THIRTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
3 NOVEMBER 2024
In the Gospel of Saint Mark,
scribes and religious leaders usually ask Jesus. They want to trip him up and expose this
self-taught rabbi from Galilee as a fraud.
However, this scribe is not hostile. He understands that keeping the commandments
shows reverence for God and involves the correct act of a believer seeking to
respond to God’s covenant of love.
Knowing that the Pharisees have
developed 613 different laws from the Torah, he seems genuine in asking Jesus
his opinion. Of all those laws, he wants
to know which commandment is the greatest.
Jesus does not hesitate. He
quotes Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (our first reading today) and recites the Shema,
Israel, the prayer prayed by all faithful Jews every morning and evening:
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is
Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your
strength.”
Without skipping a beat, he then
quotes Leviticus 91:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Neither of these commandments are
original. Both are widely known by the
faithful. However, Jesus is the first to
join them in such a radical way. They
cannot be separated from one another. It
is impossible to love God (and keep the first three commandments) without
loving neighbor (the last seven commandments).
The scribe confirms the correctness
of Jesus’ answer. He also adds a
statement that is remarkable for a scribe: “loving God and neighbor is worth
more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
Scribes are closely connected with the temple and temple worship. They work with the priests who would offer
the animals in sacrifice on the altar in the temple. Animal sacrifices and the burnt offerings are
part of worship in the temple. People
would bring them on a daily basis. But
the scribe understands that these offerings are merely external manifestations
of an internal desire to be in union with God.
Jesus affirms his correct understanding and tells the scribe that he is
not far from the kingdom of God.
We who are disciples of Jesus
Christ know that his perfect sacrifice of self out of love for us has replaced
the sacrifices and burnt offerings of the ancient temple in Jerusalem. As the Letter to the Hebrews tell us, he is
both priest and victim. His once and
perfect sacrifice on the altar of the cross accomplished what all the former
sacrifices had hoped for. His sacrifice
has reconciled us with the Father and has opened for us the kingdom of God.
To imitate that sacrifice, we must
love God and neighbor with our heart. We
must love with all our heart. For
ancient people, the heart signified the depths of the person. We must love with
our soul, which signifies our whole self.
We must love with our mind, submitting our thoughts and all our
intellectual efforts to the love of God.
We must love with out strength.
When we love with all our strength, we realize that love is not just a
strong emotion. It is a decision to
commit all our external achievements in the service of God and neighbor. Loving
neighbor is never easy, as Jesus explains in the Parable of the Good
Samaritan. Neighbors are anyone we meet,
including enemies and those who drive us crazy.
It is important that the Lord
reminds us of these two central commandments of love on this weekend prior to
the election. No matter what happens in
Tuesday’s election, and no matter which candidates will win, it is the love of
God that remains at the center of our lives.
When we open ourselves to this incredible love, then we can trust more
deeply in our great high priest, Jesus Christ.
He knows our fears and failings, because he shares our human nature with
us. But he is interceding for us. Unlike us, he is holy, innocent, undefiled,
separated from sinners, and higher than the heavens.
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