What can we say October 29? 22nd after Pentecost

 If you’re attending to Reformation Sunday, we have great texts!

   Deuteronomy 34:1-12. I preached on this last go round… One of many texts that reveals how Scripture isn’t some fabricated account to persuade the unconverted. Moses, the hero, God’s chosen one above all others, dies literally on the brink of achieving his life’s dream. After 80 years together, Moses and God have something of a private moment.

   A breathtaking panorama (on a clear day, that is; I’ve taken tour groups to Mt. Nebo only to be met with thick clouds!): like a surveyor sizing it all up. Moses’ eyes zigzag south to north (Gilead to Dan), zigging back down Jordan valley, zagging west, back through the southern Negeb up to Jericho, crazily zagging back south to Zoar. His heart must have soared; surely he gasped at this wide-lens view of his life’s purpose.

   But then, the gut punch: Moses’ time is up. Did he have to die for the sins of people (Deut 1:37, 4:21)? For striking the rock (Num 20:12)? Wouldn’t God, the one who answered murmuring with manna, have turned suddenly petty? How are we privy to this private moment anyhow? Franz Kafka, of all people, may have been right: “Moses fails to enter Canaan, not because his life is too short, but because it is a human life.” 

   This dying without enjoying the fruit of a life’s work: isn’t it often or even always this way? We’re part of something bigger than ourselves – or at least we hope we are. Reformation won’t happen this weekend. Reinhold Niebuhr’s pithy wisdom comes to mind: “Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.”

   Who can picture Moses’ final day without recalling Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final hours? In Memphis, campaigning on behalf of garbage workers, he spoke eerily of his possible impending death (and it's well worth watching/listening to again and again): “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop… And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight… Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” 

   Worth pondering also is that the Torah, the primal Scripture in Judaism, ends now, here, just short of the climax! Is the point that each generation has the same choice – to live into the promises, the land? Is this a Reformation theme? The church that feels it has arrived in Canaan is the corrupted church; the one outside looking in, pledging fresh commitment and passion, is the living church.

   We have the mummies of Pharaoh’s, and Aaron’s tomb is visitable. So what’s this tease with Moses? Rabbis taught he didn’t die but was translated right up into heaven. He does materialize at the Transfiguration. Hebrew is fun here: the NRSV translates “He was buried” – but by whom? The Hebrew quite straightforwardly says “He buried him.” He who? The Lord? The Pseudepigrapha includes the Testament of Moses in which Joshua, bidding Moses farewell, declares “All the world is your sepulcher.”

   1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 is promising. I did a little preaching commentary on this for Christian Century a few years back (entitling it “Childish Behavior,” based on a quirky Greek translation!) – if you’re interested.

    Matthew 22:34-40. What would the Reformation of the Church imply if not the recovery of love for God and neighbor? Love loses its mind and needs reforming too. Is God like Tevye (in Fiddler on the Roof) asking Golda, “Do you love me?” She explains all her labors over 25 years, but he still wants to know. Or is God like Bonnie Raitt crooning “I can’t make you love me”? God wants our love – but not society’s mushed down, trivialized, moody, sentimental thing that is kin to but far from the love Jesus spoke of, embodied, and died in consummation of. Jesus’ zeroing in on 2 Old Testament verses (well-chosen!) only makes sense in the light of creation, the Fall, Abraham’s call, the deliverance from Egypt, Mt. Sinai, the prophets, Jesus’ incarnation, his teaching and healing, and then his crucifixion. All of that is what love is. We absorb this as best we’re able, and then try to love God and neighbor. 

   How wise of Jesus to give his dual reply. Know how pivotal Deuteronomy 6 is in Judaism! Call a rabbi friend – or make one by asking about this text. When Jesus said the main thing is to love God with heart, soul, and strength, he wasn’t making it up out of thin air. He was a Jew, raised by Jewish parents, the descendant of generations of Jews, all of whom began and ended every day with those very words: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.

   The “Shema” of course begins with “Hear!” Listen!  The beginning of love is always listening, something uncommon these days. I love the line in Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water where a wise man is described at having 2 ears and 1 mouth, and he used them in precisely that proportion.

   For our very occasional Christians, who read a quickie devotional most but not all days, we may dwell on “Talk of these words when you sit in your house, when you’re walking around, when you lie down and when you wake up. Bind them on your hand, and as frontlets between your eyes. Write them on the doorposts of your house.” On the door jamb of Jewish homes you’ll find a mezuzah, a little container with a tiny scroll of Scripture, looking something like a doorbell. (Christians too, can have them! I have one at home, and one on my office door, just one more little reminder...).

   You may have seen pious Jews with a little black box on the forehead, or straps on the wrists. They are taking literally what Moses intended – and what I find I need to stand any chance of being godly. I stick little cards and hang tags all over my world, in the shower, in my desk drawer, on the dashboard, to remind me to love and think about and ponder God throughout my day. My book, Worshipful: Living Sunday Morning All Week, is an attempt to help us Christians think about how to think about our love for the Lord all the time. A challenge for me: I should attach something to my head, I think. If I hear myself thinking You shall love the Lord over and over, I actually shall love the Lord.

   Our church did an entire series called “You Shall Love.” A sermon series, and email series, and little cards we printed up for people to carry in their pockets and stick in their desk drawers and by the bedside. I even shot a video of me trying to explore how everything we do in church life – and that’s not just worship but also a finance meeting, what trustees do, personnel decision, etc., must revolve around Jesus’ dual directive that we love God and neighbor. I’d commend it to you – but more importantly, I would commend you having this conversation with your church leaders.  Can we make our budgeting, mowing the lawn, how we think about policies, all intimately linked to this touchstone of love?

   Thomas Merton, always helpful, prayed, “Let this be my consolation, that wherever I am, you are loved.” And speaking of prayer – which is love! – Madeleine L’Engle, over a long weekend waiting on biopsy results for her husband, kept praying “Don’t let it be cancer.” Some friend told her, “You can’t pray that, it already is or isn’t cancer.” Her thoughts on this? “I can’t live with that. I think the heart overrides the intellect and insists on praying. If we don’t pray according to the needs of the heart, we repress our deepest longings. And so I pray as my heart needs to pray.” Later, after the cancer was pronounced terminal, she wondered if her prayers had been wasted. But she concluded, rightly: “Prayer is love, and love is never wasted. Surely the prayers have sustained me, are sustaining me. Perhaps there will be unexpected answers to these prayers, answers I may not even be aware of for years. But they are not wasted. They are not lost. I do not know where they have gone, but I believe that God holds them, hands outstretched to receive them, like precious pearls.”