As the Israelites in the wilderness prepare to enter the Promised Land, Moses tells them that God will hold them accountable if they do not heed the Word of the Lord. Their wilderness sojourn had been very different from what they would find life to be like in Canaan. In the wilderness, led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, with manna provided daily, quails aplenty, and even water from the rock, it would have been hard for them to ignore the gracious providence of God sustaining them day by day. What awaited them across the Jordan were temptations galore; opportunity after opportunity to turn away from God, to forget the Word of God they had experienced in the wilderness. We know from scripture that God did indeed hold them accountable as, through the centuries, over and over again, they went their own way , failing to heed the prophets God sent to show them the way of love. From Moses to Isaiah to Malachi, all the way to Jesus, who summed up “all the law and the prophets” in saying “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind . . . And . . . your neighbor as yourself.” (Mt.22:37-40, Mk.12:29-31, Lk. 10:27).

God still holds us accountable for how we love one another. How are we called to manifest the love we experience from God to the world today? The answer is different for each of us, of course, as we are gifted in different ways in our uniqueness, but the goal for each is the same: to love God and one another in the same ways as Jesus did, unconditionally, sacrificially, compassionately. As the apostle Paul reminds the Corinthians in our epistle lesson for today, “Love builds up;” it doesn’t tear down. Paul goes on to describe the incarnational love for which we will be held accountable in Chapter 13 of that letter, setting a high standard for us. Reading that passage, we know it is impossible on our own; only as we are infused with and inspired by the Holy Spirit can we hope to attain it.