Immediately following Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, the resistance to his teaching and his actions becomes heated. He returns to Temple Mount, driving the money changers out of the Temple. Now, as St. Mark says, the chief priests and the scribes “were looking for a way to kill him.” The same group then comes to Jesus, demanding, “By what authority are you doing these things?”
Next, some Pharisees and some Herodians—a strange delegation of usual
enemies—come to the Lord and attempt to trap him with that “Pay Taxes to
Caesar?” gambit. Then the Sadducees came to him, attempting to ensnare Jesus in that “What about a man who dies and his wife marries a brother who dies then
another and another,…Whose wife will she be at the Resurrection?” They attack
him in swarms. Entourages of hate. In the midst of all this, things suddenly
change. Now, one scribe, with no associates, comes to Jesus. Instead of
entrapment, the man seems to have a sincere interest in asking Jesus a question
central to Jewish faith. ”Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus now
responds as one Teacher in Israel to another, with hospitality and a deep reverence for the Holy Scriptures.
The dialogue between Jesus and this scribe is totally different from all the
confrontations of those other scribes and chief priests and Herodians and
Sadducees. The Lord discerns that this man’s question is from the heart and
represents the age-old question at the heart of Jewish faith. They talk together
about the commandments and when Jesus speaks of the one commandment that is about love of God and neighbor, the scribe tells him, “Well said, teacher” and commends Jesus for this confession of faith. As you follow along in the narrative of Jesus’ post-Palm Sunday attacks by the various factions of leadership in Jerusalem, this conversation is stunning! It involves no swarm of accusers, but
only one scribe. And the conversation is filled with mutual respect and caring.
What a difference! What a relief, if only temporary! There is a modest analogy to
this huge shift in public speech with us in this election season. The candidates and their surrogates on either side of the political spectrum come at each other with invective, putting one another down with anger while dismissing the character of anyone on the opposite side. The attack ads are unceasing and, well, achieve their purpose,…they attack. Fervent supporters of each candidate attack anyone even thought to support the opposite; they attack in swarms, on the media, in public conversations, and even within families torn apart by distrust and anger.
We hear this reading from the Gospel of Mark and wonder, “Where is that one ‘scribe’ who is on the other side but who comes for holy conversation and seeks the truth of God’s kingdom in the midst of such chaos?” Perhaps we may discover the answer to our question as we follow the caring conversation between Jesus and this one scribe.
Of course, Rabbi Jesus answers the scribe with the Shema, the core
confession of Judaism dating back over the millennia. Even on this very day,
pious Jews recite the Shema twice a day. We are familiar with the version that
begins, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.” (King James Version) In
this light, the focus is on the proclamation that there is only one God. But more
recent translations of the Bible, including our text today, provide a meaning much
closer to the Hebrew. Today we heard Jesus tell the scribe “Hear, O Israel! The
Lord our God is Lord alone.” One Jewish student of Scripture put it this way:
“Israel, pay careful attention and respond: Yahweh works in unity with himself…” 1
Our God, Jesus replies to the scribe, “is Lord alone.: Our God “acts in unity with
himself. From this point of view, much more is being proclaimed here than the
unity of God. If God “is Lord alone,” then that resonates strongly with the First
Commandment: No other gods before me.” In both Jewish and Christian teaching, this commandment insists that we bring along no other gods as we affirm our faith in the unity of the Holy Trinity. Our faith is in the Lord God alone.
But there are so many idols n our world, idols claiming total allegiance to our lives, our possessions, our families,…the list goes on. Our culture, especially, offers all sorts of addictions, each claiming to be our Lord,…alone. We have seen how persons with substance abuse can do all sorts of life-denying actions in order to serve their addiction god. Other addictions yield the same outcomes,…loss of friends and family, losses of financial resources, loss of health, the list goes on. Ironically, our culture seems to support many of these addictions. You can’t watch a sports event on TV without seeing an ad making a pitch for some gambling outfit or other. And we spot how well the ads are made. Computer graphics are excellent and expensive to create. The actors are funny and successful, luring us to plunge in. What can grow into an addiction, though, is never funny, and the outcome is never successful. In every case, something has taken over our life and the suffering grows in concentric circles. The idolatry of addiction is a social disease and so many are affected. But as Jesus insists, only the Lord God is the rightful sovereign. With the power of Jesus Christ, and caring intervention, though, an addiction can be set aside. The life God intends for us can be restored. We can reclaim the promise that the Lord God is Lord alone.
Our Lord Jesus now adds a follow-up commandment: “You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.” There it is: love of God as Lord alone and love of neighbor.
This second commandment can become sweet and sentimental, though. Of course we love folks like us. And of course, we love children in need. Of course we love the poor. But it is at this point that our scholars of Scripture instruct us about the biblical meaning of “love.” One biblical scholar comments on Jesus’
commandment this way: [L]ove is never emotions-minus-ethics. One demonstrates love for God by what one does and what one does not do–that is, how they do or do not obey–not merely by how one does or does not feel. 2
The biblical understanding of love, then, speaks of actions and not simply some
warm feelings. To love anyone involves a host of decisions and actions made
toward that person. The outcome of these caring acts is that we have truly loved
that person, fully loved those people. The same biblical quality of love is found,
above all, in our love for God. We love God’s beloved Son, Jesus Christ, as we
decide to follow him along the Way, a path marked by countless decisions that
honor him and also follow his command to love our neighbors. We ask Jesus
“who is our neighbor?” Our Lord’s own use of the word involves the insistence
that no boundaries can be set…none at all! The hungry and the poor right nearby
are certainly our neighbors. (If the parish is engaged in some servant ministry to
the poor and hungry, this outreach should be named here.)
Our neighbors include the residents of Israel who have suffered for missile attacks and bombings day after day. And our neighbors include Palestinian civilians who have become homeless in a war they did not cause. Most directly, our Lord taught us the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Here, on the Jericho Road, even a hated enemy can surprise and even startle us by such acts of servant love. “Who is our neighbor?” Jesus is asked. Once again, we have his answer to our question.
One composer wrote a song for the Foot Washing liturgy on Maundy Thursday. A verse sings about neighbors:
Neighbors are rich and poor,
neighbors are black, brown and white,
neighbors and near and far away.
The chorus then sings,
Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love, show us how to serve
the neighbors we have from you. 3
So our Lord commands us to love God, love our Lord alone. And then Jesus adds,
love your neighbor as yourself. This commandment, the scribe replies, “is worth
more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
Hearing the words of the scribe, our Lord knows that he has answered wisely. His blessing goes out to this man: “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Follow this dual commandment: sing it with our words and actions, then we, too, come very close to God’s kingdom and its peace.
Amen.
1 Jeff A. Benner, “Deuteronomy 6:4 | A Hebrew interpretation of the Sh'ma,” Ancient Hebrew Research Center, https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/studies-verses/deuteronomy-6-4-a-hebrew-interpretation-of-the-sh%27ma.htm.
2 Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, “Commentary on Deuteronomy 6:1-9,” Working Preacher, Nov. 4, 2012, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-31-2/commentary-on-deuteronomy-61-9.
3 Tom Colvin, “Jesu, Jesu,” Upper Room Worshipbook, Elise Eslinger, ed. (Nashville, TN: Upper Room Books, 2006), 116.
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