At the end of his life, after leading his people through the desert, Moses stood alone on the mountain. 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. (Deuteronomy 34:1-12)
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, laid out before them like a garden without walls. It was like that same view for me - coming over that same pass, seeing the first green grass I'd seen after traveling for many months and many miles.
For the people of Israel, the view from the mountain 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.
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.
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 round old age of 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 monument is the Torah, his memorial the word of God, and his legacy is the freedom of his people.
The Torah, the Law of Moses, can be summed up in two great commandments.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5) “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18b) (see Matthew 22:34-40)
All the 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?
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.
Joseph Fletcher put it in one: “Love God in the neighbor.” Now that sounds outrageously simplified, but it is a practical application of the doctrine of the Imago Dei, the image of God, for as we learned from Genesis 1:26, we are made in the image of God.
And so – what we do to our neighbor, we do to the very likeness of the source of being. We damage or repair, honor or shame, grieve or comfort, disdain or enjoy, the image of God, when we do it unto others. And we trespass against God, even as we trespass against our neighbor. And we can forgive, just as we are forgiven.
Not from compulsion but out of love, the love that came first from God, are we to fulfill all the law and the prophets. 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.
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.
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.
JRL+
Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:34-40. Genesis 1:26. Micah 6:8.
Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics (1966) p. 26.
