There are only four more Sundays in the church year which will end with Christ the King Sunday just before the start of Advent. As we approach the end of the year that the lectionary is spending in Mark, we come to this morning’s scripture text. For the last several Sundays we have been hearing about the last week of Jesus’ ministry.
In the earlier verses of this chapter, Jesus has had verbal boxing matches with the Pharisees and Herodians about such weighty measures as whether to pay taxes and the ridiculous question about being married after the resurrection. And now a scribe who has been listening carefully comes with a legitimate question – what is the greatest commandment?
This is not a blind-sided question. Just as medical reform and war are hotly debated topics in our time, the question about the greatest commandments was a frequent topic of conversation in Judaism.
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Our Jewish brothers and sisters take the 613 laws, commands and admonitions much more seriously than we do. Orthodox Jews use these commands of God to regulate just about everything in their lives. How to eat, how to cook, how to dress. When to work, when to sleep – and when to rest and when to worship. They do this not so much because they are legalists, but because these laws help them to understand that God is a part of every part of their lives.
They are so serious about keeping the law that on many Jewish homes there is a mezuzah – a small container attached to the right side of the door post as you enter. There is a verse of scripture written on it – any guesses? Yep! The very verses of scripture we hear Jesus reciting in this morning’s gospel portion:
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One and you shall love the Lord your God with your heart, your soul and your mind.
We find the reasons for this practice in this morning’s scripture portion from Deuteronomy: Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. This way, each time you enter the house, you can be reminded of God’s commands and God’s importance in your life.
Of course, in reading through this morning’s text in Deuteronomy, we find another command: to write these words as a sign on the hand and fix them as emblems on the forehead. Our Hebrew brethren do this too when they don phylacteries – small boxes containing these same words - on their arms and their foreheads when they go to prayer.
Jews take God at his word – and they do their best to fulfill the commands of God. Of course, they know they can never keep them all which is why even in Jesus’ day they tried to categorize the laws as big and small – heavy and light – important and not so important. The Ten Commandments for instance were the heavyweights but others were not deemed quite so important.
Many attempts were also made at summarizing the laws. In Psalm 15, David lists eleven. Isaiah 33 lists six; Micah lists three in chapter 6, and Amos chapter 5 lists only one.
We do the same kind of thing in just about everything we do. When we are confronted with too many rules to keep perfectly, we do our best to keep the most important ones.
We may drive over the speed limit occasionally or slide through stop signs, but we don’t usually run red lights. We tell little white lies but would never dream of perjury in court. We may add a little water to the pancakes if we are running out of milk.
Even Catholics have separated sins into two classes: mortal and venial. And they are treated differently. Committing mortal sin requires an immediate trip to the confessional while confessing venial sins can wait.
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The Judeans took God at his word – they wrote the words of the Shema on their doorposts, on their foreheads and on their arms and not a one of them doubted which commandment was the greatest.
But they may have argued over the next statement Jesus makes, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’. But again Jesus quotes scripture – this time from Leviticus. And as we read earlier, this verse, too, seems to summarize all that came before it.
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Again, the scribes and Pharisees are stunned by Jesus’ wisdom and his orthodoxy. He is a good Jew after all. Jesus himself says that he has come to fulfill the law not abolish it – and not one jot or tittle will disappear from the law until everything is fulfilled.
For Jesus – for all devout Jews – loving God is not about sitting quietly in the pew and being thankful that we aren’t like that other guy – because we are that other guy. Being a devout Jew – as well as being a devout Christian - is not about sentimental beliefs – it’s not about warm fuzzy feelings, mere mental assent – to the words of a namby, pamby God who dispenses cheap grace and forgives sinful actions and thoughts without any sign of true repentance. It’s not that comfortable belief that we’re better because we’re saved.
To really worship God means to put God first and foremost in our lives – in everything we do - first in our heart, first in our soul and first in our mind. To really worship God means to put faith into action because we just can’t help ourselves; because our absolute love for God is so much a part of who and what we are that we cannot imagine not loving neighbors as ourselves.
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One of my favorite children’s stories is Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hatches the Egg. With its adorable character, Horton the Elephant. Horton the kindly elephant who was kind enough to lay aside some of his freedom to help out a neighbor, the Maizy Bird – and what a neighbor she was. She was thoughtless, thankless and faithless. Yet Horton did not desert his post on top of that nest. He remained faithful through rain and heat and the jeering laughter of his so-called friends and the loneliness that remained after they left him and went away. He remained faithful through hunters and a sea voyage and even the noisy crowds of the circus – because as he says over and over; ‘I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful, 100%’.
It all works out for Horton in the end, but in back of all the cuteness of an elephant on a nest is the strength of will and character it took to be faithful – to stay the course and continue to care for that egg in spite of everything that happened to him.
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In Mark’s gospel, this is the last week of Jesus’ life. He can look around at the crowds and see the growing animosity of the leaders – and perhaps the growing indifference of the crowds. He can look over his shoulder and see twelve disciples who still don’t understand what it’s all about – and he can look into the eyes of one and see the shadows of betrayal. He is surrounded by people who like the Maizy bird are thoughtless, thankless and faithless.
We too can be thoughtless, thankless and faithless. We talk about what a friend we have in Jesus but never give him the time of day outside of these church walls. We sing about a sweet hour of prayer and never give God more than 30 seconds at a time as we say grace.
Yet Jesus stays the course. He continues down the path to Calvary. Because there are two great commandments: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and all your mind. And; You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
God in Christ is faithful even when we are faithless. – 100%. Maybe these words of Jesus should be posted on our door posts and our foreheads and our arms to remind us of God’s commandments.
Certainly Jesus took them to heart. Certainly as Jesus looked around at the Pharisees, the scribes, the disciples and the crowds, he meant what he said and he said what he meant – and in the next few days of his life, we was going to live what he said he believed.
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The scribe listens to the words of Jesus and says, ‘Yes, you are right. This is much more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.’
Jesus, hearing the man’s words, looks into the man’s heart and says, ‘You are not far from the
The good news for us this day is that many of us are not far from the
Jesus showed us that it is possible to have a joyful life while loving God – and he showed us what it is like to love our neighbor as ourselves when he died for us.
Amen.
