This is the first prayer every Jewish child learns and is the very center of their understanding of who God is. It opens their prayers, their worship, it centers their lives. Even when they don't understand it (for who truly understands God). Even when they don't believe it, they can recite it.
It is the foundation for our understanding and faith in God as well. This God of Israel is the God from whom Jesus descended, a living word of love and grace to a hurting world. Therefore when the anonymous scribe asks Jesus what the first or greatest commandment might be, Jesus answers with this core response "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love God will all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'".
Today we would translate it thus Hear, O People of God.....Hear, O baptized believers.....Hear, all those whom Jesus loves and forgives and redeems........" For the God who brought Israel out of Egypt and led them through the wilderness to the promised land and brought them again out of exile, is the God who took on human form in Jesus and taught us about love down here in the streets of everywhere.
It all begins here with this proclamation of God....our worship, our prayers, our daily living, and in the end, our dying. In the end, when the last breath leaves and the heart finally rests, we have only God to turn to and only God to trust.
Jesus knew that because he came from God and returned to God. "Into your hands I commend my spirit." Jesus says from the cross. This too is what we say in that space where we will leave this world and look towards the next. We will look to Jesus, trusting in his promises for those whom he loves. 'Where I am you will be also.' 'I am the way, the truth and the life' 'I will be with you until the end of the age'.
Or the words we have heard spoken with the bread and wine a thousand times: This is the body of Christ, given for you. This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.
For you. The greatest promise of all.
As we remember our beloveds who have left this world to join Jesus in his, let us remember the great Shema
Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one......and Jesus is risen.....and you are beloved.
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