Beyond Back Scratching
“You scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours.” This is a common metaphorical idiom. Much goes on in the social enterprise is based on promises of reciprocal favors. In the best of circumstances, people work st striking agreements where all parties win. We know people when asked for something, respond with the question, “What can I hope to gain from it?” Or “What’s in it for me? If we agree to give, we expect to get. In deal-making, at our best, we look for a “win-win”.
From the beginning, our belief tradition has been covenant-based. Grand sacred agreements make the whole drama buzz with energy. The holy covenant in the story of Abraham begins with the Divine, Yahweh, pitching to the nomad in Ur of the Chaldeans. It was Abram, his name at the opening of the tale, who heard God’s proposal: a call and promise of posterity.
Yahweh said to him, “Leave your country, your family, and your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.” God adds, “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name so great that it shall be used in blessings.” God promises land, a great nation of people, and a great name. God expects their love, gratitude, and loyal belonging.
That is how the covenant of the promised land opens, and a much later scene of that family’s movement into the land is our Old Testament lesson for Sunday. At this point, it is Moses who gives a moving speech preparing his people to cross the river and possess the land. The covenant refreshed here is essentially, “You, God’s own people, take the land; for your part, you must keep the commandments, which you shall fulfill principally in loving God completely.”
In this passage at least, God expects not external, legalistic focus on commandments, but of an internal covenant of abiding love, listening to Yahweh in all circumstances. It’s a formula that amounts to this: Love God with all you’ve got, and the concrete implications of that love will bear out in the ways you live and thrive in this land. It has the same air as a high point in the sayings of Jesus: “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6: 33) So that you can consider all in the reading for Sunday, here it is:
Moses said: Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children's children, may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.
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. (Deuteronomy 6:1-9)
The second part, nicknamed the Shema the Hebrew word for the first word, “Hear,” is a core teaching reminder to the faithful, it has been incorporated in the daily liturgy, recited twice each day in Jewish worship.
How have you kept the covenant today? How have your hands, forehead, and heart kept these words? It is deeper than “You scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours.” You are in covenant with the Eternal One who lovingly holds you close; you are God’s person. Recall the signs of God’s love today. Recall your signs as well. Look for the holy exchange as the covenant of promise unfolds.