Living the Shema
"Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” -Matthew 22.34-40
This Scripture passage has been rolling around in my head and in my heart for the last two weeks. It is there when I am at home resting and when I spend time driving the endless miles back and forth to work. These words of Scripture burn in my heart when I get up in the morning and when I go to sleep at night. I see the tattoo on my wrist and the cross around my neck, and I am reminded. They are the very words that echo over my head as I step across the threshold of my door as I am coming and going each day.
The question that the Pharisees were asking was not terribly uncommon. They wanted to know what Jesus was about. To debate and discuss the Torah, to learn & to understand rightly was of the utmost importance. So this question? It was not out of place in the least.
Nor is it in our society. What is the most important part of our every day life? What is the ethos and standard that you live by? What is your personal mission statement? These questions are debated in some form or other by Christians and others each and every day. It is commonly understood that the way we direct our time & resources are really those things which we find most important.
There is so much to be said about these words. Scholars have unpacked them, explained, and discussed for centuries. And there is beautiful work that they share with us.
Normally that's what makes me geek out. Normally it's what makes me so excited that only Danglish comes out of my mouth. But this time? I took up a challenge, it has utterly ruined me. Listening to many podcasts talking about the beautiful prayer found in the Shema, I took up the challenge to confess these words when I rise in the mornings and go to sleep at night. For every time they come to mind to pray the words yet again.
The problem? It ruins the way you see everything.
In my life at Jacob's Porch, life was lived on the edge. What many people saw as incredibly challenging was just day to day living for me and others. When 99 was drunk and angry, that wasn't frightening to me. When walking up the street to get lunch takes 25 minutes instead of the normal 8 because you stop to talk to people and invite them to have lunch along the way? That's normal every day life. Beautiful things that I cannot claim as my own, simply "Ephesians 2.10." None of me.
But I got used to being safe. That our street family would protect me. That I didn't have to be afraid or suspicious or cautious. At least not in the way that this happens in the every day world.
But life is different now. I caught myself when I stopped to have lunch at a quiet Panera quite far up North High Street. A place I didn't know. Surroundings I didn't know. The lunch crowd & those who worked at Panera who were unfamiliar to me. Different than before. It was a beautifully warm day outside and so I chose to eat lunch outside. As I was taking my food outside, I saw a man trying to hold a door open for a woman, but then he exited quickly. The woman didn't come inside. Instead she went to the trash can searching for food to eat, but not daring to even step inside. "Instinctive" to my life before the porch, I walked and quietly sat down at a table. Not avoiding the woman, but not going out of my way to speak to her.
Her body language and the way she carried herself spoke to years of nervousness. Being hungry. Disability and addiction. As quickly as she checked the trash can, she disappeared.
And then my heart broke as the words of the Shema echoed over me. Why didn't I offer to buy her lunch? Or to ask her to join me? She was of no danger to me.
For there are many people who spend great amounts of time reading & studying the words of Scripture, but have no idea who their neighbor is or what it means to love them. And there are great amounts of people who dedicate their lives to serving the poor, to loving those who are unloved, and to reaching those who are unreachable... But they do so without a moment's notice of the One who created & redeemed us.
To live in the tension. Redemption & Restoration.
And so a moment of confession. A moment of begging of forgiveness. A moment of remembering. A moment of thankfulness for a Savior whose love is so glorious and triumphant that He would dare to bring the empty tomb into our every day lives. To remind us that we have been set free by His grace & His grace alone... And the great story that He calls us into to speak that freedom into the lives of all people.
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” -Matthew 22.34-40
This Scripture passage has been rolling around in my head and in my heart for the last two weeks. It is there when I am at home resting and when I spend time driving the endless miles back and forth to work. These words of Scripture burn in my heart when I get up in the morning and when I go to sleep at night. I see the tattoo on my wrist and the cross around my neck, and I am reminded. They are the very words that echo over my head as I step across the threshold of my door as I am coming and going each day.
The question that the Pharisees were asking was not terribly uncommon. They wanted to know what Jesus was about. To debate and discuss the Torah, to learn & to understand rightly was of the utmost importance. So this question? It was not out of place in the least.
Nor is it in our society. What is the most important part of our every day life? What is the ethos and standard that you live by? What is your personal mission statement? These questions are debated in some form or other by Christians and others each and every day. It is commonly understood that the way we direct our time & resources are really those things which we find most important.
There is so much to be said about these words. Scholars have unpacked them, explained, and discussed for centuries. And there is beautiful work that they share with us.
Normally that's what makes me geek out. Normally it's what makes me so excited that only Danglish comes out of my mouth. But this time? I took up a challenge, it has utterly ruined me. Listening to many podcasts talking about the beautiful prayer found in the Shema, I took up the challenge to confess these words when I rise in the mornings and go to sleep at night. For every time they come to mind to pray the words yet again.
The problem? It ruins the way you see everything.
In my life at Jacob's Porch, life was lived on the edge. What many people saw as incredibly challenging was just day to day living for me and others. When 99 was drunk and angry, that wasn't frightening to me. When walking up the street to get lunch takes 25 minutes instead of the normal 8 because you stop to talk to people and invite them to have lunch along the way? That's normal every day life. Beautiful things that I cannot claim as my own, simply "Ephesians 2.10." None of me.
But I got used to being safe. That our street family would protect me. That I didn't have to be afraid or suspicious or cautious. At least not in the way that this happens in the every day world.
But life is different now. I caught myself when I stopped to have lunch at a quiet Panera quite far up North High Street. A place I didn't know. Surroundings I didn't know. The lunch crowd & those who worked at Panera who were unfamiliar to me. Different than before. It was a beautifully warm day outside and so I chose to eat lunch outside. As I was taking my food outside, I saw a man trying to hold a door open for a woman, but then he exited quickly. The woman didn't come inside. Instead she went to the trash can searching for food to eat, but not daring to even step inside. "Instinctive" to my life before the porch, I walked and quietly sat down at a table. Not avoiding the woman, but not going out of my way to speak to her.
Her body language and the way she carried herself spoke to years of nervousness. Being hungry. Disability and addiction. As quickly as she checked the trash can, she disappeared.
And then my heart broke as the words of the Shema echoed over me. Why didn't I offer to buy her lunch? Or to ask her to join me? She was of no danger to me.
For there are many people who spend great amounts of time reading & studying the words of Scripture, but have no idea who their neighbor is or what it means to love them. And there are great amounts of people who dedicate their lives to serving the poor, to loving those who are unloved, and to reaching those who are unreachable... But they do so without a moment's notice of the One who created & redeemed us.
To live in the tension. Redemption & Restoration.
And so a moment of confession. A moment of begging of forgiveness. A moment of remembering. A moment of thankfulness for a Savior whose love is so glorious and triumphant that He would dare to bring the empty tomb into our every day lives. To remind us that we have been set free by His grace & His grace alone... And the great story that He calls us into to speak that freedom into the lives of all people.
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