Day 54. Deuteronomy 8-11

The Book of Deuteronomy, as we mentioned before, is structured as a series of good-bye sermons of the kind that Moses might have preached to the people before his death. The constant theme of those sermons is memory. Our reading for today begins with the call to remember and consider the meaning of the past. "Remember the long way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness . . . ." (8:2), the voice of Moses says.
The result of remembering is not pride but humility. When the people think about their past, the memory of what has happened should bring them to a sober and realistic idea of who they are. It is not Israel's accomplishments but God's greatness that the Book of Deuteronomy celebrates.
It looks forward to something that has already happened—the people are settled in the Promised Land and they are prospering. When they have eaten their fill and prospered there, they should remember where they came from--the want and hunger they felt in the wilderness. The LORD has not only satisfied their physical hunger, but filled their spirits with life and meaning. "One does not live by bread alone," the prophet reminds them, "but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD" (8:3).
They will prosper, but they need to consider what their prosperity means, that it depends upon obedience. Therefore, in that settled time to come they should "not forget the LORD your God, by failing to keep his commandment, his ordinances, and his statutes" (8:11) In Deuteronomy Moses, God's intermediary, is always setting before them the choice--remember and live or forget and die. "If you do forget the LORD your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them," the preacher solemnly warns, "you shall surely perish" (8:19).
They must remember that their chosen-ness is a pure gift and not delude themselves into thinking that it is because of their essential goodness that the LORD has set them apart from other nations. When they are masters of the Promised Land they should not begin to say to themselves—"It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought [us] in to occupy this land" (9:4).
It is not because Israel is so good, but because the inhabitants of the land are so viciously evil that God is "dispossessing them" (9:6). The People of the Promise are chosen only by the irrational whim of divine love; they are good only by comparison, and their goodness comes only from the Law which God has gifted to them.
So in our reading for today Moses, the intermediary, stands between the people and God, calling them to remember their history, interpreting and making sense of it for them. "Remember and do not forget," he says, "how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness" (9:7). Memory functions to give them a realistic picture of their own stubbornness and waywardness and also of the LORD's faithfulness and constant love.
But at the same time that Moses reminds the people of their checkered past, he also reminds the LORD of his covenant with "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And on the basis of that memory he calls upon God "to be merciful" and "pay no attention to this stubbornness of [the] people, their wickedness and their sin" (9:27). He calls upon God to be himself, to remember his own faithfulness and to be the One who is worthy of love and fear.
The word "fear" when it is applied to God speaks to the complexity of our human relationship to the LORD. To fear God does not mean to be in terror of him, although a sense of God's awful holiness and absolute difference from us is part of a proper a "fear." "Fear" means something more like "mindfulness," a constant awareness that will not let us forget or disregard God. "He is your praise," the voice of Moses says to Israel--praising God for his remembered mercy and love is their meaning as a people (10:20).
And from our praise of the God who saves us you and I derive our purpose, and from our obedience to him we find our direction.
That obedience is motivated by love and not the terror of punishment. "You shall love the LORD your God," and because you do, you will, "keep his charge, his decrees, his ordinances, and his commandments always" (11:1).
That obedience has practical consequences—even meteorological ones. If the people remember to keep their part of the covenant, the LORD will remember to send the regular April and October rains that will make the Land of Promise fertile and green (11:14). If not, he will "shut up the heavens' (11:17).
It is always a choice placed anew before each generation—the choice of obedience. Children must be taught to make it. Not only must the people fix the words of God in their hearts and souls, they must also "teach them to [their] children" and "talk about them" both "at home" and away, making the covenant a visible as well as invisible reality in their lives" (11:19-20).
It is all part of the mindfulness which God expects of those who are chosen as his own—you and me. Do not forget, God says—that is the theme of our continuing readings. And these readings we are doing together will become a part our pattern of mindfulness and a way for God to speak to us, as he spoke to his servant Moses and through him to the people. . . . .