Sunday, July 10, 2016

Deuteronomy 30: 10-14

Moses said to the people:
"If only you would heed the voice of the LORD, your God,
and keep his commandments and statutes
that are written in this book of the law,
when you return to the LORD, your God,
with all your heart and all your soul.

"For this command that I enjoin on you today
is not too mysterious and remote for you.
It is not up in the sky, that you should say,
'Who will go up in the sky to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
Nor is it across the sea, that you should say,
'Who will cross the sea to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
No, it is something very near to you,
already in your mouths and in your hearts;
you have only to carry it out."

God is like a great teacher. He gives us a lesson. When we struggle with it he gives us some homework. If that doesn’t do the job he gives us more. When God created man he gave him only one command, “Do not eat of the tree of good and evil.” When we could not obey that one simple command he gave us ten new commandments.

The Ten Commandments showed us the way to live in right relationship with God and with each other. If we would only heed them we could live in peace and harmony on this earth. Alas, man’s earthly desire for more controlled what he did and we strayed from the Ten Commandments as well. So we were given six hundred and three more commands that controlled every little aspect of how we live, how we eat, and how we love. God had to spell out these things in detail so that no question remained on how we are supposed to live.

Jump forward a few centuries and enter the Pharisees. Not all Jews were able to get to the temple to worship so they devised a way to be devout without the temple. This called for the strict observation of all six hundred and thirteen laws. The better you could keep to the letter of the Law the more righteous and just you thought you were in the eyes of the Lord. This put a heavy yoke of the Jewish people that turned the Law into a burdensome obligation and not a joyous way to live in right relationship.

God had to show us how to live this relationship himself. Enter Jesus, God made man. He was the fulfillment of the law. He boiled the Law down to two simple commands that encompasses the entire Law. Love God with your entire being and love people as God has loved you. His yoke easy, the burden light.

This is what Moses is trying to remind his people of in this scriptural reading. Living in right relationship with God does not require some grandiose law dictating your every action. Living in right relationship with God does not require a scholar to explain it to you. God wrote how to live in right relationship with him in our hearts. If we look for the deepest desire of our hearts we will find it. All we have to do is embrace it and live it.

Knowing this the evil one puts before us an abundant number of choices, each appealing to the eye and body. Bright shining things that have greater allure than the truth before us. He wants us to choose anything other than the simple truth that brings us true joy and happiness. Just as the true desire of the heart brings forth life the disordered desires of the flesh bring sadness and death.