October 16, 2011 | 4:00 p.m.

Sweatshirts and Baseball Caps: Which Team Is Yours?

Judith L. Watt
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Deuteronomy 6:1–9

A couple of years ago, I spent a week in early June on Cape Cod. I was there for a week of study leave. I had arrived to my little cottage on Monday night. It was too late to get the supplies I needed, so on Tuesday morning I made a trip to the closest shopping area, Wellfleet, a tiny little Cape Cod town.

It was a cool and rainy morning, so I had put on a sweatshirt. One of my favorites. Actually it was this one: my Michigan sweatshirt. I know when I wear this sweatshirt it proclaims my team loyalties. I also know when I wear this sweatshirt it draws a variety of reactions—sometimes camaraderie and connection and sometimes venom and disgust. On that Tuesday, I hadn’t given it much thought. It was just a sweatshirt that I had quickly put on to keep me warm.

In Wellfleet, I parked, got out of the car, and started walking up the small hill to get to the general store. There were only a handful of people spread throughout this little downtown area, and I vaguely noticed one of them, standing on the sidewalk, talking on his cell phone. He had a baseball cap on, but I hadn’t paid any attention to the cap or to what it said. He was just someone I would pass. Just as I got next to him, lost in my own thoughts, it was as if he jumped out at me. In one fell swoop he took the phone away from his ear, took the cap off of his head, and held the cap right in front of my face and said, “Who would have thought this would have happened in the middle of Wellfleet, Massachusetts!” I had to back up a bit so I could see what was on his cap, and then I saw a gray cap, with scarlet red letters: OSU. Ohio State University.

My Michigan sweatshirt had caught his attention. My Michigan sweatshirt announced to him my team allegiance. His cap proclaimed his team allegiance to me. Michigan and Ohio State, longtime arch rivals. And there we were in the middle of Wellfleet, Massachusetts. “Who would have thought this would have happened,” he had said, “in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, at 8:00 a.m. on a cold and rainy morning?”

Sweatshirts, baseball caps, logos painted on faces the day of a game, banners and pennants, tattoos. We put on ourselves all sorts of things that announce who we are or to whom we are loyal or, at the very least, indicate something about our internal nature and what we value. The words from Deuteronomy today are words about allegiance. They ask the question, To whom will we be faithful? They urge the listeners, Be faithful and obedient to God and to God alone.

The majority of the whole book of Deuteronomy is written as if it is Moses’ last speech, his last sermon delivered to his people, standing on the banks of the Jordan River. These people are about to enter into the promised land. They are people who have been on this incredibly long journey, led by Moses, helped by his brother Aaron—the Exodus out of Egypt, the trip away from slavery toward a promised land. It was a land promised to them by a God who had saved them. They had traveled through hard times and successful times and, in Adam’s words last week in his sermon, they had also been through a fair amount of simply normal times, too. These were the people God had called into being, formed into a people, called into a way of worship—the worship of one God, in a land that was filled with people who believed in and worshiped many gods. These are not storybook characters, but instead are the people who were our ancestors of faith.

I once had a class in seminary that was called “The Yahwist Revolution.” The title of that class helped me to see what a revolution it was—a people being formed by a God who was a saving God, a God who demanded undivided devotion. In the ancient Near East, the worship of many gods was the norm. There was a god for everything. Yahweh called this people to worship one God and one God alone. To worship Yahweh in that context was indeed a revolution. And here they stood, on the banks of the Jordan, after years of travel and repeated periods of doubt, about to enter this promised land they’d been hearing about throughout the entire journey. Moses is giving them instruction. And the instruction is about allegiance.

If you look at chapter 5 of Deuteronomy, it begins, “Moses convened all Israel, and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today, you shall learn them and observe them diligently” The rest of chapter 5 reviews the commandments that were given on Mt. Sinai. Chapter 6 begins with three verses that are a bridge between what Moses has just reviewed and what he then says in verse 4: “Now hear, O Israel.” Listen to this.

It is as if Moses is saying, These commandments, the ones I’ve just reviewed for you, are the commandments God charged me with teaching to you so that you and your children can have long life. Do you hear the intent? The law given so that your life can be lived better. Law given not for the sake of setting out rules and regs so that someone can slip up and be punished, but law given so that your life can be lived better. Observe the commandments diligently, Moses says, even now, even now as you are about to realize your goal.

Hear, O Israel. These next six verses, verses 4–9, are called the Great Shema. Shema is the Hebrew word that can be translated “hear, listen.” Every Jewish worship service in synagogue and temple began with these words of Moses. Every Jewish Shabbat service today begins with these words. hear, listen, listen up. Imagining Moses giving these instructions reminds me of the intensity of instructions that are delivered by parents before a high school senior goes off to college. You are moving on to a next phase of your lives. This is what you should know.

Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one God, the Lord alone.
Allegiance. Remember who your God is. The Lord our God is one God, the Lord alone. Remember to whom you belong and to whom you owe your loyalty.

This morning in worship, Calum MacLeod prayed, “Dear God, we are a shaky people in a shaky world.” It is a shaky world we travel through, and it’s easy to lose sight of what we’re called to do and how we’re called to live. There’s a whole lot we don’t know and a mound of questions that remain unanswered for us, even when we take steps forward. It might be a good practice for us, even if only for this week, to try using these words, “Hear, O Israel, or hear, O Judy, or hear, O Jim or Sue or Lucy, the Lord my God is one God, the Lord alone.” Think about starting your day using these words as a confession, a reminder to jog your memories. God demands our full allegiance.

In a classic book called The History of Israel, by John Bright, there is a whole section about the formation of the people Israel, not to be confused with the present-day nation-state of Israel. The structure of their formation was grounded according to covenantal formula, a formula common to ancient governments. The leader of a people would care for those people, and in return, the people would pledge their allegiance. Bright says, “Israel, as we have seen, was made up of elements of exceedingly heterogeneous origin, and she was held together by no central government or machinery of state, yet for some two hundred years, with incredible toughness and under the most adverse of circumstances, she managed to survive and maintain her identity as people” (John Bright, The History of Israel, p. 149). Bright says it is hard to see how this could have been true without this solemn pact between the people and Yahweh—the covenant between God and God’s people.

Might we start our days remembering what God has done for us? There is wisdom in the adage count your blessings. It is a habit used often by those in recovery. Name blessings each and every day. Take stock of how God has saved you and what God has given you, and then pledge again your allegiance to God and God alone.

A confession of loyalty in response to unmerited grace and favor.

There are days I wake up in the morning with a full day in front of me, feeling overloaded and burned out. And if I’m fortunate, I’ll make myself carve out five minutes of quiet, with my coffee, in a quiet space in my condo. Sometimes all I can do is to just sit there and say, in my heart and to God, “Here I am, God. Thank you. Help me be yours today.” Doing that in the morning doesn’t always guarantee that I have a 5-star day, but there’s something about it that at least sets me off in the right direction. Allegiance. Loyalty. Remembering to whom I belong.

There’s more to the Great Shema—instruction not only to be loyal but to love God, to love God with all of our hearts and minds and souls. In other words, our allegiance to God is not supposed to be an allegiance without heart and feeling. Keep these commandments in our heart, Moses instructs, as though they are written—written as boldly as Michigan is written on this sweatshirt. Imagine your hearts inscribed “The Lord is my God, the Lord alone.” Recite the commandments, teach your children, bind the commandments as a sign on your hand. Imagine your allegiance to God stamped on your hand permanently. Why? Because God has saved us and promises that if we follow God’s ways, our lives will be improved. Not necessarily with things or material resources or prosperity, but with hearts changed and fulfilled.

I like to imagine Moses worried about this people he has led—worried for their success, loving them so much that he wants everything he was instructed to teach them to stick. I like to imagine Moses thinking about all of the pitfalls they could face as they cross that river into the promised land. I’m reminded of poem called “Ithaka,” which in part goes like this:

As you set out for Ithaka,
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laestrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—you won’t encounter them,
you’ll never find things like that as long
as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body.
Laestrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon, don’t be afraid of them.
You’ll never encounter them
unless you take them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
(Cavafy, “Ithaka”)

This is a shaky world, and there is fear and unsettledness. The next time you put on your favorite team sweatshirt or cap with your company logo on it, have fun wearing them, but remember that your real allegiance is written on your heart and ask God to help you remember every day that the Lord is your God, the Lord alone, because the Lord is the one who has saved us and loved us.