Baruch Ha Shem – and save your nation

O

ne of my favorite passages of scripture is the Shema—the command God gave to the people of Israel when he delivered the law to them. The Shema is:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6:4–9

Most of us have heard that command, but I don’t think we have taken it to heart. The promises God delivered along with the Shema are an integral part of it. In the following verses, Moses follows up the command with, “when the Lord your God brings you into the land ... then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the Lord your God you shall fear.”

We are so prone to forgetting about God when things go right. Prosperity, good health, business success; these things make us feel invulnerable and we begin to forget about God. So God gave the Shema to his people. These words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. He’s telling them, “this is so important that I want you to talk about it all day long—every day. I want you to wear my commands as jewelry. I want you to decorate your house with this.” By doing this, God’s people would be less likely to forget about God and what he had done for them.

Knowing that we are prone to bypass requirements, in verse 20 Moses says, “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘...The Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous ... before our eyes.... And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always.’”

God’s commandments are for our good. And when we forget to teach our children why his commandments were given, we are at least to be prepared to answer our children when they ask.

As I read in Deuteronomy this morning I was struck with the high tension levels in our nation at this time. And I fully understand the frustrations that are contributing to the vocal anger against our nation’s leaders. And I don’t condemn those who are speaking up in anger. Each person must get involved in our nation’s political process in the way they see fit.

But it seems that God’s people may need a different view of political action than the general public. Perhaps if we had done as God told his people; if we had proclaimed what God has done for us in the past; if we had spoken of these things when we rose out of bed, and when we walked down the street, and when we sat in our house, and when we went to bed.... Perhaps our nation would not be in the fix it is in now. Perhaps we should look at the current pain in our nation’s situation and think of it as a son asking his father, “What is the meaning of the rules God has commanded?”

Perhaps our political action should look exactly like evangelism.