Where We Bind Up the Broken Opening the Book of Life
The Rev. Joshua Mason Pawelek
September 24, 2006
“O Sing Hallelujah!” This hymn is an adaptation of Psalm 150 in the Hebrew Bible and Avinu Malkeinu, a traditional Hebrew hymn for Rosh Hashanah. Hallelujah! We tend to associate this word with evangelical churches, or with the black church tradition in the United States. We hear it in Unitarian Universalism from time to time, when someone feels really good about something. Though we’re still a bit shy about it. We’re not always sure it’s appropriate to shout “Hallelujah” in the midst of our worship services, as if it suggests we’re trying to be some other religion. It is originally a Hebrew word. It’s a shout or song of praise, joy or thanks. It literally means “Praise God.” It’s a wonderful word, and we can say it, and we ought to say it, because there are things in our lives and in this universe worthy of praise; there are joys in our lives; there is much in our lives for which we can be thankful. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
I want to say what it means to me when we Unitarian Universalists claim, as one of the sources of our living tradition, Jewish and Christian teachings that call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves. In connection with the Jewish High Holy Days, I want to speak this morning about Jewish teachings specifically. I will return to Christianity later in the fall. This morning, what is our relationship to Judaism? What legacies has Judaism left for us? What wisdom does Judaism suggest to us?
To begin, I am thankful and joyful that Unitarian Universalism has become a spiritual home for people like Jordan Scheff, people of Jewish heritage and culture who continue to claim that heritage and culture but, for whatever reason, don’t feel a religious or theological connection to Judaism. I am proud Jordan can blow the shofar in a Unitarian Universalist sanctuary, and by that act say to us, “this ancient sound is part of who I am. This ancient sound rings in my childhood memories, rings in my soul.” This is not an act of religious misappropriation. We aren’t claiming this shofar ritual as a Unitarian Universalist ritual. It doesn’t have the same power for us or the same meaning for us collectively as it has for Jews collectively. Unitarian Universalists are not obligated to hear the shofar at the time of the New Year as Jews are. In the Hebrew Book of Leviticus, Chapter 23, verses 23 and 24, God commands that Jews observe a day of rest on the first day of the seventh month, which is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, “a holy convocation commemorated with trumpet blasts!” We are not obligated as Jews are obligated, but Jordan’s offer to blow the shofar gives us a way to acknowledge a deep, historical connection to Judaism, a way for us to honor Judaism as a source of our living tradition, and a way for us to say to Jewish Unitarian Universalists, “you are welcome here like anyone else. Come as you are. Be who you are. You do not need to discard your past to belong here.” Hallelujah!
Incidentally, although blowing the shofar is one of the central rituals of Rosh Hashanah, it is also considered an act of labor and is therefore not permitted on the Jewish Sabbath. When Rosh Hashanah falls on the Sabbath, as it did yesterday, the shofar is not blown at that time, though is is certainly blown at other times during the High Holy Days.
“Jewish teachings that call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves.” That language comes directly from the Bible. Many non-Jews associate it with Jesus. If I am correct, Jesus was actually responsible for putting these two ideas—love of God, love for neighbor—immediately next to each other in this way. In the book of Matthew, chapter 22, verses 37-40 he says, very famously, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Jesus, we know, was Jewish—a Jewish teacher, preacher, story-teller, healer, and worker of miracles who spoke primarily to other Jews in a Jewish society. We don’t know anything about his training but presumably it took place in a Jewish community and those who taught him this “Great Commandment” were Jews. This commandment is thoroughly Jewish, and predates Jesus by many centuries, if not a millennium.
When Jesus says “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment,” he is referring to the first of the Ten Commandments, the decalogue, from the Hebrew Book of Exodus. However, when you read the first commandment, it doesn’t sound the same. It appears in Exodus chapter 20, verses 2-3, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.” It turns out Jesus is quoting another version of the first commandment which can be found in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verses 4-5, which many scholars consider to be a more positive restatement of the first commandment. This version says, “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.”
You shall love your God. Allow me to focus for a few moments on this first half of the great Jewish commandment: You shall love your God. These verses in Deuteronomy are part of a larger set of verses known in Jewish tradition as the shema, which is the Hebrew word for hear—“Hear, O Israel.” I’ll recite the entire shema: “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. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. 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. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” For me the shema offers much wisdom to Unitarian Universalists. More than a spiritual practice, it’s a way of being in the world. Of course, don’t focus on the specific Jewish theology. Apply this to your own theology. Whatever you believe, whatever is sacred to you, whatever matters most to you: keep it in your heart. Recite it to your children and talk about it when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind it as a sign on your hand, fix it as an emblem on your forehead, and write it on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. That is, keep it in front of you. Keep it in your consciousness all the time. Be proud to speak about it, share it. Love it. Hallelujah.
We sometimes deceive ourselves when we come to worship as UUs with the expectation of gaining greater understanding or knowledge of what is sacred to us. UU sermons are supposed to be intellectual, or so I was told in seminary. In worship we often expect to grow in our intelligence about what is sacred to us. This is certainly important, but what about coming to worship to learn to love what is sacred to us. Not just know it, love it! Judaism can be very intellectual as well. But it also accounts for the heart. It asks that Jews feel their religion. Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might—the kind of love that results spontaneously in shouts of “hallelujah.” We ought not only come here to understand what is most sacred to us; we ought to learn to love it deeply and profoundly. If humanity is at the center of your spirituality, then love humanity. If God is at the center of your spirituality, then love God. If the Goddess is at the center of your spirituality, then love the Goddess. If Nature is at the center of your spirituality, then love Nature. Feel that love. Feel your religion. Don’t shy away from it. If we don’t have love for the sacred, then we probably won’t talk about it to our children, or when we are home or away, or upon lying down or rising. We probably won’t figure out ways to, at least metaphorically, bind it as a sign on our hands, our foreheads, or our doorposts and gates. And if we don’t do any of this, it begins to fade from our hearts. It fails to transform our lives. Intellect alone cannot sustain it. Let us heed the wisdom of the shema. Let us be more outspoken about what we love—with each other, with our families and friends. And let that love be a source of joy and power in our lives. Hallelujah!
The shema doesn’t include the second half of the great commandment, the language about loving your neighbor as yourself. As far as I can tell, that language never appears in the Hebrew Bible immediately next to language about loving God. But it certainly appears. Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18 says “you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” The Hebrew word for neighbor in this instance actually refers only to a fellow Israelite. However, verses 33 and 34 in that same chapter extend the concept in a more universal direction: “When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with shall be to you as a citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.”
Centuries before the Christian gospels proclaimed “love your neighbor as yourself,” this also was a thoroughly Jewish concept. I fear today it has become a moral cliché. It is said in so many contexts for so many reasons: “love your neighbor as yourself.” It is said as if it is obvious what it entails. It is written in the Unitarian Universalist sources as if it is obvious what it entails. But I don’t think we know what it entails. Not fully. We fall far short of this mark time and time again. The closer we get to really understanding it, the harder we realize it is to do. Of course, this failure is not entirely our fault. Our culture encourages us to love ourselves and compete with our neighbor. Our culture organizes power in such a way that the idea of neighbor in any sense larger than the people who live next door to us is fleeting when it is expressed at all. It is hard enough these days just to be good neighbors with those who live in our neighborhoods. It is vastly more difficult to be good neighbors in that broader sense across lines of faith, across lines of race, across economic classes, across national borders, linguistic difference, across lines of sexual orientation, across generational lines. But the gulf between being a good neighbor and loving our neighbor across all these lines and barriers and identities, loving the alien, loving people who see the world in radically different ways than we do, loving the person we’d rather hate—that gulf, at times, feels infinite. It’s very easy to turn away from this commandment, this moral wisdom.
The Hebrew prophets offer some indication of how to love neighbor as self. They advise us to work for justice. You’ve heard their names: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, Micah. There are many others, and there are many prophetic traditions within Judaism in addition to the call for justice. If you’re familiar with the Hebrew scriptures, you know the Israelites were constantly falling short of the mark, constantly failing to uphold God’s commandments; so God would anoint prophets to speak to the Israelites and call them back into the proper relationship with God. Of all the prophetic Jewish traditions, I believe the demand for justice guides us toward that elusive capacity to love our neighbor as ourself. The prophetic Jewish demand for justice is central to so many change movements in the world today, and it continues to inform and inspire Unitarian Universalists. The second Unitarian Universalist principle of “justice, equity and compassion in human relations” has its core in prophetic Judaism. Hallelujah!
When we sing hymn #121, “We’ll Build a Land”—our premier UU social justice hymn—we are singing the words of the great Jewish prophets. “We’ll build a land where we bind up the broken, where the captives go free.” “Isaiah 61: “The spirit of the lord God is upon me, because he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives.” When the hymn envisions, “Where justice shall roll down like waters and peace like an ever flowing stream,” this is an adaptation from the prophet Amos, chapter 5, verse 24. Concern for the poor, concern for the sick, concern for the treatment of aliens, the abuse of the vulnerable, the mis-use of power whether political or religious—all this is found in the Jewish social justice prophets. Our concerns today are no different when we call for economic justice, for universal healthcare, for civil rights for immigrants, for a loving and compassionate nation—all these themes, this language, this tradition of calling for social justice begins in Judaism. I value Judaism immensely for this vision. And it seems to me that the call to love neighbor as self demands at some level a willingness to work for justice. When we can see all those who suffer injustice in this world—including those in this room—as our neighbor; when we can imagine and feel their suffering because of injustice, the path to loving them as ourselves is the path of social justice struggle. Thus, when we claim Judaism as a source of our living tradition, we claim social justice as an integral part of who we are. Hallelujah!
Let me not in any way make the Great Commandment to love God and neighbor sound easy. I don’t want to suggest that simply working for justice will get us there. Living in response to this commandment is extraordinarily challenging in our time as it has been in all times. It isn’t as if we can drop everything and suddenly live completely and wholly within this commandment. But in claiming it as a source of our Unitarian Universalist living tradition, we are obligated to try; and to keep trying; and though we may fail again and again and again, to keep trying, to keep trying, to bind up the broken, to love what is sacred, to love our neighbors as ourselves. I leave you with the words of the Jewish prophet, Micah, chapter 6, verse 8, “and what does God require of you, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.” May we keep trying?
Amen, Blessed Be and Hallelujah.
#217 in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition.
