# No God but the Lord Alone Bishop Barrons Sunday Sermon

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 2 Oct 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74728395/no_god_but_the_lord_alone_bishop_barrons_sunday_sermon.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you. Friends, we are on very, very
[0:04] Speaker 1: holy ground with our Gospel today because someone asks Jesus,
[0:09] Speaker 1: which is the greatest commandment? So we're going to hear
[0:13] Speaker 1: not just from a rabbi, not just from a prophet,
[0:16] Speaker 1: a merely human figure. We're going to hear from Christ himself,
[0:19] Speaker 1: the Word made flesh. What is the single greatest commandment?
[0:24] Speaker 1: And so we better listen very carefully. Well, he responds
[0:29] Speaker 1: the way really any devout Jew of the first century,
[0:32] Speaker 1: or indeed a devout Jew of today, would respond. He
[0:36] Speaker 1: responds with the famous Shema. It's a prayer derived from
[0:42] Speaker 1: the sixth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. Look it up, please, everybody,
[0:45] Speaker 1: when you have a chance. Get out your Bibles. Deuteronomy,
[0:49] Speaker 1: chapter 6, and you'll find the Shema. Let me say
[0:52] Speaker 1: it to you in the lovely Hebrew. Shema Yisrael, Adonai Yisrael.
[0:59] Speaker 1: Eloheinu Adonai Echad. That's the beginning of the Shema. Here's
[1:04] Speaker 1: what it means. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God
[1:13] Speaker 1: is Lord alone. Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. It's
[1:22] Speaker 1: the fundamental statement of Israelite religion. And It's the commandment
[1:28] Speaker 1: that Jesus identifies as the most basic. In a way,
[1:33] Speaker 1: everything else in the Bible, everything else indeed in Christian life,
[1:38] Speaker 1: is a footnote to the Shema. And from it follows
[1:44] Speaker 1: a basic moral imperative. Listen. Therefore, you shall love the
[1:49] Speaker 1: Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
[1:55] Speaker 1: and with all your strength. There's our religion. There's the faith.
[2:02] Speaker 1: Pious Jews in the Old Testament were enjoined to recite
[2:05] Speaker 1: the Shema morning and night as they rose and went
[2:08] Speaker 1: to bed. In many ways, the Christian practice of morning
[2:11] Speaker 1: prayer and evening prayer follows from this custom. They were
[2:16] Speaker 1: to recite it as their last words. They were to
[2:20] Speaker 1: enjoin it upon their children. Indeed, the Bible says to
[2:24] Speaker 1: drill it into your children. They were to carry a
[2:27] Speaker 1: parchment containing these words in a little box on their forehead.
[2:33] Speaker 2: That's how central, how unavoidable, how indispensable the Shema was. And,
[2:40] Speaker 2: as I've been saying, it holds huge importance for Christians
[2:44] Speaker 2: in the measure that Jesus himself, when asked, identifies this
[2:48] Speaker 2: as the most fundamental command.
[2:52] Speaker 1: Okay. So what does it mean? Well, Shema, there's that
[2:56] Speaker 1: opening word. It means listen. Hear, hear, O Israel. Don't
[3:06] Speaker 1: just rush past that. It's very important. As I've said
[3:09] Speaker 1: to you a hundred times, the great program of modernity,
[3:13] Speaker 1: and all of us, whether we want to or not,
[3:16] Speaker 1: whether we know it or not, we are immersed in
[3:20] Speaker 1: the assumptions of modernity. Autonomy. Autonomy. Self-direction. Autonomous. I'm my
[3:28] Speaker 1: own law. I tell you what I think. I tell
[3:34] Speaker 1: you what my values are. How important today that my
[3:39] Speaker 1: voice is heard, that you listen to my story. Now,
[3:42] Speaker 1: there's something to that. Don't get me wrong. I'm not
[3:45] Speaker 1: completely bad-mouthing all that. But nevertheless, that is not the
[3:51] Speaker 1: assumption of the Bible. The opening word is not, hey,
[3:54] Speaker 1: listen to me. Hear my voice. The opening move is Shema. Listen.
[4:04] Speaker 1: Adam's problem was he didn't listen to the command of
[4:08] Speaker 1: the Lord. And from that inattention followed the sin that
[4:14] Speaker 1: destroyed the world. Abraham is the founder of the holy
[4:20] Speaker 1: people Israel. Why? Because he listened. Because he heard a
[4:24] Speaker 1: higher voice, a voice beyond his own autonomy, beyond his
[4:29] Speaker 1: own self-assertion. He listened to a higher voice. Shema. Listen. Listen. Hear,
[4:42] Speaker 1: O Israel. Shema Yisrael. Israel. You know what it means?
[4:50] Speaker 1: The people that wrestle with God. I love that. It's
[4:54] Speaker 1: so good. What's the trouble with secularism? I'll tell you
[4:57] Speaker 1: exactly what it is. It's a bracketing of God. Even
[5:02] Speaker 1: if I believe in, oh, some kind of vague first principle,
[5:05] Speaker 1: I don't take God seriously. I just maybe vaguely acknowledge
[5:09] Speaker 1: his existence. But Israel, this people that listened to God's voice,
[5:15] Speaker 1: then became a people that wrestled with him. That great
[5:19] Speaker 1: image of Jacob wrestling with the angel, that's what it means.
[5:23] Speaker 1: That you take God and God's demands with such seriousness
[5:26] Speaker 1: that you wrestle even when you don't understand them. Even
[5:30] Speaker 1: when it's not making sense to you, you wrestle with God.
[5:35] Speaker 1: Don't give in to the blandness of secularism that brackets God. No, no. Hear,
[5:41] Speaker 1: O Israel. Paul says the Church is the new Israel.
[5:46] Speaker 1: So all of us followers of Christ, We're meant to
[5:49] Speaker 1: be wrestlers with God, too. So here, O Israel, the
[5:56] Speaker 1: Lord your God. God. And I say, you can look
[6:03] Speaker 1: at God philosophically as a prime mover, a first cause,
[6:07] Speaker 1: an abstract principle. Oh, but the Bible's got no truck
[6:12] Speaker 1: with that. The Lord your God, Adonai, the Lord, The Lord.
[6:18] Speaker 1: That means the commander. That means the one who is
[6:22] Speaker 1: commanding your will. The one who wants to have a
[6:26] Speaker 1: directive role in your life. The one to whom your
[6:29] Speaker 1: will and your plan should be submitted. God is not
[6:33] Speaker 1: satisfied to be in the deep background of one's life. No, no. Hear,
[6:38] Speaker 1: O Israel, the Lord your God. What's it like to
[6:43] Speaker 1: be a servant of this divine Lord? Well, that's biblical religion.
[6:49] Speaker 1: Think of so much of modernity predicated on people like
[6:54] Speaker 1: Isaac Newton or Thomas Jefferson or maybe Ralph Waldo Emerson
[6:57] Speaker 1: in our setting, where God at best is a distant
[7:01] Speaker 1: deist force. That is not the Bible. Hear, O wrestlers
[7:07] Speaker 1: with God, the Lord your God. That's now to be
[7:12] Speaker 1: in the right relationship. Now, what do we hear about
[7:16] Speaker 1: the Lord our God? The Lord is one. The Lord
[7:24] Speaker 1: is Lord alone. Now, everybody, this is of such decisive
[7:30] Speaker 1: significance that we've got to spend a little bit of time.
[7:33] Speaker 1: Is it a statement, abstractly and philosophically, of monotheism? Sure,
[7:38] Speaker 1: that there's one God. I mean, Israel bequeaths to the world,
[7:42] Speaker 1: bequeaths to God, our Western culture, certainly, this belief in
[7:46] Speaker 1: the unity of God, the unicity of God. So at
[7:49] Speaker 1: the theoretical, theological level, very important claim of monotheism. But
[7:56] Speaker 1: can I follow Josef Ratzinger here, the great theologian who
[8:00] Speaker 1: became eventually Pope Benedict XVI? Ratzinger claims that the unicity
[8:06] Speaker 1: and unity of God is not just a theoretical statement.
[8:09] Speaker 1: It's of enormous spiritual and existential import. Now why? When
[8:16] Speaker 1: you say, here, listen, oh wrestlers with God, the Lord
[8:21] Speaker 1: your God is one, that means that there's no competition.
[8:28] Speaker 1: That means that nothing else can possibly be construed as absolute.
[8:34] Speaker 1: That means no country is God. That means no politician
[8:39] Speaker 1: is God. That means no political power is God. That
[8:43] Speaker 1: means no human being is God. That means nothing in nature.
[8:46] Speaker 1: That means the universe is not God. There's only one God,
[8:51] Speaker 1: and that's the Lord God. In some ways, our version
[8:55] Speaker 1: of the Shema we recite every single Sunday, when we say,
[9:00] Speaker 1: credo in unum deum, I believe in one God. See, friends,
[9:07] Speaker 1: in a way, the whole spiritual life hinges upon this.
[9:10] Speaker 1: What do you worship? What's God to you? What's of
[9:12] Speaker 1: highest value? It can't be anything other than the Lord
[9:18] Speaker 1: God of Israel. It's a statement of enormous clarification, spiritually speaking. Okay? Now,
[9:28] Speaker 1: from all of this, listen, O wrestler with God. The
[9:33] Speaker 1: Lord your God is one. Following from that is this
[9:39] Speaker 1: great ethical or behavioral implication. That we must love the
[9:46] Speaker 1: Lord our God.
[9:47] Speaker 2: How?
[9:49] Speaker 1: With the entirety of our being. With the whole heart.
[9:53] Speaker 1: What does that mean? That means that the heart's the
[9:55] Speaker 1: seat of the passions and the emotions. With every emotion
[9:58] Speaker 1: in us. With our whole being. soul. What's that? That's
[10:01] Speaker 1: the highest spiritual dimension of the person. That's the spiritual
[10:05] Speaker 1: dimension that organizes the whole of the self. That must
[10:08] Speaker 1: be directed to God. And with all of our strength,
[10:11] Speaker 1: that means every gift that I've got, every capacity I've got,
[10:14] Speaker 1: should be directed to God. Now, I know there's an
[10:19] Speaker 1: objection that comes naturally to mind. Well, I mean, how
[10:22] Speaker 1: do you do that? Unless you become a Trappist monk
[10:27] Speaker 1: who's just utterly, utterly devoted to God every single minute,
[10:31] Speaker 1: how could you possibly respond to this? Isn't it unrealistic?
[10:35] Speaker 1: I mean, can't we give God some time and some
[10:38] Speaker 1: of our energy, but not all of it? Well, here's
[10:42] Speaker 1: the solution. Remember, I've said this many times as a
[10:45] Speaker 1: theoretical observation, but it has enormous behavioral implication, that God
[10:52] Speaker 1: is not competitive with us, is not competitive to the world.
[10:58] Speaker 1: See what I mean? So here I am. There's this
[11:00] Speaker 1: camera in front of me. There's lights around me. If
[11:02] Speaker 1: I go outside, there's the city of Santa Barbara, and
[11:03] Speaker 1: then there's the planet Earth, and there's other planets in
[11:05] Speaker 1: the universe. And I guess then there's God, too. Well, no,
[11:09] Speaker 1: that's precisely the wrong way to think about it. God
[11:12] Speaker 1: is not one of the beings within the world. God's
[11:15] Speaker 1: not one thing among many. But as Aquinas says, God
[11:20] Speaker 1: is ipsum esse. That means he's the sheer act of
[11:23] Speaker 1: to be itself. God is that infinite source from which
[11:27] Speaker 1: all of created matter and energy and objectivity comes. Therefore,
[11:34] Speaker 1: God's not competing with creaturely things for space on the
[11:39] Speaker 1: same background. No, no. God is that which, listen, lies
[11:45] Speaker 1: behind and shines through all things. So I'm attending a
[11:53] Speaker 1: baseball game, and I'm finding it beautiful and entertaining. Terrific! Terrific!
[11:57] Speaker 1: But if I've got this Shema in my mind, I've
[12:00] Speaker 1: got this prayer in my mind, I see the beauty
[12:03] Speaker 1: and the enjoyment of that game as coming from, even now,
[12:07] Speaker 1: a divine source. God's the creator of all things. More
[12:10] Speaker 1: to it, the beauty of that game anticipates the fullness
[12:14] Speaker 1: of beauty that I'll experience in heaven. I sit down
[12:17] Speaker 1: for a good meal. and I'm enjoying it. Terrific. It
[12:21] Speaker 1: comes from the creative hand of God, and the enjoyment
[12:24] Speaker 1: of that meal is an anticipation of the banquet of heaven.
[12:31] Speaker 1: I fall in love with another person. Terrific. And I
[12:35] Speaker 1: see that person with all of her beauty and all
[12:39] Speaker 1: of her qualities coming from God, and then she becomes
[12:42] Speaker 1: for me a sign and a symbol of the ultimate
[12:45] Speaker 1: love that I'll experience in heaven. Do you see what
[12:47] Speaker 1: I'm driving at? I can love the Lord my God
[12:51] Speaker 1: with all my heart and all my soul and all
[12:55] Speaker 1: my strength, because I see God and I appreciate God.
[12:59] Speaker 1: I love God in and through all things. It's not
[13:02] Speaker 1: a zero-sum competitive game. But once I get the implication
[13:09] Speaker 1: of the Shema, yes, indeed, the whole world now lights
[13:14] Speaker 1: up with this spiritual luminosity. Spend some time today. Deuteronomy
[13:21] Speaker 1: chapter 6. Lord Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? There it is.
[13:30] Speaker 2: Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echan.
[13:36] Speaker 1: Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is Lord alone.
[13:41] Speaker 1: And so love him with everything you've got, your whole heart,
[13:46] Speaker 1: your whole soul, and all your strength. And God bless you.
[13:54] Speaker 1: Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video,
[13:57] Speaker 1: I invite you to share it and to subscribe to
[13:59] Speaker 1: my YouTube channel.

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