A Lectionary Reflection for the people of Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church for worship from home, October 25, 2020, Year A, 21 Pentecost, Proper 25

Deuteronomy 34:1-12
Psalm 90:1-6
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Matthew 22:34-46

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Some weeks ago, we heard about Moses’ birth, how he was saved from Pharaoh’s murderous intents by the creative actions of the women around him.  And now, four Bible books later, we hear about his death.  “Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab.”  He dies before reaching the Promised Land. 

As the Psalmist says: “You turn us back to the dust and say, ‘Go back, O child of earth.’  For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past and like a watch in the night.  You sweep us away like a dream; we fade away suddenly like the grass.  In the morning it is green and flourishes; in the evening it is dried up and withered.”   

Perhaps, with the pandemic still raging, these passages about mortality are best avoided.  But, I find something beautiful about them.  Deuteronomy’s description of Moses’ death reminds us, in a wonderful way, that even this great prophet, the one who led his people through the Red Sea, who went up Mount Sinai to speak with God, who performed miracles in the wilderness for forty years, is just as human as the rest of us.  His life, like all our lives, was ultimately in the hands of his Lord.  The Scripture tells us that “Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his sight was unimpaired and his vigor had not abated,” and yet even those 120 years were a fleeting moment in the sight of God, like a “watch in the night.” 

But what a profound gift those 120 years were to the Israelites.  They might still be back in Egypt, enslaved and oppressed, if that precious life of Moses hadn’t been saved all those years ago, or if Moses hadn’t had the faith and courage to follow God’s call, to be in relationship with the Lord. 

Science hasn’t yet caught up to the nature of the Old Testament.  Some of us may live a century, but few will make it to Moses’ 120 years.  But the point, I think, is not the length, but the quality of our lives.  Moses was given the gift of 120 years and he made the best of them in return: a life lived in response to God as a gift to God’s people.  And, whether we live to be 20 or 120, we are called to do the same – to live fully into the abundant life we have been given by God.  Whether we find ourselves in a land of milk and honey or – perhaps more apt for this moment – wandering in life’s wildernesses, we are to understand our own lives, too, as both fleeting moments and precious gifts from God.

Moses understood that and he was always pressing the Israelites to remember that, too.  Through Moses, God gave them another gift, a means of giving their lives over fully to God: the commandments.  Many of us know the ten commandments, the ones that Moses received on stone tablets.  But those ten commandments were just a chip off the block, so to speak.  There are a total of 613 commandments given by God through Moses to the Israelites in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.  These commandments are meant to help the Isrealites lead ordered lives, framed by and founded on the kind of righteousness that would keep them always in relationship with God, always living fully into the people God imagined them to be. 

613 commandments.  That’s a lot.  And so you can imagine why the question “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?,” the question a religious lawyer asks Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, is a true test.  How could Jesus pick just one?  But Jesus has a quick response: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” he says.  “This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” 

There is a story told about Karl Barth, the great theologian of the last century: Barth was once asked what he thought was the most profound of all theological truths. Barth is known for his in-depth theological formulations and Scriptural interpretations.  But guess what he answered?  Simply, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” 

Barth’s response is much like Jesus’ response to the lawyer who questions him.  Jesus, too, is going back to the basics, back to one of the most well-known formulations of faith, for when he chooses to quote from Deuteronomy, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” he is repeating a verse traditionally recited in Jewish families at the start and end of each day.  Like Barth’s answer, Jesus’ answer asks his audience to look with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective on what they have known all along, repeated so very often.  In this most simple statement is the most profound truth: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  And the second most important commandment is dependent on the first; one flows naturally from the other.

All those commandments handed down through Moses, all those rules and laws, were the means by which God helped the Israelites to live as Moses did, living a full, abundant life, responding to God’s gift of life by becoming a gift himself to those around him.  In other words, Moses responded to God’s love by loving God’s people.  And so, says Jesus, should we, if we want to live fully into God’s will for us. 

In his first letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul, too, demonstrates this kind of twinned love for God and love for others.  “So deeply do we care for you,” writes Paul, “that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.”  Paul’s love for God and his love for the Thessalonians is expressed by his giving of his whole self to them.  This is what Christian stewardship is all about: showing our whole-hearted love, our whole-selfed love for God through our whole-selfed love for others. 

And such Christian stewardship, such “charity,” to use the language of the day’s collect, is needed now more than ever.  With the violent divisions within our society ever before our eyes, with the pandemic spreading faster as we head into the winter months, with so much suffering and heartache in the world, our “neighbors,” near and far, are desperate for the love of God.  And it is our job to reveal it. 

For how else will we love God with all our heart except by showing generosity, kindness and mercy to God’s people?  How will we love God with all our soul except by worshiping God and praying for our neighbors and ourselves?  And how will we love God with all our mind except by hearing and studying God’s Word and letting it enlighten and inspire us into loving action to the world?[i]  To love God is to love our neighbor and indeed, on these two commandments hang all the law.   

Throughout our lives, whether long or short, God’s love for us is assured, given as freely as life itself.  Both this life and this love are precious gifts of grace.  May we live in loving response to gift, giving our whole selves to God’s people.  Amen. 

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[i] Clayton Schmit, on his commentary on this Gospel passage, breaks down these three aspects of loving God in this way.