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Pastor at Resurrection Anglican Fellowship in Greenwood Village, CO

Sunday, October 31, 2021

SHEMA, ISRAEL!

 23rd Sunday after Pentecost

Oct 31, 2021

Fr. Phil Eberhart

 

Deut 6:1-9 

Ps 119:1-16 

Heb 7:23-28 

Mark 12:28-34

 

 

Shema Israel, ADONAI Eloheinu, ADONAI Echad

HEAR, O ISRAEL, THE LORD OUR GOD, THE LORD IS ONE

 

These words form the central identity of the people of God, the Jewish people, and in our Gospel lesson, Jesus himself, brings them forward for us, to form our identity, as those grafted-in to the Olive tree of Israel.

 

They are written on every Jewish home, on the doorpost of the house – they are carried in the minds and hearts of God’s people – they are repeated at every gathering, as a part of every prayer time or teaching session. They are sung and chanted, and repeated a thousand times a day around the world!

 

But the “magic” isn’t in the words, it’s in what follows:

Love Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

And Jesus adds, with all your mind. 

 

HEART – MIND – SOUL- STRENGTH

How many here remember our hand illustration?  We pray that collect in a little more than a month, during Advent now.

Turn your bulletin over and draw an outline of your hand:

Now hold it up in front of your face.

The five parts of getting the Word of God from the outside to the inside:

Little finger =  HEAR

Write this scripture down inside the little finger on your outline:   Deut 6:4    For Israel and for us it is the starting point.

 

Ring Finger: =  READ

 Now write Joshua 1:8

Moses gives Joshua the key to his continued success as a leader in Israel:

This book of the Torah should not depart from your mouth—you are to meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. For then you will make your ways prosperous and then you will be successful.

 

Our Psalm for this morning highlights this aspect of the hand:

Asking a question:  “How shall a young man keep his way pure?  By taking heed thereto, according to Thy Word.” (sorry, I memorized it in KJV.)

 

Middle Finger  =  MARK

What is the point of underlining in your Bible?  Does anyone here have one of “those” bibles?  I have a few of them. You know the ones – that are all marked up, underlines, written in, with your own personal notes and applications.

The best way to dig into the text is to notate it for yourself.

Have you ever noticed that you can remember where something is on the page, when you can’t remember the address?

Highlighting, underlining, colored pencils … whatever it takes, my friends, is what you need to do to get it to jump out at you.

 

First Finger = LEARN

Notice that our scripture in Deuteronomy gives us a prescription for how to learn:

These words, which I am commanding you today, are to be on your heartYou are to teach them diligently to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise upBind them as a sign on your hand, they are to be as frontlets between your eyesand write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

 

So how do we learn the Word?   By making it our focus!!

Again Moses reminded Joshua: Don’t let this Book of the Law depart out of your mouth! 

David reminds us over and over in Psalm 19 and 119 about the useful and beautiful treasures that are in The Word:

The law of the Lord is perfect,
    reviving the soul;
the decrees of the Lord are sure,
    making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right,
    rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is clear,
    enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is pure,
    enduring forever;
the ordinances of the Lord are true
    and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold,
    even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey,
    and drippings of the honeycomb.

 

And in Ps 119 – pretty much the whole of it – every one of the 176 verses tells the same tale:  The glories of the Word of God.

Why do you think that this is the longest chapter in the Bible?

Maybe because of the relative weight of the subject matter!!

 

But the final piece of this is “the clincher!!” 

 

The THUMB = INWARDLY DIGEST !!

 

As useful as all the fingers of the hand are, they are really quite powerless without the grasping capability of the Thumb!!

Meditation is what Moses encouraged Joshua to do.

The word Haga (haw-gaw) means to murmer or growl, like a lion over its kill.

Meditation is likened to rumination – the chewing of the cud by a cow.  It is swallowed and goes into a first stomach but then is brought back up for more chewing and more digestion, until finally it clears and goes into the body, fully digested.

 

Friends, how do we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength??

I’m not sure that we can over emphasize how important this Word of God is to our life as a Christian!

Paul tells us that it is useful for Teaching, for Rebuking, for Correcting and for Training in Righteousness. 

Peter call these “great and precious promises, by which we become partakers in the divine nature!”

The writer of the Hebrew letter says these words are “sharper than a two-edged sword; discerning to the depth of joints and marrow, of the thoughts and intentions of our hearts!”

James, warns us not to look into “the perfect law of liberty” and then go away and forget what we look like!

 

It is the Sword of the Spirit… used by God to make us more like Jesus!

 

It is the Light to our path … showing us the way we are to walk in, day by day, moment by moment.

 

It is our source of life, in the hand of the Living Word, Jesus Christ.

 

More to be desired are they than gold, yea than much fine gold. Sweeter also than the honey, in the honeycomb.

Sing it with me:

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold;  sweeter also that the honey, in the honeycomb.

 

Let’s pray.

 

Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, as we live among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Gracious God and most merciful Father, you have granted us the rich and precious jewel of your holy Word: Assist us with your Spirit, that the same Word may be written in our hearts to our everlasting comfort, to reform us, to renew us according to your own image, to build us up and edify us into the perfect dwelling place of your Christ, sanctifying and increasing in us all heavenly virtues; grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

 

Lord Jesus, Master Carpenter of Nazareth, on the Cross through wood and nails you wrought our full salvation: Wield well your tools in this, your workshop, that we who come to you rough-hewn may be fashioned into a truer beauty by your hand; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, world without end. Amen.

Sunday, October 24, 2021

BUT GOD!

 22nd Pentecost

Oct 24, 2021

Fr. Phil Eberhart

Isa 59:9-20 

Ps 13 

Heb 5:11—6:12 

Mark 10:46-52

 

 BUT GOD

 

Have you ever wondered where God is?  I mean, you’ve been in the press of life – you’re praying faithfully, but it seems like the heavens are brass, reflecting the sound of your voice back to you – in an echo chamber?

 

David was having one of those days when he wrote Ps 13.  It is a classic “lament” Psalm.  “HOW LONG, O LORD?” he cries out loudly. Four times in two verses he cries out…  HOW LONG…

1 How long will you utterly forget me, O Lord? * How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long shall I seek counsel in my soul and be so vexed in my heart? * How long shall my enemy triumph over me?

 

Feeling Forgotten by God

Feeling Hidden from God

Feeling Vexed by God

Feeling like you’re losing,

All because you begin to believe that God doesn’t care; He doesn’t hear you anymore (or never did);  Maybe God has turned into an enemy!

 

David’s voice is sometimes our voice, isn’t it.  This is why I love the Psalms – David just lets it all hang out.  He puts it all out on the table for us to see and deal with.  He gives our inner thoughts and feelings a real voice.  The things we can’t or won’t say out loud, that roll around in our heads when we’re hurting or discouraged or oppressed by life’s circumstances or by other people around us.

How long, O Lord?

But David moves on from there.  We cannot stay in that place for long.  Our psyche – our soul cannot take a sustained campaign against it. We are not like a well-fortified city with thick walls that protect us from life and other people – and if we are we find our self-protection has become a self-imposed prison.  No, we have to move out of our self protective mode in life to move into health and wellness for our soul.  How did David do it?

3 Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; * give light to my eyes, that I sleep not in death, 4 Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed against him”; * for if I am cast down, those who trouble me will rejoice.

Things begin to change if we feel we can be heard by God.  We might not like what God says all the time…

Like the guy that fell over a cliff and grabbed onto a tuft of grass on the cliff side.  Holding on for dear life he started yelling, “Is any one up there?”  Suddenly he hears a voice from above, “Let GO and Trust Me.” He thinks for a second, and says, “IS ANYBODY ELSE UP THERE?”

 

David’s other petition is “Give Light to my eyes.”  What is light in our lives?  Illumination…  Knowledge of what is TRUE…  Or what is REAL.

David later says that “Thy Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” (Ps 119:105)   Just a couple verses later David acknowledges,

“I am severely afflicted. Give me life, O Lord, according to your Word.”

Light and thus, life, come through the Word of God, as we seek to see what is True and Real, even in the midst of our darkest times.

 

So, what is the next step in this journey?

 

David says it in both places:  In Ps 119 the next verse says:  Accept my offerings of Praise, O Lord… and teach me your ordinances.

In the Lament of Ps 13, David turns his heart and mind 180 degrees:

But my trust is in your mercy, * and my heart is joyful in your

 salvation.

6 I will sing of the Lord, because he has dealt so lovingly with me; * 

indeed, I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High.

 

It’s time to call to mind what is true!   Jeremiah, in his darkest hour, in Lamentations, does this same thing.  Lamentations 3 is one of the darkest, gloomiest tomes in the scriptures, but at the end of it we find the word of a song we know as Great is Thy Faithfulness!  The first 20 verses are doom and gloom, then there is a BUT.

“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope…”  Sing it with me:

 

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
His mercies never come to an end!  
They are new every morning, new every morning,
Great is Thy faithfulness, O Lord, Great is Thy Faithfulness.

 

We can put our trust in God’s Mercy.  It is never ending. 
It is Unfailing Love = HESED

 

BUT… GOD!

 

Like the man in our Gospel reading this morning, we know him as the Blind son of Timeus… By the side of the road, begging for mercy, until he hears that Jesus is near…

47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!

 

BUT… GOD!

 

If you’re in that place that David was this morning – or if you ever get to that place where life has turned against you (and we all get there.) remember David, and Jeremiah, and Bartimeus.

JESUS, SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY ON ME!

JESUS, SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY ON ME!

Let’s pray together.

 

From our collect again:

Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

“Great is Thy Faithfulness
Great is Thy Faithfulness
Morning by morning new mercies I see!

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.
Great is Thy Faithfulness,

Great is Thy Faithfulness

Great is Thy Faithfulness,

Lord unto me.”