Readings: Deuteronomy 4: 1-12; 1 Thessalonians 2: 1-8; Matthew 22: 34-46
Today’s reading from the last chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy is about the death of Moses. He went up a high mountain and saw the entire country God had promised to his people – the first promise of the divine plan. In the second last chapter of Deuteronomy, Chapter 33, Moses gives his final blessings to the tribes of Israel. The idea that a leader should extend his blessing at the end of his life is seen often – in the Book of Genesis for example, we have the blessing of Isaac and the blessing of Jacob. In Genesis, the blessing was given to individuals and their family. Here, the blessing of Moses extends to all the tribes of Israel (Reuben, Benjamin, Joseph, Gad, Dan, Asher etc). `Israel, how happy you are. There is no one else like you – a nation saved by the Lord.’ (Deut 33, 29)

So we can say the last two chapters of the Book of Deuteronomy tell us three things –

• Moses is raised to the status of a great leader entitled to give a blessing to an entire people. Up till now in Deuteronomy, Moses had been an agent of God. Now, Moses gives blessing in his own name. We`ve already heard in the reading that Moses had full command of his faculties right up to his death.
  
  
• These last two chapters of the Book of Deuteronomy enable the authors to end on a theme of blessing. The Torah has plenty of laws, many `thou shalts` and `thou shalt nots` but underlying all these laws is blessing. We could say the whole Pentateuch, the entire Torah, the complete Law of Moses is a pathway to blessing. Blessing is the point of the law, its outcome, its fruit.
  
  
• Moses died with `unimpaired sight and undiminished vigour.` (Deut 34, 7)

`For there has never been a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.` (Deut 34, 10)

With Moses, something new occurred, something entirely original happened. Think back to the captivity of the Jewish people in Egypt. Moses saw his people`s oppression and, on the one hand, intended to dismantle the repressive empire of Pharaoh and, on the other hand, he set about the formation of a new community focused on the religion of God`s own freedom and the politics of justice and compassion.

And so from a reading of the Pentateuch, we can detect a wonderful progression, an astonishing blooming of divine intentions for humanity and all creation. Despite human wilfulness, we read from the call of Abraham onwards

• The promise of land
  
• The promise of descendants
  
• The blessing of these descendants
  
• The outreach of this blessing to all peoples and to all creation itself.

Scientists refer to the big bang as the beginning of the cosmos. Maybe, with the help of religion and the divine revelation, we should qualify it a bit and call it the big bloom.

Let`s now come up to around 50 AD, the time of the writing of 1 Thessalonians. This letter was probably the first bit of writing in the whole of the New Testament and it seems to have been written by Paul himself.

There is an Afro-American spiritual with the line, `But nobody knows my troubles like Jesus`. There seemed to be a group of very early Christians in Thessalonica who took this idea to an extreme. These people interpreted the saying in 1 Thessalonians 1: 10 `Jesus who rescues us from the wrath to come` as seeing Jesus as a kind of figure (CABIRUS) who would magically take away all our earthly troubles. These people disregarded the elders, they believed they would not die before Christ came again, and they felt so secure in Christ that `anything goes`, so to speak. Paul says, sure Christ has brought in a new age but no one is immune from troubles. Paul`s message of liberation in Christ does not open the way to sexual or any other licence. To receive the Gospel of Jesus is no magic shielding us from the normal burdens of life. Any expectation of exemption from adversity is an illusion. This is the message of 1 Thessalonians today.

And now to Matthew`s reading for today; this is a Jewish gospel written mainly for Jewish Christians. Some biblical scholars are now saying that Matthew was written to encourage the Jewish Christian congregation to reach out more to the gentiles around them. It is interesting that no New Testament writings are missionary documents written for non-believers. This passage today comes near the end of Jesus` life. It is referred to by some as the double love commandment - the love of God and the love of neighbour. This passage nearing the end of the gospel reminds us of the earlier passage of Jesus` teaching on the love for enemies in the Sermon on the Mount. These commandments about love, love commandments, give additional focus to the just and equitable relationships promised by the Beatitudes and go back much further, back to the new community of Moses, a thousand years before Christ - that new covenant community that gave equality to and protection for the stranger, the widow and the orphan. The love commandment in Deuteronomy 6 and the double love commandment in Matthew 22 serve as the very centre of both the Torah (Law) of Moses and the life and teaching of Jesus.

This is a foundational idea and a transformative personal and communitarian experience in all biblical teaching. After the incident of the people in the wilderness wishing they were back in Egypt and melting down gold to make the image of a golden calf as an idol, Moses begged God to reveal himself and renew the Covenant. The first response of God to Moses was, `I the Lord, am a God who is full of compassion, who is not easily angered and who shows great love and faithfulness.`

The same compassion prompts Matthew to focus on Jesus` identification with others, especially the sick and the marginalised, the forgotten ones, the desperate ones among the people of his day. Joseph Grassi has said that Matthew`s gospel is the great community gospel – the church gospel, the only gospel that uses the word ecclesia (Church – Mt 16:18, 18:18). It is the community of Christ, the community of love, the community of justice, the community of peace, because Christ and love and justice and peace are always realised, fulfilled and perfected in a community.

Just like this one!