The Message, September 14, 2025: "Keep These Words," Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Author: Rev. Scott W. Cousineau
September 16, 2025

 

“Keep These Words”
A Message by Rev. Scott W. Cousineau
Deuteronomy 6:4-9

            What words do we keep?

            The events of this past week should make us consider the question, ‘What words do we keep?’

            The socio-political, cultural dynamic of our country … our world … should make us consider, ‘What words do we keep?’

            The unimaginable amount of death and pain and suffering in our country and in our world should make us stop and ask ourselves, ‘What words do we keep?’

            Moses instructed the people to, “Keep these words.” And we have to ask ourselves, in this day and age, what words do we keep?

            I am going to be very candid with you this morning, since January I have received complaints or criticism from both “sides.” I have heard from people that have said that I have become too political, that the church has become too political. We have had at least one family leave the church because we have gotten too political. However, I have also heard criticism or comments from the other “side” saying that I have not been political enough.

            I have tried to thread the needle or walk the tightrope. Choose your favorite metaphor. I do not share this in order to elicit sympathy, so you have put your violins back in their cases. I share this in order to highlight the reality in which we all live right now.

            It is nearly impossible in our world today to imagine that there is one Truth. Because the reality of which I just spoke is that we live in a very divided world. We live in a divided world in which both sides of an argument or both sides of a relationship have their own “truth.”
            Democrats have their truths and Republicans each have their own truths.
            Liberals have their truths and Conservatives have their own truths.
            Billionaires have their truths, and the working class has theirs as well. The same goes for urban or the rural, natives or settlers, or immigrants, white people or people of color, and so on.

            The various groups with which we affiliate possess and follow their own “truths.” Of course, the truth of those “truths” is that they have been created and contextualized in order to support or justify their particular world view. They are “truths” of their own making. This reality is exacerbated by the fact that a vast majority of us live in information bubbles or silos. We associate with, and affiliate with like-minded people. If we even watch the news anymore, we watch networks, or analysts, or pundits, or podcasts that support our particular world view. Therefore, our “truths” rarely get challenged or examined.

            Are you uncomfortable yet? Are you gathering up your belongings looking for your first opportunity to bolt? To head for the door?

            Some of those who criticize me say, “I do not want to hear about that stuff! I go to worship to hear about God!”

            I get it. I would love to stand in this pulpit every Sunday and talk about rainbows and unicorns. Most Sundays I DO talk about God. I DO talk about God’s love and the power or love, and the need for love in today’s world. My original thought for today was to do a little ditty about teaching our children. After all, that is what the passage from Deuteronomy calls us to do. So, let us look at that passage.

            The Children of Israel were in the midst of the Exodus experience. They had fled from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. They were making their way toward their Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. They had been chased, cornered, threatened and delivered. They were hungry, and tired, and confused, and as we know, they grumbled and complained. They were being led toward freedom by Moses but at times wished that they were back in Egypt. At least in Egypt they had food to eat.

            Then Moses ascended Mount Sinai and received the Law of God, the Ten Commandments. Moses showed the tablets to the people but knew the challenges that he and the people still faced. He wanted to ensure that the Laws would not be forgotten. Despite all of the obstacles and challenges that the Children of Israel had already overcome, despite all of the support and blessings that they had already received from God, Moses’ greatest fear was that the people would be tempted to forget God’s Law.

            He said to them: “Hear, O Israel … Hear, Children of God … the Lord our God, is God 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.”

            The word “love” that we translate into English does not refer to an emotion in the ancient Hebrew. This command was not calling us to have affection for God, although that is certainly part of it. The word “love” is properly translated to mean “dedication.” It refers to “loyalty” and “commitment.”
This passage tells us that we are to dedicate ourselves, give ourselves to God with our whole heart, and our whole soul, and with all of our strength or might. We give our whole selves, our bodies and our minds and our souls to God. God is the Source, the Center. Our thoughts, our passions, our actions and attitudes are to be oriented toward God. God is what motivates the faithful. God is our first thought and our last. God is our first desire and our last.

            This is the ideal. This is the center of the faith. The People of Israel had just received the Ten Commandments from God, and then Moses said, “Hear, O Israel … Hear Children of God … keep these words … hold these words. Make these words your guiding star. Make God the focal point of your life.”

            That is the ideal for which we are to strive. That is the center, the foundation of our faith and life. Is it easy to achieve? Absolutely not. It was not easy then, and it is not easy now.

            The Children of Israel fled slavery in Egypt, a nation that had a pantheon of gods and goddesses. We live in a world in which there are still a pantheon of gods that people worship: the god of greed and the god of avarice, the god of fame and the god of power, the god of pleasure and the god of self-indulgence. The people of our day and age erect their temples and bow before these gods without any care or concern about who they hurt or destroy in the pursuit of their “truth.”

            So then, we return to the original question, ‘what words do we keep?’ What words do we recite when we rise in the morning and when we go to bed at night? What words do we impart upon our children? What words do we talk about at home and in the marketplace?

            How do we live in relationship with one another if and when we answer those questions with diametrically opposed responses?

            How can we live in a covenantal relationship with God … and be in relationship with people who have a very different understanding of what that covenant is and means? How can we build community with people that we do not want to be around?

            How do these words inform our Christian life and practice?

            These are big questions with very complex answers. These questions cannot be resolved in one fifteen-minute message. This is the beginning of a larger and ongoing conversation. The key is that we have to be willing to have that conversation. We have to be willing to live within the tension. We have to be willing to understand that the conversation may challenge some of our deeply held “truths.” Let us dedicate ourselves to having these difficult conversations.

             Today we are beginning our new program year. We commissioned our Church School teachers this morning, but we all play a part in teaching our children. They will be watching us and listening to us, they will be learning from our examples. May we be faithful in that.

            Keep these words. Let us make every effort to place God at the center of what we do. May we make every effort to dedicate our whole selves to following the will and the Way of God. And may we remember that Jesus Christ gave us the lens through which we view the world. Jesus gave us the insight to help us understand the nature of God. And Jesus came to fulfill the Law. He fulfilled those words, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might,” and added, “and a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two.” (Matthew 22:39-40)

            Let us keep these words. God loved us first and we are called to love as well. Let us love as Jesus calls us to love.

            And let us also recognize that there will be times when loving will mean standing up for those who are being pushed down.
There will be times when loving will mean saying “no” to acts of injustice and cruelty.
There will be times when loving will mean speaking up for those who do not have a voice.
There will be times when loving will mean having difficult conversations or doing things that will make us unpopular.

            In each and every case, we must be certain that we can discern whose voice is calling us to act. Are we following God’s Voice? Or is the “voice” one of our own making? May God bless each of us with wisdom and with compassionate hearts.

            Amen.

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