Jarrett McLaughlin
Borrowed Ground
October 20, 2024
Deuteronomy 6:4-12
Cold Open:
My career in musical theater was brief.
A line from a Neil Young song comes to mind: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”
In grade school you could not have paid me to be on a stage, nor did I haunt the High School drama club. I volunteered with a few youth productions here at UPC when I was in college – just to support the students and all, but even then, it was a stretch for me.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I was in seminary and the choir director at the Church where I was working came to me one day with an oddly shaped box and an imploring expression on her face.
“Jarrett, she said, “I need to ask a favor. You know the youth are gearing up to do Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. We’ve had auditions and we’ve got a great cast but…there’s one role that I just can’t fill and I was wondering…if you…might consider….doing it.”
My shoulders slumped a bit “Oh goodness, Suzanne…what is it?”
She slid the oddly shaped box across the table.
I opened it cautiously – inside there was this enormous black pompadour wig with long sideburns. If you know that musical you’ve already guessed it. She needed me to play the part of Pharaoh who sings in the style of Elvis Presley.
I reluctantly agreed – and over the next month or so new pieces of the wardrobe began showing up in my office. A white jumpsuit covered in rhinestones. A pair of enormous gold sunglasses with the lenses that are dark at the top and then fade as they go down. They even made this gold and black scepter that a microphone could fit into so that when the song begins I could pull the mic out and throw the scepter to one of my waiting guards. It was a whole thing.
None of that really bothered me at all – as many of you well know, I have never been one to shy away from playing dress-up in the name of getting laughs. But there was one tiny flaw in the plan…I had to sing like a real person.
Suzanne coached me on the music and she would say “Can you give me an A?” (Dallin – play an A)
“Say what?”
“Can you sing an A…like, the note.”
Then she pressed a key on the piano (Dallin plays an A) – “That’s an A – can you sing that.”
“I see you pressing that key and it makes that sound but I’m not sure what that has to do with what you want me to do with my throat.”
Or she’d say something like “Let’s go back to measure 23.”
“What is 23,” I’d ask, “and why are we measuring it?”
Nothing about music – actually making music – was natural to me at all.
Suzanne had her work cut out for her.
So we practiced and rehearsed – rehearsed and practiced.
The day of the big show came and…I can tell you that I flubbed more than a couple lines.
Luckily, when you play Pharaoh in that show, you can get by leaning into the Elvis histrionics, and that’s precisely what I did.
“Well, I was wandering along by the banks of the river when seven fat cows came up out of the Nile – Uh-uh-UH!”
People laughed so I call it a win.
It was…an adequate performance.
Still, my brief and blazing career in musical theater taught me that there is no such thing as too much reciting; too much rehearsal. If you are going to get it right – you must practice all the time.
Our Scripture today is one of the biggies in the Hebrew Bible. It is nicknamed The Shema because that is the first word in the Hebrew text – Shema means “Hear” or “Listen up!”
Let us listen to what the Spirit speaks to us this day.
Scripture:
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.
When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—
a land with fine, large cities that you did not build,
houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill,
hewn cisterns that you did not hew,
vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant—
and when you have eaten your fill, take care that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
This is the word of the Lord
Thanks be to God.
Sermon:
This text, the Shema, truly is the heart of Deuteronomy.
Some scholars suggest it is a radicalization of the first commandment – “I am the Lord your God…you shall have no other gods before me.”
“Listen up,” it says, “the Lord is the only God – you will love the Lord alone, but not with some half-stepping, weak-sauce devotion – you will love the Lord with every fiber of your being:
With your emotions and your intellect.
With your physical capability as well as with your wealth.”
This is a bold statement that asks A LOT of the devotee.
The singularity of God and the command to love and serve Yahweh is so crucial that the text instructs the reader to recite it all day, every day – to post it at the doorway to your home – to even wear the words on your hand and forehead.
Strictly observant Jews will wear what is called a tefillin – a small leather box that you strap to your forehead for prayer. Inside the box, you will find a tiny scroll with the words of the Shema.
There is no such thing as too much rehearsal.
If you are to get it right, you must practice all the time.
Most often – a strict reading of the Shemah stops at verse 9 – with the instructions about when and how much to rehearse. But if you push past verse 10 you’ll encounter this bit about the Hebrews inheriting some “Borrowed Ground.”
Large cities you did not build
Full houses that you did not fill.
Wells you did not dig.
Cisterns that you did not carve from the rock
Vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.
I do have to pause here and name that all of these things are there for the taking because the previous inhabitants of that land – the Canaanites – would be pushed out.
I am particularly sensitive to that just six days after Columbus Day / Indigenous People’s Day.
I am also aware that it hits different with a full year of war between Israel and the Palestinians – Palestinians who once inhabited the full length of that land but are now relegated to small, embattled parcels.
I do want to recognize that the dynamics of conquest are uncomfortably present in this text.
Deuteronomy characterizes all that infrastructure as blessings given by God to the Hebrews – but let us not forget that it was taken from the Canaanites first.
I won’t pretend that isn’t problematic.
There’s really nothing I can say that will make that aspect of the text any easier to swallow.
But I would like to make a distinction here between giving and loaning – they are not the same thing and I think it does make a crucial difference in this text.
Gifts, once given, are out of the givers control.
The receiver has full ownership. The giver no longer has any rights to it.
There are no take-backs.
Loaning on the other hand, is completely different – and in Deuteronomy, there is a sense that the cities and cisterns, the houses and vineyards are not entitlements. It’s more like they are on loan.
They are conditional – and their use hinges on remembering to love the Lord alone with all of your being.
“when you have eaten your fill,” it says, “take care that you do not forget the Lord, the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt; out of the house of slavery.”
That’s a warning.
That’s a “Hey – pay attention to that whole thing about loving God with every fiber of your being – because all of these blessings that you are enjoying – they are on loan. You are simply caretakers. God can call those blessings back at any moment.”
That rubs against the grain of our Reformed theology.
Presbyterians lean into the unconditional grace of God – the love of God is a gift, we say, not a loan…and there is nothing we can do to fall away from that grace.
That belief has a set of Biblical texts that will support it – but this is not one of them.
And yet, it too is Holy Scripture – so let’s lean in and see what Gospel good news we can uncover in this very conditional covenant.
—
I read this interesting blog recently about the etiquette of loaning and borrowing.
At first glance, I thought it was going to be some guy kvetching about people who borrow things and never return them, or bring them back beaten into oblivion.
While I agree there ought to be a special place in the underworld for those who borrow books – or records – and do not return them, I just cannot get on board with outrage journalism.
I clicked the link anyway, saying “I’ll give it two paragraphs – if it’s a rage-rant I’m giving up.”
I found it to be surprisingly insightful right off the bat.
The author, Stephen, wrote:
“When you borrow from another person you draw upon the relationship that you have with that person. How you borrow something can either enhance or damage that relationship.
If you carefully use the item and return it in excellent shape, the relationship is enhanced.
If, however, the item comes back dirty, or damaged with no explanation, the relationship is damaged.”
How we steward what is on loan to us impacts our relationship with God.
Will the Hebrews humbly remember that they were once slaves?
Or will they becoming entitled brats?
Will they love the Lord alone or will they seeking their security from some Idol that cannot save?
Will they remember to be a blessing to all the families of the earth or will they get lost in self-centered pursuits?
—
These questions are evergreen and they are for everybody – not just the ancient Hebrews. We, too, are living on borrowed ground.
So what is it that we need to recite and remember here at University Presbyterian?
Is there work we need to do to learn whose ground this was before us?
And what of the generations before us – the ones who built this Church to be what it is today – how might we honor the legacy they have left us?
How do we honor those who invested in this sacred space where we gather to worship and equip disciples?
How do we honor the legacy of outreach that has defined this Church – yes in the more comfortable realm of social services like feeding the hungry and sheltering the under-housed, but what about the more risky ventures that have defined this Church in the past – like the AIDS Care Team or the risky work of racial justice that has gotten UPC into some hot water across the past 75 years.
All of this is the borrowed ground that was faithfully stewarded before us. And now it is our turn.
So, Church, give me an A.
(Dallin – play an A)
This is going to take a whole lot of practice.
We’ll need to remember our lines from Scripture – Love the Lord your God with all your mind, heart, soul and strength – and your neighbor as yourself.
We’ll need to rehearse the songs we sing as well as how we can best care for one another.
We’ll need to review what we can and cannot recycle.
And we will need to recite the truth that ALL people – regardless of color or country – are equally precious in the sight of the Lord.
We may not wear any of this on our foreheads,
But we practice over and over again,
Until it gets down in our bones.
That is how we faithfully steward this “borrowed ground,”
living in the eternal hope that we will give it back into God’s hands –
carefully used and returned in excellent shape –
so that our relationship with God will be strong.
May it be so. Amen.