All Saints Sunday 2013
• Here's All Saints 2020, the first All Saints Day during Covidtide
• And here's All Saints 2023
Hello, Readers,
Despite insisting I was going to blog Hebrews until Reign of Christ, the reading for this Sunday is "more of the same" as I've already written about Jesus as high priest.
• Hebrews 9:11-14
I'm not familiar enough with Hebrews to dig out much more, so let's consider the first reading.
Deuteronomy 6:1-9, [10-12]
1 "Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, 2 so that you and your children and your children's children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long.
3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.
4 "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6 "Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 7 Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. 8 Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem [frontlet] on your forehead, 9 and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."
10 When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you – a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, 12 be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
• Psalm 119:1-8 aligns perfectly with the reading from Deuteronomy.
Similar to the Beatitudes in Matthew's gospel, Psalm 119 declares those of us who walk in God's ways, keep God's decrees, learn the righteous ordinances (maybe learn best by doing?!) will be blessed, happy, content.
Love the Lord Your God
Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children's children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. Deuteronomy 6:1-2
You know the story! Out of imperial Egypt, liberated from production quotas, into the exodus desert, on their way yet still far from the place God first promised Abraham, technically Israel was free. In the desert's sparse economy, only after God quenched their thirst and filled their hunger with surprising gifts like water from the rock and manna from the sky, Israel received the Ten Words or Commandments of the Sinai Covenant. With guidelines and boundaries that would help them stay free, slavery to empire no long would be their frame of reference; instead they would reverence God by serving the neighbor. Walter Brueggemann calls the commandments "breathtaking gifts of grace."
Scholars consider both the nomadic desert lifestyle and the commandments constitutive events for God's people.
Shema, Israel's Creed to Live By
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. Deuteronomy 6:4-5
The Shema is about exclusive loyalty to God. In the same way the first commandment charges us "no other gods," no value system, religion, ideology, art, beauty, or aspiration (all good things) is to replace God as our ultimate reference and ground of meaning. One scholar mentioned it's also about "God's internal unity," citing every experience of goodness, love, beauty, wisdom, etc. as "disparate and scattered signals of God's presence." David G. Garber, Working Preacher, 2024
Martin Luther begins his Small Catechism with the commandments. As Luther insisted, we need only the first commandment, "You shall have no other gods." He asks, What does this mean? And answers, "We should fear, love and trust in God above all things."
Milk and Honey
Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey... Exodus 33:3
…a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you. Deuteronomy 6:3
Milk and honey is a sign of the fullness of God's reign in justice and righteousness. Flowing honey and surging milk begin with fertile land. Rivers of usable water mean luxuriant grass so cattle can graze, cows produce milk, people make cheese. Bovines will bear healthy calves, and they'll fertilize grain and vegetable gardens. Bees make honey; bees pollinate fruits and flowers, vineyards and other food crops. Bees mean fertilized crops; bees mean jars of sweet honey on the shelf, drizzles of honey on your home-baked bread.
Streams mean irrigation for olives, figs, pomegranates, vineyards, barley, and wheat. All that good eatin' outta the good earth leads to conversing and connecting around the table.
Dairy, beef, honey, and harvest mean nourishment for farmers, families, and community, with overflowing everything to sell at market or barter and trade in order to get whatever you cannot grow on your own. I've probably left some connections, but it's about heaven's blessings aplenty on earth, from the heart of the earth—and notice how interrelated and interdependent all this is! As I wrote, I couldn't figure out how to put anything into logical order.
I can just hear the people listening to Moses, loving his words, and promising, "We will do all the words God has spoken!"
Where We Live
Only when milk and honey abounds can we offer back to heaven the feast of eucharist that gathers and welcomes all creation and all people, excluding only those who exclude themselves. This "foretaste of the feast to come," as the liturgy expresses it, is the sign and realization of all creation's reconciliation, a celebration of justice and integrity of all and for all.
"All the words the Lord has spoken we will do!"
Exodus 19:8
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