Abstract
Here is a text with so much significance that before preachers even begin to consider what it might possibly hold for us, we have to sort the luggage and decide which bag to unpack first. These verses from Deuteronomy (sometimes joined in Jewish liturgy with Num 15:40–41) constitute not merely another text from the Old Testament; nor are they simply the historical instructions to the people of Israel as they prepare to cross the Jordan into the promised land. These verses are the Shema’ (“Hear”) and the Ve’ahavta (“You shall love”), two central texts of contemporary Jewish liturgy, chanted and sung as the living affirmation of the faith of the Jewish people. These statements define a group of the human race as faith-family. So, much care, even tenderness is called for when we Christians encounter it, read it, hear it, and preach it. This text has a living context that does not belong to us.
A convenient path for the Christian preacher is to marry Deut 6:4–9 to Mark 12:28–34, as the Revised Common Lectionary does for the Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. Deuteronomy 6:4–9 then serves as context for Jesus’s conversation with a seeker, during which he quotes it and references commands in Leviticus 19 to love fellow Israelites and love aliens because the Lord, the Name Unnamed, is our God. There are many good reasons to take this approach to the sermon: to enhance the overall biblical literacy of the congregation; to take the opportunity to focus on the core of Jesus’s teaching; to consider how love for God is linked to love for neighbor/stranger; to reflect on our own community’s affirmation of faith and how such affirmations function within our religious tradition to guide, support, identify and empower us as Christians. All of these approaches to preaching Deuteronomy 6 are good ones, and I have a stack of sermons that follow this course.
But this time, I would like to see what it would be like to let the Shema’ and the Ve’ahavta speak from their own vantage point. When approaching this text, the critical aspect for many of us is the larger congregational family that we serve, which is an interfaith family. Jewish/Christian families find a home in the congregation I serve. There are people making Hindu/Christian, Buddhist/Christian, Spiritual-but-not-religious/Christian, Done-with-church/Still-attending-church families, and people who were raised in these interfaith families who all find a home in our congregation. I am always aware of the panoply of sacred texts and practices which accompany our congregation through life; as a pastor, I want to treat these texts not with suspicion, but with reverence for the truth they speak to our families, to our neighbors, and indeed, to us.
Open any commentary and immediately our conversation with this text encounters a debate surrounding the translation of verse 4, which is grammatically messy. It is an interesting discussion, and worth taking the time to read a good exegetical commentary. The discussion itself sparks a bit of musing on the nature of God. Some translations choose: “The L
The
Taken together, we have a picture of a sovereign, undivided God, whom we can encounter in every place and in every moment, who is relational, and who intends to love us. People who declare, “The Name Unnamed is our God, the Holy One alone” are invited to respond with total commitment, expressed as love “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (6:5). This is the truth we hold in the core of our being—in our heart. (6:6) It is the truth that has claimed us, the central, identity-marking truth we pass to the next generation in conversation and instruction. We recite this truth to our children throughout the course of their days and over the context of their lives (6:7).
But our identity as children of the Name Unnamed is not reserved for private, domestic devotion. This God is not a house-god. This is the Holy One. Our commitment should be obvious and our devotion unceasing. So we mark our lives with this identity: “The
Here is the path a sermon on this text could take. We are marked by grace in every task we take up. We see it before us in every moment; it is a sign on our hands. The world can clearly see our identity as children of the Holy One, because it is written all over us; it is displayed on our foreheads. Our neighbors and coworkers and classmates and teachers see that we orient our lives by a different set of values, priorities, and obligations; our relationship with the Name Unnamed is written on our doorposts as a sign of blessing and blessed obligation. That the
The sermon’s christological move might come here, in this text’s hint at the spirituality cultivated in Jesus and shared by his friends and family, a spirituality that forms the groundwork for his teaching and healing ministry. “The
Both the way of Judaism and the way of Jesus begin with this word: Shema’, Yisrael. Hear, O Israel. Hear, O Church. Our core identity is not that we are people who do something; it is that we are people who hear something. We hear something distinctive, clear, and whole that orients us toward a way of life. How do we position ourselves in the world so that we can hear this voice? How do we turn our heads; in what direction shall we crane our necks so that we listen, and in this listening, hear? What assistance do we need to hear this voice above all other voices? What noisy static might drown out its song or obscure its clarity? Whatever the answers, what sets apart the Jewish community and the Jesus community is we have made the commitment to be transformed into “people who hear” the voice of the divine.
Of all the ways that we could prioritize our lives, what is most important? Listen. Hear. Shema’.