should think about this every morning when we get up and before we go to bed, we should teach our children and talk about it at home, at work, in the market - continuously.  We should remind ourselves about it, that it sets us apart.  We should demonstrate this love in action; demonstrate it through prayer and worship, justice for the poor and food for the hungry, for walking humbly before God and loving our neighbors. 

And we can only hope to love this way because of Jesus.  Only because Jesus first loved us this way can we hope to love like this.  Only because of the strength and encouragement of the Holy Spirit can we have the courage and power to love like this.  Only when God calls us and convinces us to love like this will be able to reflect God's love in our obedience and our love of neighbor. 

Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one.  You shall love the Lord with all your heart and mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.  Hear O Logan!  Let us listen, and love.  

This is the Lord's table, given to us in love by Jesus.  This is where we join the communion of saints, the joining of all those who believe that Jesus Christ is Lord.  We are invited to come and share this feast together as a community of faith, with all of our neighbors.  Agape love is a decision, a decision like Ruth's when she declared to her mother in law: Your God shall be my God and your people shall be my people.  Let us show our decision, our love, as we gather together at the table.  This is where we meet our Savior and share with all of God's people. 

November 5, 2006

Rev. Al Hammond

First Presbyterian Church

Logan, Utah