Loving God with Your "Muchness"

Deut 6:4-5 “ Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, and all your “muchness.”

Most followers of Christ can easily agree that Jesus sums up our duty in two commands: love God and love our neighbor. He refers back to the shema, which means “hear” in reference to the first word of the prayer. Hear is not just auditory, but implies “hear-do.” It is like a call and response poem. Hear, O Israel, and do this…

The “Shema” series by thebibleproject (source for this material) does a great job explaining the key words of the prayer. The general idea is that love is choice of self-sacrifice for the benefit of another. Your heart is your will and affections. Your soul is your whole life and physical being. But the last word is odd. You will notice in Mark 12, Jesus uses the words “mind and power.” Why is it different and what does this say about its meaning?

The word in Hebrew is “me’od.” It is translated as strength, but this is one of the only places in the Hebrew Bible that it is translated this way. There are other words used for strength and power. Me’od appears in scripture hundreds of times. It is typically translated “very” or “much.” Genesis 1:31, on the seventh day God calls creation “very (me’od) good.” Genesis 7:18, the flood was me’od powerful. Genesis 4:5, Cain was me’od angry with Abel. 1 Samuel 11:15, King Saul was me’od happy. It is an adverb used to intensify meaning. When used twice,” me’od me’od,” increases the value and the force of a word to its max capacity. Genesis 30:43, Jacob was me’od me’od wealthy. The Israeli spies returned from the land and said it was me’od me’od good in Numbers 14.

So, it not physical strength. The word conveys the idea of not a thing in particular, but everything in general. It is every possibility, opportunity, ability, and capacity you possess. It is not a thing, but everything. Love God with everything. It is the widest and most expansive word in the shema.

The scholars that translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek used the word “dunamis,” which means power or strength. Most modern translations adopted this. Ancient Aramaic translations used the word “wealth.” This is concrete and opens all sorts of opportunities to love God and give away resources.

Jesus said “mind and power” in Mark 12. These words help unpack the meaning. All of our human capacities can be used to love God and neighbor. Everything, every moment, every opportunity, every ability can be used to love and honor the One who made us.

God wants us to love this way, in the entirety of our capacity, our muchness. The Mad Hatter examines Alice and notices something is not right. “‎You're not the same as you were before," he said. “You were much more... muchier... you've lost your muchness (Lewis Carrol).” The word “muchness” actually dates back to medieval times and means “greatness in quality or degree” or “extravagance.” Consider Timothy Keller’s the Prodigal God. The story of God’s extravagant love for the unlovable is His “muchness” love toward us.

What does the Hatter notice about Alice? What is wrong with her? She has become small in stature and thinking. Losing muchness is contracting, getting smaller, confined. Muchness, as a comparative term, would be to expand, be more, a larger capacity. When our love toward God is small, enclosed, locked up, cautious, and guarded, it is devoid of the the very quality God created within us when He created us in His image. He is muchness and makes muchness out of us.

Alice could not slay, would not slay… yet to face the Jaberwocky was tied to her purpose. The Bible tells us there are dragons and they can be defeated. There are floods, snakes, beasts, walls, and giants. And they will fall. To love God with muchness may mean, as it did for Alice, that we grow our capacity to trust and become what the situation requires - a dragon slayer, a slayer of Jabberwocky.

This requires the belief in impossible things God specializes in impossibility. It is at the core of His muchness. Alice would often believe six impossible things before breakfast. In remembrance of the impossible things she has seen, the extravagant things, she finds the muchness she needs to believe a new impossible thing- she can slay he Jabberwocky!

Our muchness emerges from offering ourselves to do impossible things out of love of God and neighbor. Out of love for us, God has done many impossible things. Nothing will be impossible for God. But His impossible acts emerge from extravagant love. “ Can’t you see what love has done, what it’s doing to me (Bono, U2).” Love makes much of us!

We can cross the Red Sea, we can defeat giants, the sun can stop, an angel army surrounds us, we can walk around in fire, we walk on water, God can become a baby, people come back from the dead, and Jesus will make all things new.

Trusting God in impossible situations makes us “much muchier.” It makes life fascinating. We discover things about ourselves and God that small, constricted thinking cannot begin to believe. We remember who we really are. We become much more ourselves than we ever were before.