Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength, and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14-15)
It has been a long, long green season. Early on, we heard the story of Moses found in the bulrushes by Pharaoh's daughter - and how he was nursed by his birth mother, adopted by the princess, ran with the princes, then ran away a fugitive from justice (he'd killed a man, an Egyptian who was mistreating a Hebrew slave) into the camp of Jethro, whose daughter he married and whose sheep he herded.
So there he was in the middle of the desert, herding sheep. He learned all the ways of the desert - and all the waterholes. Whatever for? What could God possibly have in mind?
Moses found himself in the midst of an outrageous training program -- and he must have wondered: "If this is the training program, God, what is the job?"
You couldn't blame him for asking. God however kept his peace, and revealed his purpose slowly. You, he said to Moses through the burning bush, are to lead your people out of slavery to freedom. You are to guide them through the desert (remember where all those watering holes are?) and lead them to the land of promise. As you travel you are to teach them the way - not just the ways of the desert but the way of God.
I will give you my word - I will give you my promise - and I will give you my Law.
Moses was alone on the mountain, Nebo or Pisgah, at the end of his life. He had climbed to a high place, and he could see all around. He could see as in a vision the Promised Land laid out before him.
It was like the view the Joad family had, in "The Grapes of Wrath", as they came over Tehachapi Pass and caught sight of the Great Central Valley of California, like a garden without walls. It was like that view for me - coming over that same pass, seeing the first green grass I'd seen for many months and two thousand miles.
For the people of Israel, it meant coming home at last to a place they had never known.
Moses had led them to this point; now God let him see the land with his own eyes.
God leads him up a mountain and shows him the view. Behind him, in the past, are the concerns for the freedom of his people, their physical safety - under threat from the overwhelming force of their declared enemies, from their hunger and thirst, from their foolish idol worship.
Moses looks out across the land. He stands there, a leader facing the future - knowing it is out there - yet dragging along the baggage of the past.
The future is so close now that he can almost taste it - and yet three problems remain: gossip, nostalgia, and, in another way, succession.
For all the time he has led them there has been murmuring - gossip - perhaps out of fear of the unknown, perhaps idle speculation, perhaps discontent with their dependency on God.
There has been a hearkening back to a past viewed in hindsight through rose-colored glasses.
And there is the challenge of bringing forth a new generation of leadership for the future.
Yes, Moses had had his hands full.
As he looks over the fair prospect of the Promised Land, he knows that his work is done-but that the work of the people goes on.
He has been their lawgiver, teacher, advocate, and guide. He has been their shepherd in the wilderness. He has seen to their needs. He has brought down to them the law - after speaking with God face to face, without a mediator. He has promised them a future with hope. And he has delivered on that promise. Now it is time for a new leader to step up.
Cheerfully obedient to the last, Moses accepts a peaceful end as a gift from the Lord, at this last place in the desert. He has reached the ideal age - 120 - and his strength is unimpaired. He goes silently to his end, alone with God on the mountain; there is no shrine to visit. His legacy is the Torah, the word of God, and the freedom of his people.
The Torah, the Law of Moses, can be summed up in two great commandments.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
All 613 commandments in the Torah come to their completion in these two deceptively simple statements. If you love and show the love of God in the world, you have gone beyond the letter to the spirit of the laws.
Augustine, a bishop in North Africa when Rome was falling, had a bit of advice about the two great commandments.
He summed up all of our duty to God and each other in one phrase:
Love - and do as you please.
Love - and do as you please.
Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
Love - and do as you please.
Wait a minute. Sounds like a Catch-22 doesn't it?
If you love, what will it please you to do? What is the loving thing?
And where did all this love stuff come from, by the way?
Well, it came from the top, and it came from the start.
In the beginning there was LOVE.
Love was with God and love was God - nothing came into being that did not come into being without LOVE.
For LOVE is the essence of the Torah - the Law given to Moses, the Word of God given to the prophets - and it is embodied in the words and acts and life and being of Jesus.
Jesus is love incarnate - and this love is the love of God. This love is the light of all humankind. It shines in the darkness of the world. And hate has never overcome it.
Love - and do as you please.
How do you love? Micah the prophet put it in three phrases: do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God. (Micah 6:8)
The Torah put it in two: Love God - and show that love in love for your neighbor. But where did this love stuff come from? From God: who loved us first.
Jesus is "the embodiment of the love the law requires" (Herb O'Driscoll).
Jesus is the Torah come alive, the living expression of God's will for his people.
And that Law is love.
Not from compulsion but out of love, the love that came first from God, are we to fulfill all the law and the prophets. And we do so in the name of Jesus, the epitome of love.
In the beginning there was love...
True holiness, obedience to God, is a response in love to the call to holiness, to right living, that is expressed in the two great commandments, the summary of the Law:
Love God with all your being; show that love in love for others.
Cheerful obedience to God's commandments - bearing the fruit of faith, hope and charity in the lives of believers - is a manifestation of the love of the God who loves you first and best: love God, love your neighbor.
In his obedient response to the will of God, Jesus fulfills the two great commandments - the greatest commandment, the Love of God before all else, and the second, to love thy neighbor.
In his brief encounter with the Pharisees, who asked which is the greatest commandment in the Law, Jesus shows Messiah is more that Son of David, true king of Israel: he is David's master, David's lord, the son of God. And he has come, to set his people free.
The commandments Jesus cites in answer to the lawyer's question of which is #1, are parts not of action only or bare compliance, but are part of prayer - and of a life of holiness, a life lived in the knowledge of the love of God. They are part of the fabric of being, from day one and every day of our lives. And they speak to a renewal of the heart.
What are we called to this week, as God's people, in our prayers and in our daily actions?
Sounds like a tough challenge. But the answer is really very simple:
Love - and do as you please.
May the Love of God, which surpasses all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds, your souls and your selves,
at work or at rest, gathered or scattered,
obedient, joyous, and alive
with the good news of Jesus Christ - and of the God who always loved you first and best. Amen.
"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."-Rabindranath Tagore
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