With All of Your Very

Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Leviticus 19:1-2,17-18; Matthew 22:34-40

I remember how good it felt to get back a test with a sticker on it. As a young kid there was no greater sense of pride than that sticker telling me I had done a “Good Job!” It’s a great feeling to look at your work and know that it is good. God is no different, and we learn this at the very start. Our God delights in good work. The story of creation follows a pattern of God making and God affirming what God has made. Pop quiz, just to see who’s been paying attention: who can remember the Hebrew word God uses to affirm the “goodness” of creation? God says, “It is good”… “it is…tov.”

God affirms the light, tov; the seas and dry land, tov; plants and trees and fruit, tov; the sun, moon, and stars, the fish in the sea, and the birds in the sky, the cattle, and creeping things, and wild animals of every kind; tov, tov, tov. And then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…” and God did. And God blessed them, and placed them in the garden. Then God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was tov meod. Not just tov, but tov meod…very good.

So this word meod is used to emphasize God’s delight in a completed creation. It is used as an adverb. Speaking of emphasis, I mention all of this grammatical mumbo-jumbo simply to emphasize how this word, meod, is used quite differently in today’s passage from Deuteronomy. In the Shema, meod appears at the end of a list of nouns—things with which we are to “love the LORD our God.” First we are to love God with all of our “heart”, then with all of our “soul”, and lastly, we are to love the LORD our God with all of our meod. Love the LORD your God with all of your…very. What does that mean?

First off, I think it bears mention that “love,” in the biblical sense, is never just a statement of mere affection. Love is active loyalty and service, modeled through keeping the LORD’s commandments and walking in the way of the LORD. Love is something that involves our whole being, our heart and soul and even our very—our meod. Remember I introduced us to this word by describing how God used it to affirm creation in its completeness and wholeness? Therefore when I read that I’m supposed to love God with all of my meod, I think about my connection to the wholeness and completeness of God’s creation. What this inspires in me is this sense that I cannot love God with all of my very without recognizing and respecting that I am a part of something very much larger than myself, alone.

The infamous “first sin” of humankind was a forgetfulness and disrespect of our place within God’s larger created order. We’ve talked a lot these past two weeks about sin as disconnecting from or redirecting from the way of the LORD. What I’m hoping is that we’re starting to recognize the toxicity of thinking: “Maybe I can do this on my own.” You cannot love God with all of your very if you think you’re alone. Like threads in a tapestry, we are woven together, we belong to one another, and we matter to one another. “Maybe I can do this on my own,” is the type of thinking that slowly tugs at a single thread until the wholeness and completeness of the tapestry unravels.

On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your very: and love your neighbor.” Do you see it? It would seem as though Jesus also recognized our inability to love God verily without serving lovingly as a member of a compassionate community, a loving neighborhood.

Of course, I cannot say the word "neighborhood" without thinking of Mr. Rogers. He once said this, “Parents are like shuttles on a loom. They join the threads of the past with threads of the future and leave their own bright patterns as they go.” We are threads, the tapestry is our very. I’d like to expand on what Mr. Rogers had to say, and add that for some of us the hands that weave us into this grand tapestry are not the hands of parents, but the hands of guardians, or grandparents, or friends, or teachers. Close your eyes and take a moment to think about the caring hands that made you feel like you mattered, the hands that taught you you belong, the hands that loved you into being. Wrap yourself in this beautiful tapestry of love. Wrap yourself in God’s meod.

How wonderful and warm it feels. Now, I invite you to open your eyes and look at your own hands. With these hands you can weave someone else in to God’s meod. Our hands are the servants of our heart and soul. And if you love the LORD your God with all of your heart and soul then your hands can’t help but weave—with all of your very. And God will be delighted.

First you spoke and there was light You made the sun and it shone bright

…Just like it should.

And then you made the land and seas, The plants and flowers, birds and bees, And it was good.

You filled the sky and sea and land With life you made with your own hand But you weren’t through. You said, “Let’s make someone like me,

And fill his head with poetry,” And made us, too. So I praise and sing thanks to you.

I will praise the LORD for forever

With my heart and soul for forever I will lift my voice for forever to sing Your praise, God of everything.

Inspired by the love you’ve shown

I think of things beyond my own desire. I’m moved beyond my selfish greed

To think of other folks in need.

LORD, what do you require?

The kindness and humility

And justice you expect from me becomes my way To serve you and to share your grace, To make this world a better place.

That is what I pray.

So I praise and sing thanks to you. I praise and sing thanks to you.

I will praise the LORD for forever

With my heart and soul for forever I will lift my voice for forever to sing Your praise, your praise…

I will share your love for creation

I will shine your light on every nation

I will show your grace to my neighbor, too, O LORD,

‘Cuz that’s what you would do.

Oh LORD my God How stubborn I can be Throughout the Scripture’s holy words

I hear you calling, "follow me"

I turn away, Thinking, ‘Maybe I can make it on my own.’

My will becomes all that matters And shred your will to tatters. I keep falling and sinning So blind to the beginning When you said, “It was good!”

Yes, sometimes I can be a selfish mess I disobey I must confess I am ashamed And you’re there to forgive me

You still forgive me And show me the way

I will praise the LORD for forever

With my heart and soul for forever I will lift my voice for forever to sing— I will share your love…

I will shine your light…

I will show your grace to my neighbor, too, O LORD

My God…

‘Cuz that’s what you would do.