Mark 12: 28-44
March 22, 2020

Jesus’ time in Jerusalem is filled with conflict with the religious authorities.

He has just told the parable of the wicked tenants and the religious leaders … the Pharisees, the Scribes and the elders … have realized that they are being cast in the role of the wicked tenants.

Now, one of the Scribes … one of the people who work to ensure that the laws of the Temple are followed … and who has been listening to Jesus’ exchange with the Temple leadership asks Jesus a question:

“Which commandment is the first of all?”

This is a question often asked among the rabbis … after all there are 613 commandments in the Torah … 248 positive commands and 365 prohibitions. So, it’s natural to wonder which one is the most important.

Up to this point in Jesus’ ministry and his journey to the cross, the Pharisees, scribes and elders have looked for opportunities to entrap him … asking questions intended to discredit him and question the authority with which he speaks and teaches.

All their efforts have been designed to eliminate Jesus and reassert their control over religious life.

This scene is so fundamental to Jesus’ ministry … to the identity of followers of Christ … that it is also present in the other synoptic gospels. But unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark doesn’t portray the exchange as a test for Jesus.

But the Scribe’s question today doesn’t fall into the category of a trap … it is a legitimate and sincere effort to understand what Jesus has been trying to teach.

Jesus answers, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

… There is no other commandment is greater than these.

In giving his answer to the scribe’s honest and legitimate question, Jesus links two passages from Scripture.

He links the commandment that calls the people into a relationship with God … the commandment that places God at the centre of our lives … with the later call to love those around us.

The first commandment is the Shema … the Jewish daily prayer and affirmation of faith … an affirmation of an obligation to obey and love God. This commandment would have been familiar to all the religious leaders and the rest of the crowd present.

The second commandment … to love your neighbour … could have been assumed to be part of the first commandment … loving those around you is part of loving God. By listing the second commandment … and stressing that both are a priority in a life of faith … Jesus makes makes it clear that personal piety includes being active in the world … that love needs to be active.

Love is at the centre of life for those who follow Jesus.

And, as scholar Dawn Wilhelm, points out … with love at the centre of the gospel … with love at the centre of daily life … we can find ourselves placing a priority on whom we share this love with … because, for some, there is a limit to how much love can be shared.

 Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote at length about this second commandment.

“You shall love your neighbour.”

In his book, Works of Love, Kierkegaard examined this commandment word-by-word.

In looking at the joining of two words, “You shall,” Kierkegaard wrote:

“True love, which has undergone the transformation of the eternal by becoming duty, is never changed, it has integrity; it loves – and never hates; it never hates the beloved.”

Sharing God’s love … the gift of grace … brings substance to our love. It becomes less a feeling and more a decision to act for the benefit of the other … of the stranger … of the neighbor.

Kierkegaard argued that … despite what some would like to believe … this is not an optional statement. This is, after all, a commandment. Love … in this context … is a duty to serve.

“You SHALL love your neighbour.”

To do otherwise, would be contrary to being a follower of Christ … it would be in opposition to what we are called to do … to who we are called to be.

Kierkegaard said that next logical question for the Scribe … or for anyone trying to follow the commandment is:

“How shall I love my neighbour?”

We are called into a period of reflection during the Lenten season, something that … I imagine … becomes a bit easier to accommodate as we practise social distancing in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This question … How shall I love my neighbour? … I believe … merits consideration in the days ahead. In fact, I think it should be paired with the primary question … “Do I love my neighbour?”

In Jesus’ answer to the scribe, there is no identification of the neighbour.

There are no descriptions of what a neighbour looks like or where they can be found or what they believe … whether are Jew or Gentile.

This means that we are to consider everyone a neighbour … those we agree with and those we are in conflict with … the familiar and the stranger alike.

This means that our neighbour can be found in familiar and unfamiliar territory … next door or two blocks over in an uncertain world.

The scribe in today’s story acknowledges that love … what is held in the heart … is more important than any sacrifice or offering in the Temple.

That while such public acts … the long prayers and the huge sums to the treasury … give the appearance of a pious life … the things that come from abundance serve only to satisfy a human need not a divine one.

Only being active in love can accomplish that. What is held in your heart can get in the way.

During the Covid-19 pandemic … when fear and misinformation can run rampant … when greed and anger can take hold … we can be overwhelmed by stories of people’s worst inclination.

Hoarding supplies or profiteering from the sale of sanitizers demonstrate how uncaring people can become in the face of uncertainty.

But for each roll of toilet paper hoarded in such senseless, self-centred acts, there are stories of people bringing groceries to neighbours who are in isolation … and stories of acts of kindness that demonstrate the love that is present in the midst of fear and uncertainty. The love that can be present in a simple phone call or even an email to ensure the neighbour is OK.

Such acts offer hope anchored in love.

This love lies at the heart of our ministry to the world … a ministry based in our call to comfort the afflicted and to ease the suffering being borne by those on the margins. Love lies within the commandment to love God and to love one another.

This selfless love is one that offers transformation … both to individuals and to the world.

Fear and uncertainty are transformed into hope … hearts that may have been hardened become open to the free gift we have received … the other becomes the neighbour … the neighbor becomes the friend and through it all love is intertwined.

AMEN