Sermon

Sermon # 1046
June 26, 2011
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Luke 10:24-37
Dr. Ed Pettus

“The Shema”


This week past week was our Camp week at Bluestone. I was a Bible leader, known as key leader at Bluestone. The Bible theme was the Shema originally from Deuteronomy and also quoted in the gospels. Shema is Hebrew for “hear”…Hear, O Israel…or as we altered it a bit at camp, Hear, O Bluestone! I had my two groups of campers learn it that way: Hear, O Bluestone, the lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Second: Love your neighbor as yourself.

We called it the Jesus Creed. Something like we do with the Apostles’ Creed, it is a belief held by Jews, still today, and one that Jesus would have been taught from the time he was a child and one that he also taught others and he knew that all Jews would have known the Great Shema. This Creed is actually two Old Testament verses joined together. One from Deuteronomy and the second from Leviticus. Love God and love your neighbor. Shema – to hear, to listen and obey. When I gave the closing worship message, I talked to the campers about hearing and really listening. You might be sitting around at home and your mom says, “Pass the cheese whiz!” If you are really “shema-ing”, if you were really listening, then you would pass the cheese whiz. Shema – to listen and obey. Of course, most of the kids had never heard of cheese whiz.

Sometimes we have what is called selective hearing. Most wives here know what I am talking about. For the campers I used the example of the counselor who says, “get up, it’s time for breakfast”, but we just lay there hoping breakfast will come to us. When the people of Israel heard the word SHEMA, they perked up their ears because they knew something important was coming. Shema, O Israel…and then the command would come. Love the Lord, love your neighbor, obey my commands, listen and obey.

Selective hearing, sometimes we only hear what we want to hear. We have to tune our ears to God’s word in order to hear God. I can tune a guitar and my ear has become better over the many decades hearing the sound of each string. I have worked to tune my ears to “Shema”, to hear God speak a word…through learning the Bible, learning as much as I can about what God has said in the scriptures and our ears can become more and more tuned to what God wants us to do and who God wants us to be. A great place to start is with the Great Shema, LOVE GOD and LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR.

Jesus said that all the commands are summed up in these two! In Luke’s gospel, when Jesus approves the lawyers response to the question of eternal life, the Shema is part of the summation given, Hear, O Israel, love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the lawyer rightly adds to the command, love your neighbor as yourself. Some suggest that all we need to do is love and that will take care of all the controversies and problems in our denomination and all our relationship issues. But this statement, this command, is not a license to do dismiss all the other commands we have, but it is a summation. The whole law is summed up in love, not excluded because of love. In love, all the commands are embraced and fulfilled. Jesus said in Matthew’s gospel that he did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them, to bring them to completion and to fullness for our life (5:17). We know that we love God by following his commands (1 John 5:2).
The more scripture, the more of the Bible we know, the better our hearing becomes, the better able to hear and obey what God says. We tune our ears by being in the Bible, reading, memorizing, studying, praying, and learning.


What are we listening for? Commands, requests, love notes from God. Love the Lord your God with all your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength. Each day when we met for key leader time we would try to remember about the order of those words, heart, soul, mind and strength. I starting thinking about how the Hebrew language, the language of the Old Testament has no vowels. Did you know that? The Bible Hebrew had no vowels! That’s why the TV show Bible Hebrew Wheel of Fortune only lasted for one show, because no contestant could buy a vowel! Well, anyway, what we do to pronounce words that do not have vowels is put some in, so I thought about the words Heart – Soul – Mind – Strength - HSMST and I inserted some vowels and came up with HAS MOST Heart H a Soul s HAS – Mind M o Strength ST MOST …HaS MoST who has most as a believer in God? We do…has most. We have everything we could ever imagine, the most, has most. Laugh now, but you will now be able to remember Heart Soul Mind and STrength because you has most!! I know it’s kind of corny but I hope the kids will remember it a little better and longer if they can remember HaS MoST.

God commands us to hear and obey the command to love God with all we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Why? Why would God command this? For one thing it is our greatest response to a love that has been given to us. God loved us first! We are simply responding to the love we have been given in God, through Jesus. The most important decision we can ever make is in how we respond to the Great Shema. Will we listen to and obey God’s command? This is the decision that affects more than just our life right here, but for eternity. We love God because God first loved us. You are loved by God, no matter what you have done in the past, God loves you. No matter how much you might think you are not worthy to be loved, God loves you. No matter how many times you have heard and not obeyed, God still loves you. God loves you. And because God loves you, all who love God love you too! It is because of this command to love God and to love neighbor. God loves us and all God wants is love in return. Hear, O Princeton, the lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Second: Love your neighbor as yourself.

One commentator has said: "In an age when the word 'love' is greatly abused, it is important to remember that the primary component of biblical love is not affection but commitment. Warm feelings of gratitude may fill our consciousness as we consider all that God has done for us, but it is not warm feelings that Deuteronomy 6 demands of us but rather stubborn, unwavering commitment. Similarly, to love neighbor, including our enemies, does not mean that we must feel affection for them. To love the neighbor is to imitate God by taking their needs seriously." (Hare, Interpretation, 260)

Love for God is total commitment to God. In Deuteronomy, Israel was about to step into a new situation, into a land that God had promised from the time they left Egypt. They were facing many choices and Moses laid it on the line for them. "God is one, love the Lord your God with all you have. Keep the commandments in your hearts. Recite them to your children. Talk about them. Bind them on your hand, fix them on your forehead, write them on your doorposts." To love God is to keep commandment, it is commitment in covenant and loyalty to our God. I may not “feel” good about what I do sometimes or what others may do, but in order to reflect God’s love for myself and for others, I, we are committed to them, committed to one another’s well being – even our enemies.


My hope for the campers is that they would all leave the mountain in love with God, loving their neighbors, and listening for what God has for them next! It is the same message for us this morning: Hear, O Princeton, the lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Second: Love your neighbor as yourself.