Six hundred and thirteen.  There are six hundred and thirteen commandments, or mitzvah, in the Jewish law.  Six hundred and thirteen laws given to the people of God by their God, all of which are supposed to carry the authority of the divine pronouncement.  It makes one's head swim just imagining the attempt to learn and remember them all, let alone to carry them out in the midst of our lives.  When the religious authorities approach Jesus with the question, "which commandment in the law is the greatest?" they are attempting to set a trap for him that will either demonstrate his ignorance or his blasphemy.

Well, Jesus is no fool, and he has only the deepest respect for his own Jewish tradition.  He knows the law and more important than that he knows the spirit of the law, he knows God's intention for giving us the law.  Jesus quotes from the Shema, one of the most vital elements of the worship liturgy of the Jews.  The shema, as we heard from our reading in Deuteronomy this morning, proclaims the oneness of God and pledges fealty to this singular entity, the Holy One of Israel.  It then goes on to suggest the radical notion that we are called to love this God.  In our religious life today this does not sound like that big a deal.  But in a culture and time in human history when most religions taught people to relate to their God or Gods solely with fear and respect, this was a world changing idea;  an audacious idea, that the vast chasm between limited mortality and limitless divinity could be bounded by our love.  Jesus seizes upon this radical notion from the tradition and brings it together with a commandment from the Levitical code that we should love our neighbors as ourselves.
 
You see, Jesus understands the value of the Torah, the law, of the commandments, of the mitzvahs, given to us by God.  We are not given the law by God so we can jump through some random hoops to please our creator.  The law given to us by God is a gift to help us live in the fullest way possible.  The law is a blueprint by God of the ways in which we can live best together in community.

Jesus recognizes that our response to God's law should come from some sense of fear that disobeying the law will bring us punishment but we should respond to the law with a sense of joy that God loves us enough to help us order our lives in the best possible way.  The law is a loving gift from God and our response to this gift should be loving.  Jesus strikes at the crux of the matter.  He says to his inquirer, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"

 I would like to share a story with you from Syd Lieberman, a wonderful Jewish story teller who shared traditional folktales of the Jewish people.
 
"At the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the Jews were expelled from Spain, they went all over--France, Germany, Salonica in Greece.  Some went to the holy land.  Among them was Jacobi.  He was a shoemaker by trade, a round man, with a round face, a round body.  He was even a little bow-legged.  A kind man.  But the thing that everybody said about Jacobi was that he was so devout.

 He would go to synagogue every Sabbath and listen intently to what the rabbi was saying, and that was odd because Jacobi spoke Spanish and the rabbi spoke Hebrew.  But still he'd screw up his face and listen and listen, trying to catch every word.

 On one Sabbath the rabbi gave a sermon, and in it he mentioned how twelve loaves of bread were offered to God  when the Holy Temple was still in Jerusalem.  Jacobi understood the word 'bread,' and he understood the word 'God.'  He got so excited he ran home to his wife. 'Esperanza,' he said, 'guess what I found out?  God eats bread!  You are the best baker in the whole country.  Make this week a pan de Dios and I'll bring it to God.'

 That week Esperanza kneaded in the best ingredients, put in her best intentions, and braided the bread with love.  The next week Jacobi proudly carried his loaves to the synagogue.  'Senor Dios,' he said when he entered, 'I've got your bread.  You'll see, you'll love it.  My wife, Esperanza, she's a wonderful baker.  You'll eat every loaf, every crumb!'  And with that he took the bread and put it into the holy ark.

No sooner did he leave than in came the shammes, the synagogue's caretaker.  'Lord, you know I love to be here in this holy place.  That's all I want.  But seven weeks now I've been working and I haven't been paid.  I need you to do something--a miracle!  You should make for me a miracle.  I believe you are going to.  Maybe you've even done it already.  Maybe I'll open the holy ark, and there will be a miracle there.'  The shammes walked to the ark and opened it, and there indeed was his miracle--twelve loaves of bread.  Two for the first Sabbath meal, two for the second, two for the third, and one loaf for every day of the week.
 
The next day, when Jacobi and Esperanza opened the ark and saw that there was no bread there, you should have seen the look of love that passed between them.  The next week it was the same, and the week after it was the same.  The shammes learned to have faith in God...

 And so, thirty years went by. Thirty years later, Jacobi came to the synagogue with his load of bread.
'Senor, Dios, I know your bread's been lumpy lately.  Esperanza's arthritis.  Maybe you could do something?
You'd eat better.'  Jacobi put the bread in the ark and started to leave, when suddenly the rabbi grabbed him.

 'What are you doing?' the rabbi demanded.
'I'm bringing God his bread,' Jacobi replied.
'God doesn't eat bread!'
 'Well, he's been eating Esperanza's bread for thirty years!'

 The rabbi and Jacobi hid to see if they could figure out what was going on. No sooner did they hide than in came the shammes.  He began to mutter.  'I hate to bring it up, but you know your bread's been lumpy lately.  Maybe you could talk with an angel.'  And he reached in to grab the bread, when suddenly the rabbi jumped out and grabbed him.  The rabbi began to yell at the two men, telling them how sinful they were.  He ranted on and on until all three men began to cry.  Jacobi began to cry because he wanted only to do good.  The rabbi began to cry because all of this happened as a result of his sermon.  The shammes began to cry because suddenly he realized there was going to be no more bread.

 Over the sound of their weeping, the three men suddenly heard laughter in the corner.  They turned.  It was the great mystic of Safed, Isaac Luria.  He was shaking his head and laughing.  He said, 'Oh rabbi, these men, these men are not sinful.  These men are devout.  You should know that God has never had more fun than watching what goes on in your synagogue on the Sabbath.  He sits with his angels and they laugh.  I mean, this man brings the bread and that man takes the bread, and God gets all the credit.

 'You must beg forgiveness of these men, Rabbi.'  Then he looked at Jacob, and he said, 'Jacobi, you must do something even more difficult.  You must bring your bread directly to the shammes.  And you must believe with perfect faith that God will be just as pleased and have just as much fun.'  And so it was, and so it is."

 Westminster church has been the recipient of a wonderful gift, an invitation from our brothers and sisters at Temple Beth Zion to join them in their celebration of Mitzah day.  Each year the congregation from the temple
sets aside a day to celebrate the gift we have been given in God's law by demonstrating their love of their neighbors throughout the city of Buffalo.  On this day they engage in all sorts of different efforts to help those in need.  This year we have been invited to join them in this effort.  On Sunday, April 28th we will come together as brothers and sisters of faith and seek to be the bringers of the bread in whatever form that may be, from Habitat homes, to clean up projects, to spending time with the lonely and the forgotten...We will place our deepest trust and faith that every action we make on behalf of others is an oblation a gift from us back to our generous God, the giver of the law.

On this weekend as we remember the life and ministry of Martin Luther King Jr, let us continue his dream of a just community by joyfully responding to God's love With our own love to our brothers and sisters in this city.
Following worship, the cochairs of our effort, Nancy Hanavan and Peter Loomis will be in the Holmes room sharing more information and signing people up who wish to be involved.

Stop by the table.  Show your love for God.  Join us on Mitzvah day.

Amen.