Sunday, September 8th, 2024 "Original Words: Checed"
First United Presbyterian Church
“Original Words: Checed”
Rev. Amy Morgan
September 8, 2024
Psalm 136:1-9, 23-26
One: Give thanks to GOD, for GOD is good,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever.
One: Give thanks to the God of gods,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever.
One: Give thanks to the Ruler of rulers,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever.
One: Who only does great wonders,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever;
One: Who by wisdom made the heavens,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever;
One: Who spread out the earth upon the waters,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever;
One: Who created great lights,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever;
One: The sun to rule the day,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever;
One: The moon and the stars to govern the night,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever.
One: Who remembered us in our low estate,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever;
One: And delivered us from our enemies,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever;
One: Who gives food to all creatures,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever.
One: Give thanks to the God of heaven,
Many: for GOD’s steadfast love endures for ever.
Exodus 34:1-9
The Lord said to Moses, “Cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready in the morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. 3 No one shall come up with you, and do not let anyone be seen throughout all the mountain, and do not let flocks or herds graze in front of that mountain.” 4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone. 5 The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name, “The Lord.” 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed,
“The Lord, the Lord,
a God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
7 keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
yet by no means clearing the guilty,
but visiting the iniquity of the parents
upon the children
and the children’s children
to the third and the fourth generation.”
8 And Moses quickly bowed down to the ground and worshiped. 9 He said, “If now I have found favor in your sight, my Lord, I pray, let my Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance.”
Ki leolaym hasdow. These words might not sound familiar. But we all know them. We should know them very well. Because just a moment ago, we all repeated this phrase 13 times. Ki leolaym hasdow. God’s steadfast love endures forever.
When we read the Bible in English, it’s easy to forget that we are reading a translation from languages most of us don’t understand. Some parts of scripture have become inscribed on our hearts and therefore feel eternal and unchangeable. When we hear a different translation from the one we’re familiar with, the scriptures sometimes just feel wrong. To hear them in the language in which they were originally written renders them incomprehensible.
For the next several weeks, we’re going to lean into this discomfort. I’ve chosen 4 words that come up a lot in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures, and we’re going to do a deep dive into the meaning and nuances of those words. We’re going to explore the variety of ways they get translated into English and the variety of ways they are used throughout the scriptures.
My hope is that this series will remind us that behind any English translation of the Bible we read, there are original words that challenge us to keep an open mind about how we interpret scripture. My hope is that we’ll start to recognize these words when they come up, even if you’re not reading the Bible in Hebrew or Greek. My hope is that these words deepen our connection to God’s Word so that we might draw closer in our relationship to the God who is characterized by these recurring words.
Today’s word is the Hebrew word checed. I’ve talked about this word several times before, so it may already be somewhat familiar. But let’s just start by getting comfortable saying it. Checed.
In Psalm 136, checed comes up a lot. That phrase, Ki leolaym hasdow , is repeated over and over, as the Psalmist describes God’s goodness, power, creativity, salvation, and providence. The section of the Psalm we skipped remembers all that God did for Israel in liberating them from slavery in Egypt, overpowering their enemies, and bringing them into the Promised Land. That word hasdow is a noun form of the adjective checed. And so if all these things illustrate God’s checed, it seems like checed is somehow related to goodness, power, creativity, salvation, providence, and liberation. That’s a lot to put on one little word, but that’s kind of how the Hebrew language operates.
In the translation we read today, checed is translated as “steadfast love.” Other English translations render this word as “gracious love,” “mercy,” “loving-kindness,” “unfailing love,” or simply “love.” The Message, a paraphrased version of the English Bible, says, God’s “love never quits.”
Now, not all Hebrew words have this many different English translations. When you compare English translations of the Bible and find this much variety, you know you are dealing with a complex term.
One thing I love about ancient Hebrew is that translation is more of an art than a science. The context of a word is essential for understanding its meaning. And other words that share the same root can influence how you understand this word.
For example, the Hebrew root that makes up the word checed is the same root for a word meaning shame or reproach. So I start to wonder: what does love, kindness, and mercy have to do with shame and reproach? How are these two words connected? How do their meanings influence each other?
Our passage from Exodus this morning answers that question. Moses went up the mountain to talk to God, and he was gone for weeks. The Israelites basically gave up on him and asked Aaron to make them a new god. Aaron obliged, and Moses finally came back down the mountain hauling two hefty stone tablets inscribed with God’s commandments, only to find the Israelites blatantly breaking the FIRST and SECOND commandments by worshiping a golden calf. Moses let his anger get the better of him and smashed the stone tablets on the ground. He burned the golden calf and ground it up, put it in water and made the Israelites drink it. Talk about shame and reproach.
God and Moses are angry at the people. They’ve done a shameful thing. They deserve God’s wrath and punishment.
But God is a God of checed – mercy, love, kindness. That checed overcomes shame and reproach with steadfast love, a love that never quits. God calls Moses back up the mountain and tries again. Another set of tablets is created by God, who is self-defined as “abounding in checed.” Checed is the defining characteristic of God. Steadfast love, mercy, and kindness are the core of God’s being.
This doesn’t mean that God ignores the terrible things humans do. God tells Moses that God’s checed, God’s mercy, will extend a thousand generations. But God knows that the hurt humans cause gets passed down through the generations. Generational trauma, family dysfunction, corporate sin are not immediately eliminated because God is good and gracious. But notice that God says guilt is visited on three or four generations. And contrast that with God’s checed, that lasts for a thousand generations. Checed, steadfast love, is forever. Our actions have consequences. Shame and reproach are realities we must live with, but because of God’s checed, we do not have to live with them forever.
God creates new tablets. God renews the covenant with Israel. Because God’s love never quits. It keeps trying, again and again. It is steadfast, through all the failures and faults of human experience. God keeps trying again, giving us another chance.
When the law could not ultimately put us in loving relationship with God, God tried again. God became human in Jesus Christ, to experience the frailty and pain of being human and to demonstrate what living out God’s checed looked like in the flesh. And when humans crucified Jesus, God did not give up. God’s steadfast love resurrected Jesus as a sign that God would never, never give up on us. Even death cannot deter God’s checed. God’s steadfast love endures forever.
So checed is not the kind of love that requires us to be good and obedient, loving and beautiful, righteous and kind. Checed is the kind of love that requires nothing of us. It is the only kind of love that can endure through shame and reproach, brokenness and sin.
God loves this way because it is who God is. But we are created in the image of God. Which means we are capable of checed, too. We can be defined by that same steadfast love God demonstrates, again and again.
But instead, we lean into shame and reproach. Political debate is no longer defined by disagreement about issues, policies, or positions. Political opponents are shamed and condemned and dehumanized. We can’t have a conversation with someone who holds differing political views, because we find it shameful for someone to vote for this or that candidate or support this or that cause or policy.
When we are wronged, or hurt, or offended, we blame, accuse, and belittle the person or entity who has caused us pain. Social media is flooded with rants about people who don’t put away their grocery carts, people who don’t tip their barista, and people who do or don’t display the American flag. It can feel like no matter what we do these days, someone is going to shame us for it.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. It isn’t how God made us. God made us to have checed, to love steadfastly, to love unconditionally, to love and never quit. And it may seem impossible when we look around the world today, but I know that we are capable of checed.
I know this because of a couple who attended my church in Michigan. They were an older retired couple without any children. They served on the Mission team and helped at the church camp and were generally just lovely, kind, cheerful folks.
But then I learned that they did have a child. At 30 years old, their only daughter had been killed by a drunk driver. They were devastated, angry, and deeply grieved by this loss, this loss caused by someone’s carelessness.
The district attorney sought the harshest penalty for the driver, a prison sentence of 20 years. The case against the driver was strong, and the judge was known for enforcing extreme penalties.
But this couple knew that no matter how long this man spent in prison, it would not bring their daughter back to life. They knew they could live the rest of their lives feeling anger at the shameful thing this man had done. But they knew that was not how God made them.
With the checed of God, the couple attended the trial of the driver who had killed their only child and argued for him to receive a lighter sentence.
That is checed. That love that never gives up, that endures even through anger and pain, grief and hurt, shame and reproach. Checed does not pretend that everything is fine. It looks directly into the face of the one who has done wrong and says, “I love you anyway.”
Checed is not easy. And on the days when we’re not up for it, we can remember that we are not God, and our humanity means we will not always live perfectly into the image of God. Checed is not easy. But it is possible.
We are loved by a God who is defined by checed – steadfast love, lovingkindness, mercy, unconditional love, a love that never quits, a love that last for a thousand generations. If we can open ourselves to receiving that love, experiencing that love, trusting that love, perhaps we can find a little more of it within us. Perhaps we can transform shame and reproach into steadfast love, into checed. Perhaps we will find that checed is truly the core of who we are created to be.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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