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Sunday 3 November 2024 Trinity 23, Fourth before Advent, Thirty-first in Ordinary time, Proper 26

What really matters most?

Deuteronomy 6:1-9; Mark 12:28-34

By Ruth Turner

District Superintendent for Northern Ireland, Scotland and NE England, Church of the Nazarene

Context: Sunday morning service at a small contemporary church in the heart of a community

Aim: to encourage the congregation to understand the importance of wholehearted commitment to God

Deuteronomy is known as the book of words, the fifth and final book of the Torah, the last in the box set and the final sermon of Moses. It’s divided into three sections: chapters 1-11 provide an overview of the rebellious history of the Children of Israel. 12-26 is the repetition and reminder of God’s law and mercy, and 27-34 brings the book to completion with choices about the future and God’s willingness to show forgiveness.

In the middle of the first eleven chapters as Moses recalls the rebellion, and highlights the need for wholehearted commitment to God, he informs the people of what that commitment should look like. Deuteronomy 6:4-5. ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength.’ This prayer, known as the Shema, was and still is, a fundamental pillar of the Jewish faith. Moses points out that they must love God above all and in chapters 12-26 he directs them to show their wholehearted love of God by keeping his law. In chapters 27-34 he points out that this is a lifetime’s commitment.

Now, move forward with me to Mark 12:28-34. One of the teachers of the law asked Jesus which is the most important commandment. Verses 29-31. ‘The most important one,’ Jesus answered, ‘is this: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. The second command is like it. Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.’ When asked which is the most important, Jesus takes them right back to the Shema and sums up keeping the law in one sentence: love your neighbour as yourself.

If this commandment is so important that Jesus makes specific reference to it, surely it warrants some close study. Will you look closer at the text with me?

‘Hear O Israel.’ The Hebrew word for hear (shema/?????) is twofold; it does not simply mean to listen, but to listen and obey. It is an action(hear) that is automatically connected to a reaction(obey); they are linked and cannot be separated. In the same way the Hebrew word for love in this passage (ahava/??????) is double sided, meaning to both love and be devoted to. Therefore, when we relate this command to ourselves, we begin to understand that it is much more than just lip service: loving God comes with devotion and obedience, this is how love is displayed.

We are called to love with all our heart, soul and strength/might. To understand the fullness of this, it is good to appreciate the Hebrew comprehension of heart, soul and strength. The heart was not seen as the emotional centre of the person, it was not linked to romance or feelings; the heart was the powerhouse, the place where reason and understanding took place, Proverbs 4:3. Therefore as we listen, obey and devote ourselves to God alone, it is with our intellect and thoughts.

We are commanded to love God with all our soul (nefesh/???????). It is impossible to describe the soul in its fullness, but where the term is used in other passages of scripture it incorporates so many facets, from the centre of desires and longing to what makes us living human beings; it is who we are, our life and breath, our person and being. It is what makes us who we are, made in the image of God with the inbuilt ability to live in relationship with him. To love God with all our soul is to acknowledge that this is in fact what we are made for and anything else is lesser.

The Hebrew word for strength/might (maod/???) may take you by surprise; it means ‘very’. Love the Lord your God with all your very! Simply translated it means leave nothing out, hold nothing back, but love him with everything you’ve got.

We almost missed one important aspect in the command, verse 4: ‘the Lord is alone’ or ‘the Lord is one’. Traditionally as the Shema was recited the proclaimer would cover their eyes with their hand, blotting out all distractions. This was to indicate that God and God alone was the only one that mattered.

So as the words of Moses are echoed in the teachings of Jesus himself, what are we his people to take from this today? Surely it is this: listening to God is only fulfilled through obedience, love through true devotion, holding nothing back of who we are, loving him wholeheartedly and our lives bearing witness that he alone is God.

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