We are approaching the end of the Church year. In the Gospels of these Sundays, we are looking at the final phase of Jesus’ life before his suffering, death and resurrection.
Last week we saw Jesus leaving Jericho on the last stage of his journey to Jerusalem. He healed the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, who, once he regained his sight, saw that the only thing he could do was to go with Jesus on that final journey.
Today’s story takes place in Jerusalem itself. The context of the story is important. “Sacrifice” is mentioned in both the Second Reading (Hebrews 7:23‑28) and the Gospel (Mark 12:28‑34). There are clear links with the Temple, the Old Testament and Jewish Law.
A Scribe approaches Jesus. He is an expert in interpreting the Law. There were more than 600 laws, too many for an ordinary person to grasp. He asks a question that was much debated among scholars of the day: Of all these many laws, which was the most central, the most basic, the one that summed up all the others?
Unlike on other occasions, there seems to be no sense of hostility or of a trap being set here. The man just wants to know Jesus’ opinion as a rabbi and teacher. Note how Jesus receives the man. Usually Scribes and Pharisees are presented as hostile to Jesus. It would be natural for Jesus to be on the defensive, to react negatively. But Jesus always takes the person as he or she is. He does not indulge in stereotyping about ‘typical Scribes and Pharisees’ and tarring all with the same brush. We do this so easily with classes, races, age groups (teenagers, the elderly). We use so many labels. We even stereotype individuals we know before they have opened their mouths, based on our previous experience with them.
Jesus accepts and responds to this person here and now as he is now. It is an example that we can all follow, and which would save a lot of wear and tear in our relations with people.
To answer the man’s question, Jesus quotes from the Jewish Scripture, i.e. the Old Testament. In answering the question, Jesus begins from where the man is, in an area that will be both familiar and acceptable to him. But he takes two distinct texts and puts them together as one. This is a significant development and one that is central to the Christian vision.
In today’s First Reading (Deuteronomy 6:2‑6), one of the books of the Jewish law, we can see that one is urged to love God with all one’s energy and to keep all his decrees and his commandments. There is no mention here of “neighbor”. That appears in a separate text in a different book of the law—the Book of Leviticus (19:18). The Scribe is obviously pleased with the answer. Jesus further adds that these two commands are far more important than any holocaust or sacrifice.
It is this dual approach which makes Jesus the perfect priest mentioned in the Second Reading. The priests of the Law were men subject to weakness—they were “…many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office” Christ holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever. Jesus is the ‘perfect’ Priest, and now the only Priest, because he is perfect in his love for the Father and in his love for us.
Like Jesus, we cannot separate our love of God from loving all those around us. Sometimes we see our sins only the offences against God, even when action is directed against another person. We may go to ‘confession’, get forgiveness and feel the matter is finished. We go to God for forgiveness, when what is also needed is forgiveness from, and reconciliation with, the person we have hurt. If we cannot love the neighbor we can see, how can we love the God we cannot see? (See 1 John 4:20.)
And who is my neighbor? For the people in Jesus’ time, it was a fellow Jew. Others, even though physically near, were not neighbors. Following the teaching of Jesus, however, neighbors are anyone—transcending all barriers and independent of like or dislike, approval or disapproval. Yet some of us can certainly sympathize with the complaint of the famous comic strip character, Charlie Brown, who said: “I love humanity; it’s people I can’t stand!”
We are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That sounds very demanding. Loving ourselves is often part of the problem. Many, if not most of us, do not love ourselves very much. Many, perhaps most, would not like others to know us as we feel we really are. We go to great lengths to hide our inadequacies and weaknesses. We spend a lot of money on houses, cars, clothes, jewelry, cosmetics, dining out and such material ‘images’. Image is everything. We need status symbols to prove we are ‘someone’. Teenagers looking and sounding very “with-it”, but actually hiding behind currently fashionable clothes-styles, hairstyles, language, being ‘cool’, ‘hip’ or whatever word is in current use.
Very few people are really themselves in front of others. In computer jargon we say: “What you see is what you get”. In other words, what appears on the screen will also appear on a print-out. For people it should be: “What you see is what there is.”
This requires total self-acceptance (not the same as self-approval) and integrity. Self-acceptance means that I fully acknowledge both my strengths and my weaknesses, and that I am not ashamed of them, and I don’t mind if other people know them. Such a person knows that the key to being loved is to have one’s real self accessible to others.
Conventionally we say we should first love God. Then, for his sake, we love others. We believe that the self should be denied, and to make up for our faults, that sacrifices should be made. It may surprise us to be told that we cannot not not be self-centered. Everything we do is self-centered. We need to go the other way: learn to love and accept ourselves fully. Then, and only then, are we free to look out and reach out to others in love. When I have nothing to hide, it is easy to be myself. And, if others do not like what they see, that is their problem, not mine.
We will then discover that, when we have learned to love genuinely, and unconditionally, we will be loved in return—though not by all. We cannot be loved by all because there are people out there who are not able to love; it is not because there is anything wrong with me. To want to be loved by everyone is simply unattainable.
When we know what really loving and being loved is, by self-experience, then, and perhaps only then, can we talk about really loving God. All this, says today’s Gospel, is more important than any ritual or sacrifice. It is no good being in church every hour of every day if I am not a loving person.
Jesus said the Scribe was “not far from the kingdom of God” because he had touched on the essence of living: loving God and loving others as a single, but distinct reality. But he is not quite part of it yet. He was not yet, and apparently did not become, a full disciple of Jesus. What makes such a disciple? Jesus says: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)
Are you a disciple because you never miss Mass, or you have special devotion to Our Lady? No, it is none of these by itself. What is essential and sufficient is to love God in loving others and to love others in loving God. One might ask, “is that it?” Yes, that’s it.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!