Picture the scene, it’s late on a Thursday night, and I’m calling in at Pudsey Asda for a few bits, including a card for Jen, my wife. I travelate downstairs and discover the card aisle full of men, jostling for position to find a last minute card. The date, the 13th February. What were we all doing there: desperately trying to find a last minute Valentine’s card.
Now
I must confess to being habitually inept at birthdays, anniversaries and
Valentine’s day. But I was peculiarly struck at the scene. Here we all were,
apparently forgetful and (dare-I-say-it) unromantic souls, worried about
upsetting our significant other by failing to provide a token of our love on the most romantic day of the year. Woe
betide any man who fails to produce the goods. I chatted with another chap in
the same boat. We complained that we had been duped by the media and card
manufacturers, but also our partners. After all, we’d often been told: let’s
not worry about Valentine Cards this year, which of course is a trap. You
should always buy a card!!
For
many, Valentine’s Day is not spontaneous: it’s a requirement, a law – you shall
love your partner. And something in us resents being told what to do,
especially being told to love someone. After all, you can’t force some to love
– can you?
As
Christians, we read in Deuteronomy, “Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
strength.” (Deut 6:5)
Lent
is often a time when we berate ourselves for our lack of heart, soul and
strength. We commit to trying harder, to digging deep. Whether sacrificing a
vice, or taking up charitable behaviour, we earnestly commit ourselves to
following this ‘greatest commandment’ to love God. As Eugene Merrill suggests,
it as a call to love with all our “essence and expression.”
But
it is our experience that we are incapable of living up to this standard. The
Apostle Paul writes the law “instead of giving life, brought condemnation;
instead of producing holiness, it stimulated sin” (Rom. 7:10).
Our
struggle with sin, with keeping our Lenten fasts, is entirely bound up in
forgetting that “everything is predicated on Yahweh’s love and faithfulness”
(p.57 Fee & Stuart 2002). We think it starts with us: that we have to
muster some loving devotion from nothing, that we should simply ‘try harder’,
when in reality we are simply asked to respond to God’s love. Saint John
understood this better than most:
“This is love: not that we loved God, but
that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1
John 4:10)
“We love because he first loved us” (1
John 4:19)
If
Lent’s focus is the cross of Christ, then it is a focus on the love of God, for
the cross is God’s great banner of love.
And
before we think this idea of God loving us is a New Testament innovation, hear
these words from Deuteronomy: “The Lord
did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous
than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because
the Lord loved you”
(Deut. 7:7-8). The Old Testament goes on to speak of this love in human terms:
as the love of a husband and wife, as the love of a father and son.
Thus,
our response to the command to ‘love the LORD your God’ is one of “gratitude
and devotion”.
Which
rather begs the question – what makes
us hold back from loving God 100%?
Our
reading from Deuteronomy 6 presents three practices that might help us avoid a
cooling in our relationship with God.
Firstly, a call to RECITE GOD’S WORD
Verses
6-9 are preoccupied with preserving and passing on the truth of God. Loving God
is a matter of teaching and encouraging others and ourselves, in order to
maintain devotion: a devotion that should permeate all areas of our life.
Verse
6 asks that God’s word be “upon your hearts”. Hebrew thought considered the
heart to be the seat of thinking and meditation. I know it’s a well-worn
refrain but how well are we doing at keeping God’s instruction on our minds?
Eugene Merrill talks about reflection: how much do you reflect on what you’ve
learnt about God? Paul recently referred to ‘reflective practice’ in nursing,
and how Christians are generally quite good at thinking about how we’re doing,
but how often do we reflect on what we’ve learnt about God?
We’re
then told to “Impress them” – the commandments that is. The word is associated
with the work of an engraver – how the words are made permanent. Are God’s
words engraved on our hearts?
This
work of engraving should include our children. We are blessed to have a
cracking Youth Worker, a wide team of volunteers, developing relationships with
local schools, and the Church of England expends vast amounts of money and
energy on their schools.
But
we must be wary of using these ministries as an escape from the responsibility
to teach.
Elijah [my 3 year old]
has just joined the toddler group and I’m keenly aware that I do not want him
to only learn about Jesus there. It is a shame to think we and our children
should study on only one day of the week. “Eternal truths are most effectively
learned in the loving environment of a God-fearing home.”
It’s
worth noting that an engraver has to chisel stone over and over for real
success. So it is with faith, we are asked to talk about God day and night,
when active (walking) and inactive (sitting), all throughout our life. There is
the encouragement to surround ourselves with reminders, symbols of our faith on
our bodies, but also in our homes and towns. When we love someone it should be
a central and absorbing interest. The book of Deuteronomy is not primarily
concerned issues of church politics and rules for liturgy, but “it sees faith
and obedience to God as much a matter for the home as for the sanctuary. In sum
it ‘domesticates’ the spiritual life.”
Are
we actively engraving God’s word into our lives and the lives of our children?
And is this being done everywhere?
Secondly, a call to RESIST DISOBEDIENCE,
verses 16-19.
We
read here of Massah – the place of testing – as recorded in Exodus 17. The
Israelites are wandering in the wilderness and have begun to question whether
God was really with them. The demand for water wasn’t so much about physical
nourishment, as spiritual curiosity, but it showed their doubt in God’s
promises. They called into question God’s faithfulness.
We
too, in many and various ways, do the same. We complain to God and question His
methods, motives and presence.
These
calls for God to ‘prove himself’ showed a lack of understanding in God’s nature
and character.
The
opening verses of this passage are called the ‘Shema’ by Jews. But there is
much debate about how the phrase in verse 4 should be translated:
“The
LORD our God, the LORD is one”, or
“The
LORD our God is one Lord”, or
“The
LORD is our God, the LORD alone”
It
is safe to say that the two aspects of God’s nature that are being revealed are
his oneness and his uniqueness: Oneness in that he alone is the energy behind
creation and history; Uniqueness in that there is no other. Or as one
commentator says: Yahweh our God is the unique!
Having
a clear sense of who God is makes the call to diligent obedience easier. Obedience
does not come from “barren legalism based on necessity and duty. It [arises]
from a relationship of love.” Obedience is critical, for imposing conditions
and making petty demands of God is contrary to faith.
And
so once more, we are asked to consider children, for they are “bound to enquire
sooner or later why it is that their parents live a certain kind of life in
contrast with the life of those about them”.
Well….
would they? Do they? This is a potentially embarrassing issue: does our
behaviour at home undermine the words we say and sing in church? And not just
for our children, but our wider family, our neighbours?
Here
in Deuteronomy, the call is to retell the Exodus story; the moment when the
unique bond between God and people was established.
When
was that moment for you? What is your story of faith? When did you first
encounter the love of God?
For
many here tonight, this love was revealed to us when Jesus Christ came and
found us while we were lost. Despite
our sinfulness he reached into our lives and called us to him.
This
is why the parables of the lost sheep and lost coin resonate so deeply.
Have
you noticed, by the way, that the parable of the sheep has two moments of joy?
The
first joyful moment is when the Shepherd puts the wayward creature on his
shoulders. This is the moment of FINDING, but the second joyful moment happens
once he is home, surrounded by his friends and family. Now maybe I’m reading
too much into this, but it seems to me that if I lost a sheep and found it,
despite initial joy, it would quickly give way to grumbling and complaining as
I hoisted the beast back. I wouldn’t want a party but a bath!
I
wonder whether we fail to recognise the carrying that Jesus implies he will do,
and the joy that will accompany our arrival in heaven; surrounded by so great a
cloud of witnesses? We are saved, yes – but so much more, we are called to live
with Jesus.
Corporately,
our great act of remembrance is Communion, where we recount God’s past mercies
and declare a fresh the covenant demands. This is another moment to explain to
children and young people what we’re doing: why do we eat bread and drink wine?
Perhaps this Lent will be a time to reflect on communion – what does it mean to
you?
But
most importantly, I would like to encourage you to remember your story.
People
understand a story, not just children. Most of us have developed quirky,
interesting, but often brief stories about how we met our significant other or
closest friends. But many struggle to speak of coming to faith in similar
terms.
So
let me ask you, ‘how did you fall in love with Jesus?’
If
you haven’t thought on this question much recently, take some time to
reminisce. When we forget to stay thankful for God’s salvation we can quickly
lose a sense of our history and meaning. And much like the parables, we are
invited to remember with joy that moment of being found. This is the key in our
story – it is this love and joy we find in Jesus the world should see.
The
word translated as ‘righteousness’ is complex. When used as here it describes
being in right relationship with someone, that a person has been delivered or
justified.
But
the word could also refer to a way of behaving, rather than an outcome. This
sense of being made right, or living-right is summed up perfectly in the
Message translation:
“It will
be a set-right and put-together life for us if we make sure that we do this
entire commandment in the Presence of God, our God, just as he commanded us to
do.”
I
would encourage you to consider this season as an opportunity to re-learn how
to love God. Yes, this is a love that is commanded, but only in response.
Ronald Clements describes this love as “a consistent concern to point to the
loving, compassionate and life-affirming nature of God, which demands that
those who worship should do so with a warmth and joy that recognises a loving
Father-God who is always more generous in giving than in receiving.”
Coming
back to Valentine’s day, it’s certainly possible that the expectation of a card
can lead to dry duty, but for me, I need Valentine’s Day and the card-buying
process to remind me of vows I took, to remember all that we’ve been through,
to show Jen I love her, and strangely, of course, the effect is not to create
resentment, but it opens us up to more love.
The
same is true with God. Over time our awareness of God grows, and, with
knowledge, should “develop into a deepening love.” You may have been lost and
found many years ago but God is always calling us deeper in.
Loving
God is a matter for our entire lives, our entire selves. God’s call to love Him
is nothing but a call to “the deepest and truest fulfilment of human life.”
May
we respond to this call.
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