October 31, 2021
Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
In today’s Gospel (Mk 12:28b-34) we find one of the many times that Jesus uses a direct quote from the Old Testament to teach his followers. This one in particular is from the book of Deuteronomy, which, other than the psalms, is the most quoted book from the Old Testament used in the New Testament. This fact serves to show just how important the Hebrew Scriptures are for understanding the background of Christianity.
When we come to the First Reading (Deut. 6:2-6) the Israelites have already been through a tremendous ordeal. It has been forty years since their miraculous exodus from Egypt and escape from the Pharaoh at the crossing of the Red Sea. They have been given a system of covenantal laws to establish them as a holy nation and a special people of God. But because of their disobedience they have been wondering the wilderness subsisting on what they consider less than adequate food and drink. Yet, despite their grumbling, the Lord has protected them from hostile enemies and finally led them to the edge of the Promised Land.
This particular reading from the book of Deuteronomy is the culmination of a series of speeches given by Moses to the people. This book contains a different version of the many systems of laws found in the previous books of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, and serves mainly as a last will and testament of Moses. It recounts their previous experiences wandering in the wilderness and reiterates that God will remain loyal to the people of Israel as long as they remain faithful to the laws of God. Moses assures the people, “Fear the LORD, your God, and keep, throughout the days of your lives, all his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you, and thus have long life.” (Deut. 6:2).
To summarize the six-hundred and thirteen laws of the Torah that the Israelites must obey, Moses uses one simple command. It is part of a prayer called the Shema developed by ancient Israel to declare the oneness and uniqueness of God. In essence it declares that the reason the people should follow the Lord’s commands is because the God of Israel is the one and only God and thus should be loved with one’s entire being. It instructs, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (Deut. 6:4-5).
When we move to the story of the Gospel, we find one of the scribes seeking to confirm with Jesus which of the hundreds of statutes found within the covenant is the most important. As a devout Jew, Jesus would have recited the Shema each morning and evening as other Jews, adhering to the tradition of its importance. Thus, this is the answer that he provides to the scribe. The very same prayer recited by Moses in the First Reading.
However, in his reply to the scribe Jesus does not stop with the quote from Deuteronomy. Rather he adds a phrase from another book of the Pentateuch, the book of Leviticus. It is a commandment that mandates that a person love and care for one’s neighbor greater than oneself. Simply stated it reads, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mk. 12:31).
Having been trained in the laws of Israel, the scribe, quite knowledgeable in its precepts, acknowledges that Jesus has given the correct answer. (As if there would be any doubt). But then he adds another component for which Jesus affirms him. He says, “To love God with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” (Mk. 12:33).
Here’s the catch though. Loving God with all your heart, with all your understanding, and with all your strength does not necessarily mean that rituals and sacrifices, so called burnt offerings, are unimportant. For if one truly loves God and appreciates all that God has done, then acts of worship, along with prayer and self-sacrifice, become the major ways we show our thanksgiving to God. This especially occurs within the celebration of the Eucharist and the act of the communal worship of the Mass. Anything else would be reduced to the private dimension of those who call themselves “spiritual, but not religious,” which is not the intention for the Church of Christ to show its devotion to the one, true God.
Along these lines, Jesus sites two commandments instead of one when he offers his interpretation in fulfilling the law. He concludes his mandate to love God with the stipulation to love one’s neighbor. Considering that humankind formed in the image and likeness of God is the most precious creature to God it would follow that this is really just the second part of one two-part commandment – that is to act with a heart-filled with unconditional love. If one loves God, then it automatically follows that one loves one’s neighbor completely and selflessly without desire for recompence.
And what greater way might there to be to show our love of God and neighbor then to invite someone who has fallen away from the Church or never known what it is like to belong to a parish community to join us one Sunday, for one hour, on any one particular day. This may just become the impetus to fulfill the Shema of the Jewish tradition as a person descended from the Judaic background of Christianity. It would be to love God through praise and worship just like our Jewish brothers and sisters of old and to do so with relatives, neighbor and friends, and even strangers all of whom we love as an extension of our love for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
