Then Moses withdraws to a moment alone
with God, the God he’d met 80 years earlier on another mountain. 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 punch in the gut: Moses will
die there, then, heartbreaking, crushing.
Why did Moses have to die? For the sins of people (Deut 1:37, 4:21)? For
striking the rock (Num 20:12)? Bible
students seize on this, but don’t consider how petty it makes God seem – who was
unfailingly patient with so many other and worse sins… How are we privy to this private moment
anyhow? Did Moses write
prophetically? Ibn Ezra attributed it to
Joshua, who might have tagged along.
Maybe Franz Kafka was right: “Moses fails
to enter Canaan, not because his life is too short, but because it is a human
life.” After decades of arduous labor,
having finally gotten a glimpse of the broad expanse of the land from his
viewpoint atop Mt. Nebo, Moses died. He wasn’t there to see or enjoy the fruit
of his life’s work.
Isn’t this always the way? We are all part
of something bigger than ourselves – at least we hope we are. Reformation won't happen today or even in my lifetime; it's unending, which isn't then frustrating but a privilege to be a part of? 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.” Just one of many memorable Reformers in the wake of the one he was named for, Martin Luther.
Spoiler alert: in the new War for the Planet of the Apes film, which is surprisingly moving and way more outstanding than I'd have guessed, Caesar (the lead ape) somehow manages to get his people released from imprisoned service to a cruel taskmaster, leads them through the desert to a beautiful land - and then dies as soon as they get there. Original plot??
We might also ponder Reinhold Niebuhr’s
pithy wisdom: “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.”
Isn’t it interesting that the Torah, the
primal Scripture in Judaism, ends here, just short of the climax? It is as if each generation has the same
choice: will you enter God’s rest, and
if you will, then how will you live?
This is pertinent for Reformation: 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.
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 has some promise, but leaves me with a bit of a yawn when I've got Deut. 34 and Matt. 22 staring me in the face. I did a little preaching commentary on this for Christian Century 9 years ago, if you're interested. But for now, on to the Gospel!
A lot can be said about the original
Reformation or the one required today. I
suspect we would be wise to fix our attention on Jesus’ greatest commandments,
as Church, reformed or malformed, means nothing apart from loving God and
loving neighbor (our text, Matthew
22:34-40). More on how to preach
about this “love” in a few moments. For
now I think of ways to process what’s wrong with the church. It’s not that many in church life disagree
with my pet biases or preferred versions of how the universe should be
arranged. It is all about ways we are
not yet (or not much) conformed to Christ, which is the same as how we have not
yet (or not much) been transformed by Christ.
Love needs reforming - and then that reformed love is what will reform the church; the reformation of the church's love is similarly what will reform love.
Two great quotes occur to me: “The tools we are given to taste the beauty
of the divine – scripture, the church, religion, theology – cease to be windows
to God and become mirrors that reflect back our own stupidity and cruelty” (Wendy
Farley, in her magnificent Tragic
Vision & Divine Compassion) – and then “The church is the cross on
which Christ is crucified. And yet
Christ is never far from his cross” (Romano Guardini). These ideas matter, as the Church’s
misdirection crucifies Christ all over, repeatedly – and yet Christ is
there. It really is about beauty,
looking through a window to that beauty, instead of into the mirror of our own
vapid knuckleheadedness.
The whole love thing provides the preacher such a stunning starting point. God asks for, even needs, not our goodness and obedience so much as our love. How risky; how vulnerable; how wonderful. I picture God singing along with Bonnie Raitt when she unintentionally spoke for God: "I can't make you love me." Or in the Don Schlitz country song, when the man asks his Lord "How much do I owe you for giving me this day, and every day that's gone before? Shall I build a temple? Make a sacrifice? Tell me Lord, and I will pay the price" - and the Lord said, "I won't take less than your love."
God wants love from the church, not just the individuals in the church. To speak of love with respect to church
can mislead. I love (!) the great song
by Beth Nielson Chapman, “All
that Matters in the End is How we Love.”
But then love can easily become 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. Matthew 22:34-40 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.
I am likely to say something about the controversy in the church about love - namely whom people love and the church's blessing. Do I dare suggest (as many have, and not wisely) that "Love wins," so whatever claims to be love is championed by the church? Jesus is pro-love, but it's deadly serious business, isn't it? Do I suggest (which I do wonder) if the reform the church is called to today is precisely on this issue of love (whichever way you're persuaded it must go...) and get there in an embracing, hospitable way - together??
I am likely to say something about the controversy in the church about love - namely whom people love and the church's blessing. Do I dare suggest (as many have, and not wisely) that "Love wins," so whatever claims to be love is championed by the church? Jesus is pro-love, but it's deadly serious business, isn't it? Do I suggest (which I do wonder) if the reform the church is called to today is precisely on this issue of love (whichever way you're persuaded it must go...) and get there in an embracing, hospitable way - together??
How wise of Jesus to give his dual
reply. Two loves, which are really
one. It is mandatory for you, preacher,
to pull out your parallel Gospels and compare Matthew (where Jesus uses heart,
soul and mind) with Mark and Luke – and then also to go back to Deuteronomy 6
(and Leviticus 19). This is the premier
text in Judaism, apart from Jesus. Call
a rabbi friend – or make a rabbi into a friend by calling and asking, Tell me
about Deuteronomy 6. 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.
These
words are called the “Shema” – a Hebrew word meaning “Hear!” Deuteronomy 6:4 begins, “Hear (Shema!) O
Israel, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God…” Moses was repeating what God had taught him
to say – and the setting is intriguing.
The people of Israel had wandered through the land for decades. Finally they were on the brink of the
promised land, gazing across the river, about to realize the promise – and
Moses stopped them and said “Hear!”
Listen! The beginning of love is
always listening.
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.
Jesus grew up with this kind of disciplined
love for God. He’d lived it, and
understood the benefits of a constant attentiveness to God, repetitious
reminders to love God. Scot McKnight
calls You shall love the Lord with heart,
soul and strength “the Jesus Creed.”
Christians would do well to memorize this creed; Jesus mercifully kept
it short so we could… and then to repeat it on waking and before sleeping, and
to recall it throughout the day. Scot
says the Shema has become a “silent partner” in his life.
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?
Here are links to the sermon series: 5 of
them, so more than just Matthew… You shall love, With all your Heart, With all your Soul, With all your Mind, With all your Strength –
and then more on neighbor… I would urge
you to think about doing such a series yourself. It helped our church tremendously, and I hope
permanently. I tried to dissect each aspect
(What is your heart – or what was it in
Bible times? etc. – and you can find this in any handy commentary… but I
wonder if the texts are suggesting a comprehensive “with all you’ve got, with
all you are” instead of “love in these 3 ways,” as if those can be
distinguished, or worse, checked off, as in a list…).
A few thoughts on love: How wonderful is it that, when Jesus wanted to zero in on what really
matters, he said “You shall love the Lord.”
Not “You must obey,” or “You must be perfect,” but instead, “You shall
love.” I know it’s a command, and it’s worth
pondering that love can be commanded – so love isn’t a fleeting emotion you
feel or don’t feel; it’s something you really are able to do! But there is the future nuance in “You shall
love.” Maybe you don’t think you love
God just now, but ultimately you will. I
believe this for each of us reading right now:
eventually, you will love God.
God had a choice when God created
everything. God could have insisted on
God’s will always being done. We could
have been marionettes, unable to do anything except God’s bidding. But God isn’t a God of control. God chose not to be in control because God
decided to seek our love – and you can’t control love. You have to wait and let the other love you –
or not. God constantly isn’t loved. But God risks the heartbreak. God invites us, and pleads with us, to love
God and each other.
The reason?
The very marrow of God’s being isn’t power or law or even
greatness. The core heart of God is love,
unfathomable love, unending love, unlimited love – and it is this love that
fashioned the universe with all its grandeur and beauty, and it is this love
that wove you together in your mother’s womb and has been behind, beneath,
above and before you for every breath you have taken. The only conceivable reply to such love is …
love.
Evidence of God’s love is all around you,
and inside you – and God’s need for your love is inside you too. All your life you’ve needed, sought, and been
downright desperate for love. God made
you this way as an echo of God’s own heart.
You are your loves; your identity is that you are beloved – by God and
others.
Love doesn’t shield us from suffering, but
love can and will take it. God suffers
over our broken world, and God suffers our busy, presumptuous taking God for
granted – but God can bear this, because God loves. When we get the mercy, we will love God.
If you recall falling in love: love is reckless, love doesn’t count the cost
or the passing of time. Love loves with
every fiber of our being. Deuteronomy
6:4 says we are to love God with heart, soul and strength. Jesus added a fourth: mind.
If he’d lived longer he might have added a fifth, sixth and
seventh. How do we love God? Let us count the ways.
A couple of useful “love” quotes. Mystics
can guide us into this love for God. I
greatly admire Thérèse
of Lisieux, whose short life was all about intimacy with Jesus:
Ah, how sweet was
that first kiss of Jesus!
It was a kiss of
love, I felt that I was loved,
and I said: ‘I
love you, and I give myself to you forever!’
My heaven is to
smile at this God I adore.
To die of love is
what I hope for,
on fire with his
love I want to be,
to see him, be
one with him forever,
that is my heaven
– that’s my destiny:
by love to live.
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.”
****************
My new book, Weak Enough to Lead, is available now!
****************
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.