Loving God, you continue to be the source of all life and salvation, calling us to learn how to live in love.  Help us to continue to learn from Jesus, and strengthen our faith by your Holy Spirit; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

            Just to give today’s reading a little bit of context, at least 40 years have passed since last week when Moses turned aside to investigate the burning bush.  By this time, most of the people who had come out of Egypt had died, and this was a new generation of people who were about to enter the promised land.  And so, Moses reminds them of the Ten Commandments, or the ten words, that were given to them at Mount Sinai.  Moses also gives them what is known as the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (Dt. 6:4).

         Of course, what follows is one of the commandments that Jesus points to as the most important in the entire Law: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Dt. 6:5).  Then Jesus adds: “The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mk. 12:31).  Were we to do these two things, it would be enough, and we would not need all of the other commandments.  However, it would seem that these commandments to love are just as difficult to keep as the Ten Commandments, for it is hard to name any of the commandments that are not broken regularly both by Christians and non-Christians alike.

         Our purpose today, however, is not to condemn everybody who breaks the commandments, but to reflect a little bit on how these commandments were intended to be life-giving to all those who hear them and live by them.  In fact, the main difference between the one true God and any other gods is that there is only one God who gives life.

         Any of you who have done a reasonable amount of reading in the Old Testament will have discovered that the worship of other gods was a constant struggle for the people of Israel.  This is why the commandments begin with “I am the Lord your God” (Dt. 5:6), and the Shema is to be repeated and remembered and taught to their children.  “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (Dt. 6:4).

         In the case of the people of Israel, many of them were actually praying and sacrificing to other gods in the hopes of getting what they needed.  The worship of idols, however, takes a different form these days.  Some years ago now, Paul Tillich wrote about the object of our faith as our ultimate concern.  In other words, our ultimate concern in life is, in fact, our god. So, if our ultimate concern is the almighty dollar, for example, money has become our god.  If our ultimate concern is how we look, then perhaps vanity has become our god.  Or, if our ultimate concern is a particular pop star or a particular sports team, then perhaps those things have become our gods.

         All of us continue to be pulled in many different directions, and there is no shortage of distractions that draw us away from God, and that ultimately do not give life.  Imagine approaching each day with our relationship with God as the first thing on our mind.  Imagine asking, in the midst of whatever commitments we have on our schedule, “when and how can I fit in some time for prayer today?”  Imagine approaching any major decisions in our lives with prayer, and seeking God’s guidance, as well as the advice of others, when deciding what to do.

         Imagine having such a sense of the breadth and depth and spiritual nature of God that we would recognize any image of God as being insufficient.  Imagine having a sense of God’s holiness, and knowing the depth of God’s love for us, so that we would never even consider the careless and even profane use of God’s name.  Imagine having such an awareness of our need for rest and our need to spend time in the presence of God that we do as much as we possibly can in order to carve out a Sabbath for ourselves.  All of these things are part of loving God with our whole heart and soul and strength.

         At the same time, when we have a relationship with God like this, it spills over into our relationships with other people.  And so, imagine having such an appreciation of those who are in our lives in order to protect and care for us that we cannot help but honour them for the sake of their work.  Imagine having such a love for the people around us that we would never even think of harming or hurting them in any way, let alone murdering them.

         Imagine having such love and respect for our spouses that we would never dream of destroying that trust by looking outside of the marriage for our own selfish needs.  Imagine having such a sense of God’s ownership of everything that we would never dream of taking something that belongs to somebody else.  Imagine working for the good of all and making sure that every person has enough to live on.

         Imagine always thinking the best of others, refusing to spread lies or to gossip about potentially sketchy behavior.  Imagine being content with what we have and thus finding no reason to take things away from somebody else, or even to be jealous or envious of what others have.  And finally, imagine that everybody actually lived like this in our communities and how that might even be life-giving for all.

         The commandments, rather than being a way to get God to approve of us, start and end with the relationship that God has already established with us.  In the Old Testament, God established that relationship through a series of covenants, first with Abraham and then with the people at Mount Sinai.  In our case, however, God has established a relationship of love with us through Jesus Christ, so that all those who believe in Jesus might not only love God and one another, but have eternal life.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Pentecost 17 (NL 2)                        Deuteronomy 5:1-21; 6:4-9

October 6, 2019                               Mark 12:28-31

St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church

Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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