{"id":4480,"date":"2023-04-23T17:46:18","date_gmt":"2023-04-23T17:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2023\/04\/23\/love-your-neighbor-based-on-deuteronomy-511-22\/"},"modified":"2023-04-23T17:46:18","modified_gmt":"2023-04-23T17:46:18","slug":"love-your-neighbor-based-on-deuteronomy-511-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/2023\/04\/23\/love-your-neighbor-based-on-deuteronomy-511-22\/","title":{"rendered":"Untitled"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cLove Your Neighbor\u201d based on Deuteronomy 5:11-22 and Romans 13:8-10<\/h1>\n
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This Romans 13 passage is hard for me to preach on because it is so core to how I understand faith that I struggle with adequate distance from it. I spent college with a construction paper sign on my door that said \u201cLove is the Answer\u201d and happily chirped to those who said \u201cwhat is the question?\u201d \u201cit doesn’t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus wasn’t the first one to notice that \u201clove your neighbor\u201d undergirded the other laws. Rabbi Hillel was in leadership from about 30BCE to 10CE \u2013 so he was someone a little older than Jesus. A famous story is told of Rabbi Hillel.<\/p>\n

A stranger came to Hillel and made the request, “Teach me the Torah as I stand on one foot.” So Hillel taught him: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary. Now, go and learn it.”<\/p>\n

It is reasonable to think that Hillel was pretty famous, and Jesus agreed with his conclusion.<\/p>\n

I would even go another step and say that there are two great commandments: Love your neighbor as yourself and love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Loving God is reflected in the first 3 commandments, loving your neighbor in the final 6, and they’re both in the 4th about the Sabbath. Furthermore, I’m going to claim the TWO are even the same commandment in two forms. How do we love God? We love God by loving our neighbors. Why do we love our neighbors? Because we love God who loves them. They’re not differentiable.<\/p>\n

So, that 4th commandment, the one about Sabbath. Have you ever noticed that it is a whole lot wordier than the others? \u201cYou shall not steal\u201d is concise. \u201cObserve the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the HOLY ONE your God commands you\u201d is the opening sentence in the paragraph on Sabbath.<\/p>\n

When John Dominic Crossan was here, he proposed that Sabbath is at the core of the theological stream that understands God to be aimed at distributive justice. I should say that differently. \u201cDom says the Sabbath is the key to faith as he knows it.\u201d Phew, that’s better.<\/p>\n

The thing that really strikes me about the Sabbath as explained in Deuteronomy is that is IS \u201cdistributed\u201d fairly. When I want to encourage people to take Sabbath, and to take seriously their need to rest, to play, to connect with loved ones, and to remember that life is more than work \u2013 when I want to do all that I end up worrying that I’m just guilting the already overwhelmed. When people are working multiple jobs to have enough to eat, or working obscene hours to fulfill impossible job requirements \u2013 how does it help them for me to encourage them to \u201ctake a break?\u201d<\/p>\n

This may be why I hear \u201cyou shall not do any work \u2013 you, or your daughter, or your son, or the migrant in your towns, so that your female slave and your male slave may rest as you do\u201d and I’m blown away by it. Imagine! Imagine if EVERYONE got equal access to FULL rest, EVERY week! Imagine if you didn’t have to a certain level of wealthy to afford rest!! Imagine if it weren’t a privilege, if it didn’t have to be earned, if it couldn’t be taken away.<\/p>\n

I find this hard to imagine.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember that a slave were you in the land of Egypt, and the FAITHFUL ONE your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the HOLY ONE your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.\u201d That is, because you were once aching and in need of help, give rest and help to those aching today. Don’t work, to try to get ahead and therefore demand others work. Rest so others can rest. Work doesn’t define life. Don’t be like those who oppressed you. Be people of God.<\/p>\n

Because the people of God rest.<\/p>\n

Because the people of God make space for others to rest.<\/p>\n

Because love your neighbor as yourself means let them get a Sabbath rest too, let even those you have power over. It means letting them remember why life is worth living, and why work isn’t the centerpiece of life.<\/p>\n

You may have heard me speak before about Walter Brueggemann’s book \u201cSabbath as Resistance\u201d because it is a favorite of mine. I’m not going to start quoting it at you because if I start I won’t be able to start. But I’ve been deeply formed by Brueggemann’s thinking on Sabbath.<\/p>\n

John Dominic Crossan says Sabbath is the starting point for justice, for the ways of God in the world.<\/p>\n

Brueggemann says Sabbath is the central commandment, the most important one.<\/p>\n

They both think practicing Sabbath is central to loving your neighbor. The connection, I think, is that NOT WORKING is imperative to BEING HUMAN. And we generally aren’t any better at letting other people be human than we are at letting ourselves be human. So we need regular time to stop and practice being humans \u2013 not people worth what we can do or make \u2013 but just beloved people of God SO THAT we can do the same for others.<\/p>\n

We have to have regular time to NOT WORK in order to LOVE people, and loving people is loving God, and this turns out to be really important.<\/p>\n

Last week I talked about nurturing the space for God to grow seeds of hope in us. This week I’m getting around to suggesting that Sabbath is a well known best practice for that.<\/p>\n

Now, Sabbath may not be what you think it is, so let me go deep down into its roots. Sabbath is a time to stop being productive so you can be whole. Sabbath is a weekly day off to focus on the things that matter instead of the things demanded of you. Sabbath is for family, friendship, relationship, time with God, laughter, play, poetry, art, music, song, and naps. Sabbath is the practice of leaving behind Pharoah’s demand that the decedents of Abraham make bricks, and relearning the rhythms of grace instead.<\/p>\n

Sabbath is trusting in God’s abundance, instead of fighting for your part of a scarcity pie.<\/p>\n

Sabbath is focused on love, not productivity.<\/p>\n

Sabbath isn’t generative. It doesn’t create value. Instead, Sabbath makes time to savor what is and what is good.<\/p>\n

Sabbath is time for loving neighbor, and self, God and earth. Sabbath is TIME set ASIDE from LABOR for LOVE.<\/p>\n

Those of us who have practiced yoga are familiar with the practice of shavasana, the intentional rest after movement, to allow the practice to settle in. For many it is a dreary, drowsy, sweet, restful time that is more restorative than sleep. Sabbath is meant to be delicious like that. Sabbath IS delicious like that.<\/p>\n

At one low point in my spiritual life, I met with a guide to get things back on track and I found myself repeating \u201cI’m so tired, I’m just so tired.\u201d She recommended sleep. I laughed as I realized my communication failure. \u201cOh, I get sleep. Physically I’m fine. It is all the other ways I’m tired.\u201d Luckily she understood, and recommended more time alone with God where I don’t try to produce anything, but simply savor the love God has for me.<\/p>\n

Don’t try to produce anything, just savor the love God has for you.<\/p>\n

Do you do that? Would you want to try? Could you give it 5 minutes? An hour? A day? A day a week? What would happen if you did? What wonderful things would happen? (Savoring God’s love, it turns out, as mentioned previously, often looks a lot like savoring the love of God’s other beloveds.)<\/p>\n

Will you?<\/p>\n

Amen<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rev. Sara E. Baron\u00a0
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady\u00a0
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305\u00a0
Pronouns: she\/her\/hers\u00a0
http:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/\u00a0<\/a>
https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FUMCSchenectady<\/a><\/p>\n

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April 23, 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cLove Your Neighbor\u201d based on Deuteronomy 5:11-22 and Romans 13:8-10 This Romans 13 passage is hard for me to preach … Continue reading Untitled<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[34,38,28,39,33,1480,59,1479,1265,497,502,435,56,1481],"class_list":["post-4480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fumc-schenectady","tag-progressive-christianity","tag-rev-sara-e-baron","tag-thinking-church","tag-umc","tag-10-commandments","tag-brueggemann","tag-crossan","tag-first-umc-schenectady","tag-golden-rule","tag-love-your-neighbor-as-yourself","tag-sabbath","tag-schenectady","tag-sorry-about-the-homophobic-mess-that-is-the-umc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fumcschenectady.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}