Deuteronomy 6:1-9, Mark 12:28-34
November 4, 2018
First Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL
Christina Berry
Our first reading is from the Hebrew scriptures, the verses known as “the Shema.” These verses form the heart of Jewish theology. They call to mind that God delivered the people from slavery, and that God alone is the one they serve, the one who made them a people and gave them an identity.
The word “shema” is an imperative - It means both “hear!” and “obey!” And the reminder that God is one, to be loved with all one’s heart and soul and strength, is repeated every Saturday in worship in the synagogue and is learned by every child in an observant Jewish family.
Let’s hear and obey! – as we listen for God’s word to us in Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Now this is the commandment--the statutes and the ordinances-- that the LORD your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children's children may fear the LORD your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long.
Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.
Hear, O Israel: 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.
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.
So ends the reading.
God’s word for God’s people.
Our gospel reading finds Jesus in Jerusalem, with his disciples and his followers, during the last week of his earthly life. He has mostly contended with the pharisees and the scribes up to now, but in this story, things take a different turn, and Jesus identifies the shema as the heart of God’s law. Let’s listen for God’s word to us in Mark 12:28-34
One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another,
and with all your soul,
and with all your might.
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.
So ends the reading.
God’s word for God’s people.
Our gospel reading finds Jesus in Jerusalem, with his disciples and his followers, during the last week of his earthly life. He has mostly contended with the pharisees and the scribes up to now, but in this story, things take a different turn, and Jesus identifies the shema as the heart of God’s law. Let’s listen for God’s word to us in Mark 12:28-34
One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another,
and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him,
“Which commandment is the first of all?”
Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel:
the Lord our God, the Lord is one;
you shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.’
The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ —this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him,
“You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
After that no one dared to ask him any question.
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
“Shema, Israel, Adonai eloheinu! Adonai echad.”
“Which commandment is the first of all?”
Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel:
the Lord our God, the Lord is one;
you shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.’
The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ —this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him,
“You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
After that no one dared to ask him any question.
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
“Shema, Israel, Adonai eloheinu! Adonai echad.”
That is the traditional melody of the Shema. From Jesus’ time on, those words – “Hear, O Israel!” have been a poignant and powerful legacy of faith, handed down to every faithful and observant Jew. Observant Jews hear it every week at worship. Faithful Jewish parents use the shema as a kind of lullaby, singing it or chanting it to their children as they go to bed at night. They take seriously the injunction to recite it to their children.
That fierce commitment to handing on the Jewish faith from generation to generation was demonstrated in World War II. As the scourge of Nazism and Fascism swept across Europe in World War II, thousands of families fled to safer countries if they could. They became refugees, on the move to whatever place would take them in, seeking safety, food, medical help, and relief from the horrors of war. For Jewish parents the options for their children were limited. Many Jewish parents debated fiercely whether to take their children to convents or Catholic orphanages. The decision was terrible – save their lives, but risk their conversion.[1]
In some countries, like Italy, the convents and orphanages understood, and they taught the children enough to help them seem to be Catholic, but declined to baptize or convert them to Christianity, even if the children requested it.[2] In other countries in Eastern Europe, the Catholic sisters, fully aware of the peril they faced by taking in Jewish children, insisted that the children be baptized and their Jewish identity erased.[3]
Some parents could not surrender their faith in exchange for survival. Those Jewish parents, making those agonizing decisions, were following the laws and traditions handed down to them by their parents, clinging to their faith even as they knew they risked their children’s lives. This age-old faithfulness was what the Shema spoke to, and was at the root of what Jesus learned as a faithful Jew.
A generation after Jesus, the writer of Hebrews reflected on this faithfulness, naming the generations of people who had lived by faith, describing them as a “great cloud of witnesses.” In his metaphor, that cloud of witnesses is surrounding us, watching us, cheering us on to the finish line, as we run our own race of faith and look toward Jesus at the finish line.
That text is our stewardship theme this year. I love the imagery it presents – a crowd of saints and loved ones cheering us on from the bleachers as we run our race. Some writers and preachers call them “balcony people,” the loved ones who’ve gone to be with the Lord but who continue to encourage us and cheer us on.
Another reason I love those verses in Hebrews is that they illustrate the scriptures we’ve heard today- the Shema in Deuteronomy is a splendid example -- of how to be a witness of love and faith to our children:
talk about faith all the time, wherever you are,
when you wake up in the morning and when you go to bed at night.
Write these words down and keep them close at hand, close to your head,
and in the places you pass by when you come and go from home.
The way to observe and preserve the faith is by repetition and immersion. That’s how faith is transmitted. Each one of us who has faith in Jesus Christ, who seeks to follow that great commandment to love God and neighbor, each one of us learned that faith from someone. We may have learned it from a parent or grandparent, or perhaps it was handed on to us from a cousin, aunt, uncle, or friend. That faith, that love of God and neighbor, is an inheritance. Those people who taught us faith were witnesses to love.
At its core, Christianity is based on love. In Christian stewardship, we demonstrate love of God and neighbor by generously giving of our time, talent, and our money, as an expression of gratitude for the love of God. Whether we put money in the plate, or set up online giving, or mail in a check, we are acting out of love of God and neighbor. And we are bearing witness to that love to others around us.
Like the Jewish parents who feared sending their children away, we want to preserve this gift of faith and hand it on to the next generation. We want our children, and our children’s children, to know this Jesus who spoke of love day and night, who walked in love wherever he went, who died for the sake of love and rose again out of love for us.
We are inheritors of nearly 175 years of faithfulness in this congregation. It was for the love of God and neighbor that Presbyterians began this congregation in 1844 and built this sanctuary in 1923 and added our education wing in 1963. Without their love and faithful commitment, others might not have been privileged to know Jesus, and his love.
Now we are responsible to teach our children, through word and deed, what it means to follow Jesus: to give generously, to love generously, to live generously.
None of us came to faith alone. Faith is caught, not taught, and Christian stewardship, particularly faithful giving, is a spiritual practice that we learn from others. Each one of us had someone teach us and show us
how to love God and others,
with all our heart
with all our soul
with all our mind
and with all our strength.
Who were the people who taught and showed you?
Who are your balcony people?
Can you see their faces in the cloud of witnesses?
For whom will you be a witness to love?
Who will you cheer on as they run their race?
Love, generosity, joy, and faithfulness are a legacy we receive and that we can pass on to others. Like those Jewish parents, we ache for the next generation to share in our belief. Like them, we want to make sure that we are passing on our faith.
After the war, and after the concentration camps were liberated, Jewish parents and Jewish leaders began to look for Jewish children. Rabbi Eliezer Silver, a Lithuanian Jew who came to the US in 1907 was a political activist who saw early on what was happening to the Jews of Europe. Starting in the 1930s, he organized efforts to rescue for European Jewry. After the war, Rabbi Silver returned to Europe. He was in search of Jewish children who had been sent or who had been taken to Catholic orphanages and convents.
The story goes that at one Catholic orphanage, Rabbi Silver asked the priest which children were Jewish. The priest said he did not know, that as far as he knew, all of them were baptized Christians. But Rabbi Silver knew this was not so. How would the Rabbi identify these children of the covenant, so that they could be returned to extended family, or community, or parents, if they had survived? Many of the children were too young to remember their parents. Others had steadfastly refused to disclose their Jewish identity.
The rabbi left the orphanage, only to return in the evening, as the children were being put to bed and saying bedtime prayers. He walked along the rows of bed in the dormitory, and began to sing, “Shema, Israel, Adonai, eloheinu. Adonai, echad.”
Up and down the rows, sleepy little heads popped up.
Some sang along.
Others said, “Mamma! Papa?”
They asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?”
And he answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel:
the Lord our God, the Lord is one;
you shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.’
The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Amen.
[1] https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%202308.pdf
[2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-holocaust-italian-jews-edit-1010-20141010-story.html
[3] https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%202308.pdf
That fierce commitment to handing on the Jewish faith from generation to generation was demonstrated in World War II. As the scourge of Nazism and Fascism swept across Europe in World War II, thousands of families fled to safer countries if they could. They became refugees, on the move to whatever place would take them in, seeking safety, food, medical help, and relief from the horrors of war. For Jewish parents the options for their children were limited. Many Jewish parents debated fiercely whether to take their children to convents or Catholic orphanages. The decision was terrible – save their lives, but risk their conversion.[1]
In some countries, like Italy, the convents and orphanages understood, and they taught the children enough to help them seem to be Catholic, but declined to baptize or convert them to Christianity, even if the children requested it.[2] In other countries in Eastern Europe, the Catholic sisters, fully aware of the peril they faced by taking in Jewish children, insisted that the children be baptized and their Jewish identity erased.[3]
Some parents could not surrender their faith in exchange for survival. Those Jewish parents, making those agonizing decisions, were following the laws and traditions handed down to them by their parents, clinging to their faith even as they knew they risked their children’s lives. This age-old faithfulness was what the Shema spoke to, and was at the root of what Jesus learned as a faithful Jew.
A generation after Jesus, the writer of Hebrews reflected on this faithfulness, naming the generations of people who had lived by faith, describing them as a “great cloud of witnesses.” In his metaphor, that cloud of witnesses is surrounding us, watching us, cheering us on to the finish line, as we run our own race of faith and look toward Jesus at the finish line.
That text is our stewardship theme this year. I love the imagery it presents – a crowd of saints and loved ones cheering us on from the bleachers as we run our race. Some writers and preachers call them “balcony people,” the loved ones who’ve gone to be with the Lord but who continue to encourage us and cheer us on.
Another reason I love those verses in Hebrews is that they illustrate the scriptures we’ve heard today- the Shema in Deuteronomy is a splendid example -- of how to be a witness of love and faith to our children:
talk about faith all the time, wherever you are,
when you wake up in the morning and when you go to bed at night.
Write these words down and keep them close at hand, close to your head,
and in the places you pass by when you come and go from home.
The way to observe and preserve the faith is by repetition and immersion. That’s how faith is transmitted. Each one of us who has faith in Jesus Christ, who seeks to follow that great commandment to love God and neighbor, each one of us learned that faith from someone. We may have learned it from a parent or grandparent, or perhaps it was handed on to us from a cousin, aunt, uncle, or friend. That faith, that love of God and neighbor, is an inheritance. Those people who taught us faith were witnesses to love.
At its core, Christianity is based on love. In Christian stewardship, we demonstrate love of God and neighbor by generously giving of our time, talent, and our money, as an expression of gratitude for the love of God. Whether we put money in the plate, or set up online giving, or mail in a check, we are acting out of love of God and neighbor. And we are bearing witness to that love to others around us.
Like the Jewish parents who feared sending their children away, we want to preserve this gift of faith and hand it on to the next generation. We want our children, and our children’s children, to know this Jesus who spoke of love day and night, who walked in love wherever he went, who died for the sake of love and rose again out of love for us.
We are inheritors of nearly 175 years of faithfulness in this congregation. It was for the love of God and neighbor that Presbyterians began this congregation in 1844 and built this sanctuary in 1923 and added our education wing in 1963. Without their love and faithful commitment, others might not have been privileged to know Jesus, and his love.
Now we are responsible to teach our children, through word and deed, what it means to follow Jesus: to give generously, to love generously, to live generously.
None of us came to faith alone. Faith is caught, not taught, and Christian stewardship, particularly faithful giving, is a spiritual practice that we learn from others. Each one of us had someone teach us and show us
how to love God and others,
with all our heart
with all our soul
with all our mind
and with all our strength.
Who were the people who taught and showed you?
Who are your balcony people?
Can you see their faces in the cloud of witnesses?
For whom will you be a witness to love?
Who will you cheer on as they run their race?
Love, generosity, joy, and faithfulness are a legacy we receive and that we can pass on to others. Like those Jewish parents, we ache for the next generation to share in our belief. Like them, we want to make sure that we are passing on our faith.
After the war, and after the concentration camps were liberated, Jewish parents and Jewish leaders began to look for Jewish children. Rabbi Eliezer Silver, a Lithuanian Jew who came to the US in 1907 was a political activist who saw early on what was happening to the Jews of Europe. Starting in the 1930s, he organized efforts to rescue for European Jewry. After the war, Rabbi Silver returned to Europe. He was in search of Jewish children who had been sent or who had been taken to Catholic orphanages and convents.
The story goes that at one Catholic orphanage, Rabbi Silver asked the priest which children were Jewish. The priest said he did not know, that as far as he knew, all of them were baptized Christians. But Rabbi Silver knew this was not so. How would the Rabbi identify these children of the covenant, so that they could be returned to extended family, or community, or parents, if they had survived? Many of the children were too young to remember their parents. Others had steadfastly refused to disclose their Jewish identity.
The rabbi left the orphanage, only to return in the evening, as the children were being put to bed and saying bedtime prayers. He walked along the rows of bed in the dormitory, and began to sing, “Shema, Israel, Adonai, eloheinu. Adonai, echad.”
Up and down the rows, sleepy little heads popped up.
Some sang along.
Others said, “Mamma! Papa?”
They asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?”
And he answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel:
the Lord our God, the Lord is one;
you shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.’
The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Amen.
[1] https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%202308.pdf
[2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-holocaust-italian-jews-edit-1010-20141010-story.html
[3] https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%202308.pdf
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