Scripture: Deuteronomy 6: 1-12, 20-25
Video of sermon here (from 40 minutes 30)
Audio of sermon here
During World War 2, thousands of Jewish parents, on the run from Nazis, hid their children in farms, convents and monasteries all round Europe. When the war ended, and the Nazis were defeated, Rabbi Eliezer Silver headed up the search to find them and return them to their families if at all possible. Unfortunately, this wasn’t easy, as for very good reasons, record keeping was kept to a minimum. And those who took them in didn’t go out of their way to publicise it.
Still, Rabbi Silver had a promising lead that a monastery in southern France had taken in some Jewish children. But the priest in charge was of little help, declaring that to his knowledge, all their children were Christians. Quite a few had fairly obviously German names: Schwartz, Kaufmann, Schneider, but they could be either Jewish or Gentile.
He went into a classroom and scanned their little faces. Many had lived there since they were toddlers. They may have had little or no memory of life before the monastery, How could he know if any of them were from Jewish families?
Then slowly and softly he began to sing…
Sh’ma Y’Israel ,Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad
As he did so, a handful of little faces lit up, and tiny voices around the room began to join in. They recognized these ancient words from their bedtime prayers, and from early memories of mothers and fathers reciting them each morning and evening, during their own prayers. It had become embedded in them and even after several years, much of their lives, when other memories had gone, this was still there. It was almost part of them. Just as Moses hoped these words would, as he stood on the edge of Canaan and gave his farewell address to the Hebrew people.
We’re continuing our time in the Covenant History section of the Community Bible Experience. It’s our second week with Moses. Last week we met him at the burning bush, where God called him to lead the Children of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt. We’re jumping on few decades and skipping a large chunk of story.
This nation which left Egypt camp at the edge of Canaan preparing to enter it. Virtually none of them would remember Egypt. Most of those who took part in that Exodus never personally made it to the Promised Land. But Moses is desperate to keep the story alive, so he retells them their story. In the chapter previous to the one we read, he reiterated what we know as the Ten Commandments.
Today’s reading is perhaps the central statement of faith in the Old Testament and remains the central tenet or creed of Judaism.
If you had to summarise the Christian faith in a few words, you’d be hard pushed to top Jesus Christ is Lord.
Islam has There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.
Judaism has the Sh’ma. Hear, O Israel, The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. It’s named after the first word in Hebrew.
Sh’ma.
Hear.
This is recited by pious Jews every morning and evening. Children learn it as their very first words. They hope to recite them with their last breath. It is the bottom line of their faith.
But it is not central just for Jews. Let’s remember that Jesus himself was thoroughly Jewish. He kept their religious festivals, ate kosher, observed sabbath and at least twice a day Jesus would have prayed this prayer. And when he was asked what the most important commandment was, what was the central teaching of his faith he pointed to this…
Here is the most important commandment. Moses said, ‘Israel, listen to me. The Lord is our God. The Lord alone. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind and with all your strength.’ And here is the second one. ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’ There is no commandment more important than these. (Mark 12: 28-31)
Out of curiosity, how many of you were part of this church when I first arrived here as your minister?
Well, you might remember way back in 2014, the very first series of sermons I shared with you was on these words. You might not remember anything of the sermons themselves, but there is one thing you might remember. Back then we did something I’m going to invite you to do again for old times sake.
I invite you to stand and we’re going to say these words together. We’ll do the first line in Hebrew, then we’ll recite it in English.
Shema Y’Israel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad
I can’t remember if we did this last time, but I’ll invite you do it this time. Put your hand in the air, with your little finger extended. Imagine you’re a posh person having a cup of tea. We say this with our hand in the air and the finger extended.
This itself is a statement of faith. It’s saying that our God had more power in his little finger than Pharaoh had in the Exodus story. Our God is greater, more powerful than all the nations of the world. We’re saying our God is mighty to save, he will speak the final word and his word will be good, for our good, for the good of his creation.
So here we go…
Shema Y’Israel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad
Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone
Love the Lord your God
With all your heart and with all your soul,
And with all your strength
And love your neighbour as yourself
It can seem a strange thing to command love. However it is perhaps better expressed as a yearning, an aching and a longing. Oh, that you would love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength. It’s not so much a command from some sort of cosmic sky dictator saying love me or else! It is about pledging loyalty to a divine loving presence who wants you to know life. True life. It’s an invitation to embrace the life you were created to live, in close, intimate, loving relationship with God. To borrow from what Jesus would say many years later, if we did this our yoke would be easier and our burden lighter.
This is not the command of a harsh, distant autocrat. We’re not called to honour or love God simply cos he exists or wants his ego stroked. He may have more power in his little finger than all the nations on earth, but he cannot force them to respond appropriately to his love.
We’re called to love because he first loved us. We’re called to love because of God’s unfailing goodness. When Moses presents the people with things like the Ten Commandments, or the Shema, God is not described in abstract theological terms. It’s rooted in terms of his saving acts. Not based on some deep myths, but on real things that have happened in this world, in this history.
They had been slaves in Egypt. They had been rescued and brought up to their own land, which they were now on the verge of entering. God had been with them and provided for them all the way. God was worthy of their love and loyalty because he had shown it to them.
They were to pass it on to their children. To keep this memory, this story alive. In time their children would ask why do we keep these laws?
And the answer wasn’t just because! It wasn’t they had to keep God on side, or he’s zap them. No, they gave themselves to God, because this God has given himself to us. He has shown his faithfulness and goodness. He has displayed his integrity, committed love and power to give us new life.
How much more for us who live on the other side of the coming of Jesus? Who have as our founding story a God who loved us so much that he became one of us, entered our world, dwelt among us, put a face on the invisible God, showed us what God was like. And even when we rejected him, he never stopped loving us. He gave his life for us, breathed forgiveness over us, rose from the dead and offers his own life to us? As John, one of Jesus earliest followers put it – we love because he first loved us. And because we love him, we keep his commands, we live as he calls us.
Today, although we’ll move around the passage, for the time left I want to focus mainly on a single word.
Shema.
What does it mean? Well, you might think Andrew, it’s hear. You told us a few minutes ago. Except there’s a little more to it than that.
How many words do you think there are in the English language. Anyone want to guess? Depends who you ask. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests there are 170,000 words in current use and a further 47,000 obsolete words. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, includes some 470,000 entries.
Ancient Hebrew only had around 8,400. Ok, so we have words for a lot of things that did not exist then. First Century Israel didn’t exactly need a word for television or i-phone. But translating from Hebrew is not a precise science. We might have several different words which are valid translations of a Hebrew word. Normally they are linked, but not always in a really obvious way.
Often we go looking for the one right answer. Say when we hear the parables of Jesus we think there is one precise meaning or message we need to learn from it. We fail to realise how recent a way of reading scripture that is.
For most of the time people have approached scripture like turning a gemstone. The idea is that the Bible is like a diamond with many faces and as you read and re-read it in different contexts new light hits it and you see its beauty all over again.
So in Hebrew and later Jewish culture they would debate what if it means this, what if it means that, how does that shed new light on the text?
The idea is to allow the text to speak to us and shape us. The idea is not to master the scriptures, but to allow the scriptures to master us.
So this word Shema. It can mean hear.
But it can also mean Listen.
Or Listen up.
There’s a sense in which it means, draw close, listen to this. You don’t want to miss this.
Thing is we know we can hear but not really hear! Listen but not really listen.
I mean does anyone have a favourite song they would be prepared to share? A song that you associate with a particular time, place, emotion… Or maybe it’s a book, a flim, a piece of art… but a song is probably the most direct analogy.
This song it really gets you. Then you play it to someone else and they say yeh, pretty good. Or meh. It’s alright. They’ve heard it, but they’ve not really heard it. It’s not really penetrated more deeply.
It’s that deeper type of listening that Shema calls us to. The idea is not to just let it bounce off the ear drum. But to let it soak in. To allow it to marinade in our soul, to allow it to affect us at a deeper level.
Jesus talked about different types of soil. The good soil was the soil were it goes deep, takes root and produces results beyond our understanding.
The idea is that these words are really central to all of life. We internalise them. It’s like when you learn a new skill, you start by going through each step and for a while you’re really conscious of each step in the process. But after a while it becomes part of you. You’re doing it without really thinking about it.
There is some really powerful imagery here.
It talks of binding these words on your hands, your foreheads, your doorframes. And it is true that within Judaism this can be quite literal. In fact we do some of this at the manse. At the front door of the manse we have a mezuzah. It’s a little old and faded now – we’ve had it more than 20 years. We got in the Jewish quarter of Prague. It’s been with us in numerous houses. But the little metal box is hollow and inside it is a little scroll and the words on that scroll are the Shema. In one sense it is designed to a statement to the world that in this house the LORD is our God, the LORD alone. It’s also a reminder that whether you are at home or way, wherever you are, God is with you and he alone is to be your God.
They speak of binding these words to your foreheads and hands. Again some Jewish people take this words quite literally. They will wear what are called Tefillin, or Phylacteries, small black boxes with little scrolls of parchment in them which they wear in prayer on their foreheads and wrists, again containing a little scroll with the Shema.
Thing is there is no actual word for the forehead in Deuteronomy 6 in Hebrew. It’s just a close translation. The sense is between the eyes. A good way of expressing this might be let this be the lens or the filter through which you view the world. It’s like if you hold a coloured cellophane sheet in front of your eyes, it affects how you see everything.
Why do you think you’d bind it on your hand? It affects how you act, or what you do. Imagine if every time you went to act, it was there before you. Is what I am about to do reflecting that I love God with all my heart, soul and strength and my neighbour as myself?
Imagine how different our world would be wherever we are, we looked on the world through the lens of loving God with all our heart, soul and strength and neighbour as ourselves, and that that became the measure against which all our actions where to be judged. Where it has become so internalised we don’t have to stop and think about it. We don’t have to wrestle with our consciences. Its become our natural way of being. That was what Moses was driving at. That’s the call Jesus places on those who would come follow him.
The Shema is to be a movement. From the head, to the heart and on into our actions. And it’s as important for the world today as it ever was.
Here’s a question for you. What would you say is the greatest issue facing the world today?
Some might say cost of living, human rights, climate change, inequality, the threat of war in numerous places, nuclear proliferation. The philosopher and Christian writer saw it slightly differently. He said
The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who.. are identified as Christians will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live to the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of existence.
It’s another way of saying imagine all those who claim to love God truly lived as if these words were ever before them, had made that 18 inch journey from head to heart and penetrated there, so that wherever we are, home or away, it is ever before us, the lens through which we view the world, and the motive and measure against which all we do is to be judged?
Will we listen, will we hear, will we Shema but not just hear, but will we shaped and transformed by what we hear?
Our world is not short of information – we’re swamped by it and can’t keep up with it. But we’re dreadfully short on transformation. We can know so much about Jesus and live a life that bears no resemblance to him. We could ace the test, but fail the practical.
We can hear what God wants from us, but not do it. James says if we’re like that we’re like one who looks at their face in a mirror and, after looking at themselves, goes away and immediately forgets what they look like. It’s the one who listens out for what God wants from us and continues in it – not forgetting what they have heard but doing it – they will be blessed in what they do.
Jesus said that the wise are those ears his words of mine and puts them into practice. They’re like those who build their house on the rock. And when the storms of life come, it does not fall, because it has a solid foundation.
Of course there are all sorts of reasons to want to avoid hearing at that deeper level. The fear of what it will involve; the doubt that it is truly of God. The anxiety that you’ll look like a fool. The sheer inconvenience of it. Maybe, but not now.
But the one who calls us to it is one who has shown he can be trusted. It showed it to the Israelites in the Exodus as he rescued them from slavery to Egypt. He shows it to us in a new Exodus, a liberation for us from sin or death. The God who calls us to live this way empowers us to follow. He will not leave us alone to do it. He has committed himself to us. Given himself for us. And calls us to love as he first loved us. And he says to us…
Listen up, Harrow Baptist. Listen, hear, take it to heart.
The Lord is Our God, the Lord Alone
Oh that we would love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength and that we would love our neighbour as ourselves.
May this make the journey from your head to your heart. May it be with you and before you, wherever you do.
May it be the lens through which you look on the world and the measure by which you determine your actions. And may God be with you every step of the way. And may you discover all that God can do in you and through you.
paper dolls 