Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
(Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

This text is known as “The Shema.” It is so named for it’s first word in Hebrew which is, “shema,” the Hebrew word for listening and obeying. Jews of later years would recite these words twice every day—once in the morning and then again in the evening.

You will also recognize these words, of course, as that “first and greatest commandment” that Jesus gives in the New Testament. How can he name the Shema as greater than any of the Ten Commandment Words that come just before this in Deuteronomy 5, you may wonder? Well, it’s because in some way, this command to love the Lord firstly, only, and completely is the inverse, positive version of the “you shall nots” that began the Ten Words of the Covenant in chapter 5.

The Ten Words, aside from the command to “observe the Sabbath” and “honour parents” are all negative commands—prohibitions that tell us what not to do. Once our life and heart have been swept clean in this way however, it’s important that something positive and constructive comes in. The Shema is just that sort of command. In the ever-growing absence of covetousness and idols from your heart and life, a positive love for the Lord your God is to take up residence instead. Indeed, if Jesus is to be taken seriously, this positive love for the Lord may in fact be that thing that drives the lusts and the idols from our hearts. This positive force of love for the God who has first loved us is the power that enables us to keep faith with the Ten Words of the Relational Covenant.

It really is fascinating what Jesus does here by naming the Shema as the first and greatest of commands. There is a sense in which the Shema is simply a summation of the Ten Words. In that case, we might say that Jesus is simply naming the Covenant with its Ten Words as primary to everything else. But there is also a sense in which the Shema differs from the Ten Words. A sense in which a positive command is different from a negative one. A sense in which a proactive love is more significant to shaping the direction of a life than a limiting prohibition. It may be too much to say, but I do wonder if the difference is like unto the difference between the negative, limiting law which brings death, and the positive, constructive force of the Spirit that brings life.

Think of it: pruning and growing. Emptying and filling. Deconstructing and Reconstructing. Both are part of the rhythm of life, and both necessarily have their place. But life is no life at all if the “pruning” itself is the ultimate goal for the plant. No, the pruning, the cutting back, the emptying, the prohibitions always serve a goal other than themselves—namely the goals of life, growth, filling, and flourishing relationships. The emphasis does not finally fall on the limiting prohibitions of the law, but on the gracious growth enabled by the Spirit. Both the pruning prohibitions and the imperatives to growth have their place, but Jesus places the emphasis finally on that growth imperative of love: The Shema.

At times we pit these two impulses against each other, as if one must win out at the total exclusion of the other. Many of our present church conflicts and culture wars revolve around such false dichotomies. But the scriptures always hold these two in a dialectic tension. The two impulses have to remain in dialogue with each other, as they do in Deuteronomy 5 and 6. Neither can be flattened nor excluded. And yet, Jesus reminds us that one impulse is to be the leading partner in the dance—the impulse to whom the other defers.

“’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’ 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 22:37-40)

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you.
May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm.
May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you.
May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.