i-Llan: 3rd November 2024 – Listen!

Listening to the two great commandments that Jesus taught.

The readings for the Sunday were:
Deuteronomy 6. 1-9
Hebrews 9. 11-14
Mark 12. 28-34

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Transcript

Welcome to i-Llan, a podcast connecting Faith, life and scripture. This week's episode is about listening.

It’s November and I’m starting the month struck down by a winter virus and feeling gloomy! Even so, along with the dark afternoons, it has seemed a particularly gloomy week! Lots of voices raised in clamour over the Budget and in desperation from Valencia, as well as the usual barrage of name-calling and bad news. 

So, the readings for this Sunday sound a clarion call to focus my attention.

When someone asks Jesus, ‘which commandment is most important?’, he has no hesitation in answering. It’s the ancient ‘Shema’ from the book of Deuteronomy:

Hear, [Shema] 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 mind, and with all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6. 4, 5)

That ‘Hear’ is more than an instruction to note the spoken words; it’s an imperative to really listen and absorb them, to let them sink in to become the guiding principle for life. What I’m to listen to is not the myriad voices of the world, but the Lord who is one.

The Hebrew people lived in a world of many gods. The idea that there is only one God is not a mere numerical comparison, but a different concept altogether. God is not ‘a’ higher power, one of many, but ‘the highest’ power whom we are commanded to obey. And the root words of obey are ob- (“before, near”) + audiō (“to hear”).

The voice I am to listen to above all is the one that tells the story of God’s dealings with humanity and the lessons learned as people strive to understand and obey God’s commands. For me, that voice is heard in the New Testament as well as the Hebrew Scriptures which I know as the Old Testament. In Jewish practice, the words of the Shema are to be literally ‘fixed on the forehead’, ‘bound on the hands’ and written ‘on the doorposts of your house and on your gates’. I read that figuratively to mean kept constantly in mind so they shape patterns of thinking and inform action. They are a constant watch over my comings and goings. This is not the hostile surveillance of ‘Big Brother’, but the caring concern of a loving parent who does know best whatever rebellious children think.

To this first commandment, Jesus adds another (from Leviticus 19. 18)
 The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’
The second command is a natural consequence of the first. As Jesus says in Matthew’s version of the story, ‘On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ They are the basic principles which should guide all our doings without needing to shout to be heard. 

Rather than succumb to gloom as I try to discern the voice of truth and love, justice and mercy, in the public cacophony, I will make times of quiet to listen to the word of God in Scripture and in prayer. 

And then I shall try to heed the injunction, ‘And you shall listen and be watchful to do it.’ (Deuteronomy 6. 3) 

My prayer this week:
May the one God,
 through the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ,
 open the ears of your spirit to hear his Word,
 open your heart and mind to listen to his Word,
 and make you watchful to do it.