Welcome to Wednesday! It’s great to be with you mid-week in the Pastor’s Workshop.
This week we’re continuing our series entitled “Rise Again”. The messages of the month are based in the “four pillars” of our Spring Valley vision of ministry: “Creating Compelling Worship”, “Raising Up the Next Generation in Faith”, “Building Bridges of Harmony and Care with our Community and World”, and “Growing Deeper in Discipleship”.
Last Sunday we focused on “Creating Compelling Worship”. Psalm 96 helped us understand that our worship is based in the greatness of God and so God is greatly to be praised. Our one hour in the church is our time in the sanctuary of God’s mercy and majesty. Here we have opportunity to give God the glory honor and praise through our singing, our praying, and our active listening and practically applying Scripture. In the midst of this “one hour weekly spiritual workout” God works, softening our hearts to all of God’s ways and strengthening our witness so we can live God’s ways in our weekday world. That is the blessing and gift of worship God gives.
This Sunday we move to our “second pillar”, “Raising Up the Next Generation in Faith”. Our Scripture is Deuteronomy 6:4-9. In Judaism this is called the “Shema”. “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is One. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might.”
The Shema is the basis of morning and evening prayer for Jewish households. As such it is a foundation of faith for families. As we think about “Raising Up the Next Generation in Faith” we would turn to the “Shema” to see how it would strengthen our faith as well.
The entire text of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is: 4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.[a] 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6 Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8 Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem[b] on your forehead, 9 and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Today we look for a logic that runs through the text. What are the “deeper threads” that weave through this passage and advance the thought of the writer?
For me this text holds together two great loves. One is a love for God --- Love the Lord your God. The second is our love for our children (in our families, our church family, and all God’s family).
Verses 4-5 speak of the love for God. The Lord is our God. The Lord is our God, the One and Only. In that relationship we are invited to embrace God with love. We are encouraged to love our One and Only God with all we’ve got – heart, soul and strength. The Shema calls us to love God passionately, deeply and actively.
Verse 6 summons us to live out that love in a practical way. The reference to “keep the words I am commanding you today” points to the preceding chapter of Deuteronomy where God gives the Ten Commandments to the people. They are not seen as ten, separate, stand alone rules but rather as a way of life (a path of life) that allows the faithful live out their love for God in daily practice. Taken together these “Top Ten” express a love for God and a love for neighbor that is a way of life.
The Shema doesn’t stop with loving God. It couples this love of God with our second greatest love, our love for our children. We are to teach this love of God, this pathway of life, to our children. “Recite”, “Talk about them”, “Bind them”, “Post them” – daily life is fertile “teaching ground” for opening the eyes and hearts of our children to the ways of God shown in the Commandments and how this pathway of life can be lived out in the world.
As we think about “Raising Up the Next Generation in Faith” the Shema is at the heart of our prayers for our children, our church and our ministry. We want the love of God that we know in Jesus Christ our Lord, that One and Only Love that is greater than all loves, be at the center of what we live with our children and the legacy we leave in their lives.
With that thought, I invite you to enter today in the embrace of the love of God in Christ, and live that blessing with all God’s children!
Prayer: Gracious God, thank You that You are God Alone. You are our One and Only, who loves us more than we love ourselves and even more that Your life itself, as we witnessed on Your Cross. In that great love let us love You with all we are and all we’ve got. And let us embrace our children with that same love so that they may grow to have that same heart in Your grace. This is our prayer in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen