Inspired by Deuteronomy 34:4-9, 1Thessalonians 2:1-8, Matthew 22:34-40
You all know that I spent five years in Madison County as a pastor. Madison is a place that is defined by the hills on its northern and western sides. Before the National Park was formed in the 1930s, many people lived up in those hills, scratching out a living and being fiercely independent. One of the things that those hill people made both for themselves and to sell to others was alcohol. Up in the hollows there were a number of “stills” that served the public, especially during Prohibition. Private distillation was part of the culture that has now gone mainstream with legitimate distilleries dotting the hills and valleys.
The process of distillation is only about 500 years old, in contrast to making and consuming beer and wine. Britannica online describes the process of distillation this way: it is the “process involving the conversion of a liquid into vapour that is subsequently condensed back to liquid form. It is exemplified at its simplest when steam from a kettle becomes deposited as drops of distilled water on a cold surface….” However, there is another definition of distillation that is more important for our purposes this morning. That definition is: “the extraction of the essential meaning or most important aspects of something.” In this case, we have three different scriptures that distill some important lessons for what it means to live as disciples of God.
The first lesson comes from the end of Deuteronomy, which is also the end of the Torah – the Five Books of Moses. We heard again about the end of Moses’ life on top of Mount Nebo in Moab. Moses had led the people out of Egypt and through wilderness wandering over 40 years. Prior to Moses’ death, all of his wisdom was distilled and transferred to Joshua so that he could lead the people forward in the conquest of the Promised Land.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the believers in Thessalonica, reminds them of all that had happened when Paul, Silas and Timothy originally visited them. Paul distills all that happened down into one powerful sentence: “…Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well….” For the gospel is not fully empowered unless we share our lives with others as well.
Jesus, master teacher that he was, practices the art of distillation with some Pharisees in today’s reading. The Pharisees decided to test Jesus’ understanding of the Hebrew Bible by asking him, “…Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?...” Jesus, knowing both the scriptures and his Father’s will perfectly, condenses all 613 Laws into just two – in Matthew’s version they are, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” For good measure, Jesus adds, “…Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments….”
I spent countless hours in formal education classes over 24 years of my life, being taught by teachers of varying effectiveness. One of the attributes I came to admire most in the teachers I had were those few who could take really challenging material and distill it down into digestible morsels. Teachers who really understood their subjects and who developed a mechanism for transmitting the key components in ways that I could remember and put to use in my life and my careers. My Systematic Theology professor in Seminary was one of those people.
The study of Systematic Theology struck a sense of foreboding in all seminarians because its premise was that it could take everything in the Bible and organize its content into major themes which could answer any question posed to us as pastors or academicians. Systematic Theology, according to one definition, “…attempts to summarize the teaching of Scripture in a brief, understandable, and very carefully formulated statement.” My systematics professor took this somewhat obtuse and impenetrable operating philosophy and distilled it as: “Our task as Christians is to discover a way to see everything in the Bible and our world in the light of Jesus.”
Over the last 12 or so years post-systematics I have learned again and again the brilliance of his distillation. I have come to see the larger patterns in the Bible as one coordinated whole – the plan of God for the salvation of God’s people and all creation through the witness of the Messiah and the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. These patterns hold true even when the individual books of the Bible might seem to be focused on something else entirely. When we struggle to see how a certain book, like the book of Joshua with which we are now engaged in Bible study at both churches, I always look for signs that speak to how God’s plan for the coming Messiah was made possible by the events in that specific book.
In the book of Joshua, we meet a very unlikely person – a non-Jewish woman of ill-repute who nonetheless served a key role in helping the Israelites conquer and colonize the Promised Land. That woman was Rahab and she was an important piece in the continuation of the line of Abraham that led to David and ultimately to Jesus. Without her, God’s plan for the salvation of the world would have failed. What we learn about God from this story is that no one is outside of God’s continuing plans for our salvation – not someone outside of the faith, and not you or me. That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time!
Jesus’ ability to take all the difficult to follow Laws of Judaism and distill them down to something understandable and actionable, is why he is so compelling to the people of his day and ours. Jesus taught with authority and power because he was able to correct the errors, misconceptions and misunderstandings of the teachers of his time. Jesus said things like, “You have heard it said…” and then would go on to tell the people what God would have them do instead of what the strict interpretation of the Law dictated. Jesus taught in parables so that the people would work out what they were supposed to do through their faith in and relationship to God, rather than being constantly told what to do under the Law. Jesus lovingly interpreted scripture in a way that led to life, liberty, healing and a return of people to community.
When confronted by the Pharisees on that particular day, Jesus answered that the greatest commandment came from Deuteronomy Chapter 6 which is known in Judaism as “The Shema”. Moses tells the Israelites this: “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. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead, inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
It is without debate that the Shema is the greatest commandment of God. However, Jesus went farther to remind the Pharisees that they not only had a responsibility to love God with all that they had and were, but that they had a responsibility to love their neighbors (every one of them including those who were not Jewish) as much as God loved them! Jesus teaches that these two commands are what all of the Hebrew Bible is about – not only what the Laws themselves taught, but what the Prophets reminded the kings and people about how they were supposed to be living. Jesus distills all of our sacred Book into something that we should be able to remember and try to live out into the world.
Jesus distilled for the Pharisees and us what is the essence of our faith – what the operating philosophy is for our lives as Christians. Yet, we are not very good students, very good disciples…are we?! For we don’t consistently apply these two commandments in our lives or our world. We don’t apply these simple commandments because we find them difficult due to the fact that they call us to assess our relationships with God and with each other. When we honestly do that, we find we are not loving either in the way Jesus commands. The good news for all of us is that God’s grace does not expect perfection – it hopes for growth. Each new day is an opportunity for a reset, a “do-over”, to try to live closer to the essential meaning of the Bible’s teachings. May God’s Holy Spirit and unconditional love help us learn to love like Jesus…amen!