One might note the friendly attitude of the scribe in Mark. In Matthew, the scribe is hostile. Luke uses the story to provide the context for the parable of the Good Samaritan. Although Mark has already shown other scribes in a negative light, he seems to suggest that one should not judge this scribe fully by the group to which he belongs. This story is a good example of the writer of the Gospels telling their unique stories of Jesus, often providing a context for the sayings of Jesus.
Chapters 11 through 13 contain Mark's account of Jesus' ministry in Jerusalem, and this text concludes a series of challenges Jesus met when he returned to the temple in Jerusalem for a third day. Since Jesus had asserted his personal authority by ousting the moneychangers and animal sellers from the temple courtyard on his second visit, it is not surprising that the religious authorities - the Sadducees, Pharisees and scribes - banded together to try to discredit Jesus when he appeared at the temple a third time. The first three of these confrontations (Mark 11:27-33; 12:13-17; 12:18-27) were decidedly nasty and combative in nature - the establishment authorities were on the attack. This fourth and final challenge in this portion of Mark has a different air about it.
According to the spiritual master, human beings are here to be happy and to learn.[1] I like the simplicity of it. We have a tendency to make religion complex. We also have a responsibility to get to the point where we can identify the heart of a religion. In these too long remarks, I am concerned with the heart of Christianity. We often think we have to come up with something new and creative. Sometimes, however, the answer to what appears to be a difficult question is the time-tested answer of the tradition. The new is not always better. Fred Craddock once put it that “There is power in the familiar.” Yes, laugh often and much. Win the respect of the intelligent and the affection of children. Earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends. Appreciate beauty. Find the best in others. Leave the world a better place, even in small ways. Make sure that at least one person has breathed easier because you lived. Such simple things mean success in life.[2]
The scene depicted in this text opens much as had the previous two question‑and‑answer dialogues (Mark 11:27f and 12:13f). A scribe approaches Jesus, his intellectual curiosity tweaked by the learned discussions he had overheard. 28 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” The text remains unclear about the loyalties of this scribe. Both the more liberal Pharisees and the more conservative Sadducees had their own scribal interpreters of the Law. Indeed, what attracts this scribe's attention is not Jesus' position on the questions thrown at him, but the fact that Jesus "answered them well" (v.28). As a scribe of the first century, this individual was well‑educated, well‑respected and well‑off. His extensive familiarity with Scripture and tradition gave him the confidence to confront such a gifted teacher as Jesus with a bold question of his own. The scribe asks about the first commandment. One way to approach this is to consider that first‑century Judaism had no qualms about determining which of the 613 commandments were weightier, more important than the others are. While all commandments were to be obeyed (itself a highly confident assumption), it was generally recognized that more "important" commandments could be determined by examining the nature of their demands or ‑‑ in the case of an infraction ‑‑ the number and seriousness of the steps necessary to undo any infringements. Yet, the question of the scribe does not address whether one could fulfill this "first commandment" through human ability. The assumption was that if one was genuinely pious and observant enough, all the 613 commandments were within reach. In addition, the reader might naturally expect the scribe to be asking which of the Ten Commandments is “first.” We shall see that the response of Jesus focuses upon the foundation of the Ten Commandments.
The first half of the response of Jesus is hardly surprising. The response of Jesus directs the audience to the familiar. Yet, his response might have surprised some. The first commandment we find in Exodus 20:2-6, which directs us the Lord bringing the people out of slavery in Egypt, and then emphasizing that they are to have no other gods or make idols in order to worship them. Thus, Jesus does not go to the saving event that Israel identified as the basis for its exclusive loyalty to the Lord. Rather, Jesus goes to another familiar passage, one the faithful Jewish person recited every day. 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 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.’ That most basic, essential confession of an observant Jew is a prayer and confession at both morning and evening prayer. The Shema of Israel identified the uniqueness of the Lord and the requirement of total commitment to the Lord.[3] The uniqueness of the God who comes to rule excludes all competing concerns. To those who open themselves to this summons, God already comes to rule. The rule of God is imminent, but it also emerges from its future nature as present. The basis is that oneness of God is the content of this future. The divine rule is the outworking of the divine claim to the present life of the creature.[4] In reciting the shema, we learn that the God of Jesus is none other than the God of Jewish faith, in according to the witness of the Old Testament, the God whom Israel confesses in the shema.[5] First, it confesses a profound personal response on the part of each who would confess this truth — to love this God. The shema confesses a profound personal response on the part of each who would confess this truth — to love this God. The original Hebrew had no need to designate both “heart” and “mind.” “Soul” is spirit, self, will, need, desire. “Strength” is physical. The separation of the faculties is not the key, but a complete response to God. To love God is to obey God in Deuteronomy 13:3-4, 30:16-20, Joshua 22:5, I John 2:4-6, and 5:3a. Loving God with all the heart and soul receives emphasis in Deuteronomy 4:29 (=Jeremiah 29:13), 10:12, 11:13, 30:6, 10, and Joshua 22:5. The point of loving God is to honor God by the way we live in harmony with the will of God. One is to love God with the whole self and being. The demands of this command take on life in every aspect of human life ‑‑ heart, soul, mind and strength ‑‑ and are to permeate "all" (repeated each time) corners of that part of human existence. Along with the Jews of his day, Jesus undoubtedly recited the Shema. According to the Mishnah, every Israelite male should recite this verse twice daily.[6]
The New Testament is uncompromising in its monotheism. When Christians hear the accusation from both Jews and Muslims that they are tri-theists, to put it bluntly, they show they have not even tried to appreciate the Christian notion of God, for whom the Trinity is precious in its affirmation of both the transcendence and immanence of God. God is Father of us all, who has communicated to humanity what God is like in the Son, and who remains among us through the energy of the Spirit.
“O For a Heart Praise my God,” a hymn of Charles Wesley, is instructive here. He wants a heart set free from sin so that his heart can praise God. He wants a heart “resigned, submissive, meek.” He wants a “humbly, lowly, contrite, heart, believing, true, and clean.”
The love of God summarizes the being of the children of God. [7]
First, we might note that the address of this commandment is not to humanity in general, but to Israel as part of the covenant. Jesus passes on this commandment to his followers as well, as part of the people of God. Second, the presupposition of the statement is that God is one, and will thus offer this commandment to humanity. Love alone can correspond to the uniqueness in which God is the Lord. Whatever love may consist in, love will always be the one choice in which a human being chooses God as his or her Lord in the sense in which God has already chosen to be Lord. Third, “You shall,” suggests a commandment from this God. The commandment does not reduce the number of laws, but moves against the notion of law entirely. Although we may think it odd to command love, in reality, only love can make a real demand. Fourth, the object of the commandment is God. In loving God, humanity has a partner in God, who loves humanity as well. Fifth, to love means to become what we already are, that is, those whom God loves. To love means to choose God as the Lord, the One who is our Lord because Christ is our Advocate and Representative. To love means to be obedient to the commandment of this God. In every case, love is an accepting, confirming and grasping of our future. In it, this future is identical with the reality of God, who in the fullest sense of the word is for us. This God is our future. People who love God will let themselves be told and will themselves confess that they are not in any sense righteous as ones who love. They are sinners who even in their love have nothing to bring and offer to God. The love of God for them is that God intercedes for them and represents them even though they are so unworthy, even though they can never be anything but unworthy and therefore undeserving of love. God is accepted, confirmed, and grasped by this love of God to them. In it are both their future and the commandment of God. How can that have any other meaning than that they are driven to repentance and held there? They can love and will love only as this loving allows this to happen. To love God is to seek God. Now, we cannot seek our own being and activity. Our being and activity as such can only be this seeking. We misunderstand this seeking if we think of it as a special art or striving on the part of those who have already proposed and undertaken the task, or as a wonderful flower of piety that has grown in the garden of those who are already particularly situated and gifted for it. What matters is emphatically not the fact of our seeking, but the direction of our seeking. In all that seeking we are still within the realm of our being sinners. In spite of our seeking, we may be rejecting. They rejoice that they have not sought in vain. They are what they are as genuine seekers after God by giving a Yes that comes from the heart, soul, mind, and strength, even when they find God. When the love of God reaches its goal, they hear, feel, and taste afresh that have an incomparable Lord. When they find God, grace meets them, which they then accept into their lives. Grace shows what God does for them. Grace shows that in themselves they are poor, impotent, and empty. It shows that they rebel against God. Grace points them away from self and toward Christ who is the promise of what they can become. Grace does not allow arrogance. Grace reveals the rebellion and imperfection of even the best thoughts and undertakings by humanity. Grace does not allow any arrogance. Grace reveals the lethargy and wildness that lie like a heavy load upon even the best thoughts and undertakings. Grace demands that they live only by grace, and by grace really live. Sixth, does the addition “with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength” add anything? The addition is a guarantee against every division and reservation. It means that Christian love is characterized as a total constitution and attitude of humanity. The addition lights up the voluntary obedience given to Christ to love. We shall seek after God only when the commandment to do it has reached all that we are. Such love cannot be lost. Such love is the thankfulness that the believer owes to God in the divine work of revealing and reconciling.
Jesus offers that a second commandment is like it. He will go to Leviticus 19:18b. 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Many scholars note that Jesus might have affirmed the interpretation of the law given by Hillel the Elder, a famous rabbi who was a contemporary of Jesus:
“A proselyte approached Hillel with the request Hillel teach him the whole of the Torah while the student stood on one foot. Hillel responded, “What you find hateful (or, What you yourself hate), do not do to another (or, your neighbor). This is the whole of the Law. Everything else is commentary. Now go learn that!”
The first few verses of Leviticus 19 insist on Israel’s honoring their holy God with proper respect; verses 9-18a require that they show justice and respect to their fellow human beings as well. Offering one’s best to God is not sufficient to fulfill the heart of God’s commandments; one must also offer one’s best to others. Historically, the "neighbor" referred to in Leviticus 19:18 specifically meant "the sons of your own people." However, Jesus had expanded the definition of "neighbor" far beyond those borders (see Luke 10:25‑37, the parable of the Good Samaritan), erasing national and ethnic self‑centeredness as well as excuses for limits on loving one's "neighbor." Amy-Jill Levine notes that this would have meant, “Love your neighbor, who is a human being just like you are.” As long as neighbor is broadly interpreted, it means a tender regard for them. Genuine fulfillment of the mandates of the Shema will issue in genuine love of neighbor. Note that the second half of Jesus' dual commandment meets us where we stand ‑‑ as self‑absorbed sinners. To "love your neighbor as yourself" means extending to one's neighbor the same self‑centered love and concern we all harbor.
We should also note that while the scribe asked only the first commandment, Jesus refuses to separate what are truly inseparable. Jesus ties together two commands that he deemed essential by focusing on the one overwhelming principle that defines God: love. Neither Hillel nor Jesus was by any means the first to tie together the poetic demands of Deuteronomy 6:5, known in the tradition as the Shema, and the compassionate command of Leviticus 19:18.
[Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, around 137-107 BC)
Love the Lord and your neighbor;
Be compassionate toward poverty and sickness. (Testament of Isaacher 5:2)
I acted in piety and truth all my days,
The Lord I loved with all my strength,
Likewise, I loved every human being as I love my children. (Testament of Isaacher 7:6)
They (what distances you from the Law) do not permit people to show mercy to their neighbors. (Testament of Judah 18:3)
Have mercy in your inner being, my children, because whatever anyone does to his neighbor, the Lord will do to him. (Testament of Zebulun 5:3)
Throughout all your life love the Lord,
And one another with a true heart. (Testament of Dan 5:3)
Now, my children, each of you love his brother. Drive hatred out of your hearts. Love one another in deed and word and inward thoughts. (Testament of Gad 6:2)
Of course, the New Testament shares this emphasis on the love of neighbor in Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, and James 2:8.
At a practical level, most of us will freely admit the difficulty of loving the neighbor. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less."
How do you love your neighbor? Just as love for God is not primarily a matter of affection for God, we express our love for neighbor more by your caring/thoughtful actions than by whatever warm inner sentiments you might (or might not) have toward your neighbor. (Note how Jesus “defines” neighbor-love in Luke 10:29 ff., in the parable of the Good Samaritan, which immediately follows Luke’s version of this passage about loving God and neighbor.) Assuming that you have learned to love/respect yourself (an often-overlooked matter for renewed appropriate attention), you are to love neighbor in the same manner. (This roughly parallels another of Jesus’ summary statements, Matthew 7:12 — ”The Golden Rule”: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”)
Jesus grounds the command for love of neighbor, not in the authority of tradition, but in the goodness of the Creator and in the love of God shown to them in the coming kingdom. We can have a part in such love only as we are ready to respond to it and to pass it on. The twofold command of love is not so much a summary of the main content of the Law, but stands against it as a critical principle, which is why Jesus can say the scribe is not far from the kingdom of God.[8]
The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as oneself. It can be hard spiritual work to encounter another human being who needs to spring from the prison they may have built for themselves. We find it far easier to use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince, or control.[9] To a large extent, the capacity to love the neighbor depends upon our capacity to love ourselves. We need to learn to be as tolerant of the shortcomings of the neighbor, even as we tolerant of our own.[10] Granted, human beings are generally undeserving of such love. We may well find it easier to imagine love for humanity as a whole rather than love for the individual who stands before us.[11] Yet, the command of Jesus does not carry with it an exception clause. The reality of a human life is complex. Yet, theologically, we are to think of their creation in the image of God. Since we owe honor and love to God, we also owe such honor and love to that which God has made.[12]
We misunderstand the creative nature of love if, appealing to this passage, we think of Jesus as abrogating the Old Testament law by a new Christian law. All law seeks to make a form of life that achieves permanence, and may even cut declare a regulation to be normative, so that it has to deal with new situations by casuistic extensions or expositions. Freedom characterizes the work of love. Love does not despise orientation to given rules. Yet, agreement with them is always a free act because one does not accept them in every situation. For love, each new situation is an appeal to its inventive powers. In this fact, we find the contrast to the mere following of a law.[13]
We live in a new sort of shame culture, especially due to social media. We allow our lives to be on constant display and observation. Our intense desire is to receive praise and embrace from a community that we value. We dread exile and condemnation from that community. It leads to a moral life consisting of inclusion or exclusion rather than any notion of right and wrong. This experience leads to perpetual insecurity as we live with a moral system of inclusion and exclusion. Since we have no objectifiable standards, all we have are the shifting judgments of the crowd. We become overly sensitive and overreact and have frequent moral panic attacks. If we are going to avoid a constant state of anxiety, people’s identities must be based on standards of justice and virtue that are deeper and more permanent than the shifting fancy of the crowd. In an era of omnipresent social media, it is doubly important to discover and name your own personal True North, vision of an ultimate good, which is worth defending even at the cost of unpopularity and exclusion.[14]
Too often, we use our smart phone technology to keep people at a distance rather than bring us closer together. Living in Florida for my retirement, I can keep up with friends and family through video and phone calls. It helps bridge the physical distance. However, when people are sitting at the same table, all glaring at their phones instead of engaging in conversation, we have an example of “phone snubbing,” or phubbing. Brief texts and emoji’s are hardly a replacement for meaningful engagement.
We love to think about love. We think love is the answer. We can sing that love makes the world go around. We can sing that all we need is love. We search for love. We seem convinced that love can save the world and make life worth living. Yet, we have a more loose grasp on love than we think. Love springs from awareness of the other. When you genuinely see the other, you have the potential to love. Without seeing truly, we will love only the person of of our memory and imagination.[15]
A man finally decided to ask his boss for a raise in salary. He told his wife that morning what he was about to do. At the close of the day, he finally got up the nerve to ask his boss for the raise. To his delight, he agreed. When he arrived home, the table was set with the best dishes. His wife had prepared a festive meal. When he sat down at the table, there was a note: "Congratulations, darling! I knew you would get the raise! These things will tell you how much I love you." He assumed that someone at the office had tipped her off as to what the answer of the boss had been. Then he noticed a second note that had apparently dropped from her pocket. It read: "Don't worry about not getting the raise. You deserve it anyway! These things will tell you how much I love you."[16]
The love of neighbor summarizes what the children of God are to do. [17]
Praise of God is serious only in the context of the commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The praise of God is obedience to this commandment. The fact that this commandment is like the commandment to love God does not mean that we can replace love for God with love for humanity. After all, to say this amounts to saying that we make God in our image. However, we can make the point that as human beings we live in an historical and social context ordered by God. If we are to love God, we must also love what God has created. We honor and love God when we honor and love what God has created.
To love God and to love the neighbor are both commandments of the one God. The commandments are for those who receive this love of God as shown in Jesus Christ. In both commandments, what concerns us is the claim of the one God upon the whole person. The commandment to love the neighbor in the time and world that now is and passes, we are in fact dealing with a first and a second commandment, a primary and a secondary, a superior and a subordinate, commandment of God.
What does it mean to love the neighbor? First, “thou shalt” is a command to love those in the midst of the world that now is and is passing. Second, who is the neighbor? Christians need to realize that such love is the only way to maintain faith. We need no longer seek higher or more impressive ways. The neighbor is the person within the circle of significant relationships we have as social creatures. The neighbor is also the stranger within the gates, the one seemingly ignored by our circles of significant relationships. In the context of Luke’s version of the two great commandments in Luke 10 and 11, we have the example of the love to neighbor in the story of the Good Samaritan and of love to God in the story of Mary and Martha. Clearly, Luke views the two commandments as separate. The story of Mary and Martha reminds us that love to God includes practices of meditation, contemplation, prayer, and worship. My neighbor is an event that takes place in the existence of a definite person definitely marked off from all other people. My neighbor is my fellow human being acting towards me as a benefactor. Every human being can act towards me in this way in virtue of the fact that he or she can have commission and authority to do so. However, not everyone acts towards me in this way. Therefore, not everyone is a neighbor to me. My neighbor is the one who emerges from among all human beings as this one person in particular. I must hear a summons from Jesus Christ. I must be ready to obey the summons to go and do likewise. I have a decisive part in the event by which a human being is my neighbor. That suffering human being in need of help directs the children of God to the task that God has appointed for them. God does not will the many griefs, sufferings, and burdens under which we people have to sigh. God wills their removal. God wills a better world. Therefore, we should will this better world, and a true worship of God consists in our cooperation in the removal of these sufferings. Therefore, our neighbor in his or her distress is a reminder to us and the occasion and object of our proper worship of God. Third, to love means to enter into the future that God has determined for us in and with the existence of our neighbor. Therefore, to love means to subject ourselves to the order instituted in the form of our neighbor. To love means to accept the benefit that God has shown by not leaving us alone but having given us the neighbor. To love means to reconcile ourselves to the existence of the neighbor, to find ourselves in the fact that God wills us to exist as the children of God in this way. To love means to find ourselves in co-existence with this neighbor, under the direction that we have to receive from the neighbor, in the limitation and determination that the existence of the neighbor actually means for our existence, and in the respecting and acceptance of the mission that the neighbor actually has in relation to us. One may flee from love to God to a wrongly understood love of the neighbor. The children of God renounce all movements of flight. The fulfillment of the life of the children of God is in a rhythm of this twofold love, and there is nothing more senseless and impossible than to play off the one against the other. The children of God abide in love. This applies to both, because they know that, once they have fled to God, they can flee to no other place. Further, the living out of this faith is the witness to which the neighbor has a claim and which I owe the neighbor. It will be as well not to connect the concept of witness with the idea of an end or purpose. Witness in the Christian sense of the concept is the greeting with which I have to greet my neighbor, the declaration of my fellowship with my own brother or sister. I do not will anything that I may not will anything in rendering this witness. I simply live the life of my faith in the specific encounter with the neighbor. The strength of the Christian witness stands or falls with the fact that with all its urgency this restraint is peculiar to it. Neither to myself nor to anyone else can I contrive that someone will actually give help to one in need. Therefore, in my testimony I cannot follow out the plan of trying to invade and alter the life of my neighbor. A witness is neither a guardian nor a teacher. A witness will not intrude on the neighbor. A witness will not handle the neighbor. The witness will not make the neighbor the object of activity, even with the freedom of the grace of God, and therefore respect for the other person who can expect nothing from me but everything from God. It is in serious acknowledgement of the claim and our responsibility that we do not infringe this twofold respect. I only declare to the other that in relation to him or her I believe in Jesus Christ, that I do not meet the neighbor as a stranger but as my brother or sister, even though I do not know that he or she is such. I do not withhold from the neighbor the praise that I owe to God. In that way, I fulfill my responsibility to my neighbor. I want to offer three forms of this witness. One is that I do not grudge my neighbor the word as a word of help in his or her need, nor in my need. We can fail to bear true witness. (A) one way to do so is to talk about our own sin and need as such, for I am not saying anything helpful to the neighbor at that point. In fact, the narration of such a story runs the risk of placing myself at the center of witness rather than Christ. Another way to fail in witness is to focus upon some experience of help, rather than upon the God who provided the help. In both cases, we are never at a loss for words when we come to speak of our sin and our positive experiences. Either way, we seem to have a rich and certain knowledge. How easy to confuse this knowledge of ourselves with the much less intimate and tangible knowledge of the help itself. (B) is giving assistance to my neighbor as a sign of the promised help of God. Any help we give to the neighbor has the objective of directing people to the God who has helped us. (C) is that I substantiate to my neighbor by my attitude what I have to say to the neighbor by word and deed. By attitude, he means the disposition and mood in which I meet my neighbor, the impression of myself that I make on the neighbor in speaking to the neighbor and acting on behalf of the neighbor. The only attitude that we can regard as consistent with witness is the evangelical attitude. If my words and acts are real witness to Jesus Christ, then my subjection to Jesus Christ will permeate them, in particular of the comfort of forgiveness by which I live as a child of God. Fourth, what does the addition of “as thyself” mean? It does not mean an addition of another commandment, as if there were really three. It admits that love of self is quite natural. When I love my neighbor, I am confessing that my self-love, standing alone, is not a good thing.
In addition, Jesus is speaking of his own harmonious orientation. The commands are not identical, but Jesus does join them together. God expects one love, but expressed in two spheres of life. Such love finds in the Creator One who points the creator to the neighbor, and in the neighbor, the one who points the individual to the Creator.[18] One cannot withdraw from the neighbor to some special religious sphere. Nor can we allow love of neighbor to absorb love of God, thereby taking away its independent quality.[19] Love to others cannot exhaust itself in love to God. Nor can love to God exhaust itself in love of others. One cannot replace the other. Love to God evokes love to neighbor. One cannot have Christ and not have the neighbor. Therefore, one cannot have God without having also the neighbor. Such love is obedience to the direction God wants to take you.[20]
Jesus says that these two commandments are the lens through which we are to read the law and the prophets. They provide a coherent principle for appreciating and observing the other commandments.[21] They provide us a lens through which we read Scripture. Jesus understood the prophetic tradition and ethical demands in light of these two commands. He is aligning his ministry and mission throughout the gospel of Matthew.
Are we here to find happiness? In a certain sense, we can answer positively. Love is a relationship, and relationships take time. John Wesley connected happiness, holiness, and love, based on the text before us. What is the source of unhappiness? It may well come from setting our love of creation above our love the creator, our love of self above our love of neighbor.[22] If so, the source of unhappiness is misdirected love. Thus, genuinely following Jesus is neither more nor less than love, for love fulfills the law and is the end of the commandments. Genuine religion is the love of God and the neighbor, by which we mean, every person under heaven.[23] If we can properly understand Christian perfection, love will sum up such a life. Of course, love to God with all that we are, and then love of neighbor in inseparable connection with the first. [24]
Karl Barth has a long section of his theological work dealing with the life of the children of God. Where does he go? Right here, to these verses. We are not to look for anything more impressive than to find our being in the love of God and our doing in the love of neighbor. Pretty simple. I must be ready to obey the summons to go and do likewise. I have a decisive part in the event by which a human being is my neighbor. That suffering human being in need of help directs the children of God to the task that God has appointed for them. God does not will the many griefs, sufferings, and burdens under which we people have to sigh. God wills their removal. God wills a better world. Therefore, we should will this better world, and a true worship of God consists in our cooperation in the removal of these sufferings. Therefore, our neighbor in his or her distress is a reminder to us and the occasion and object of our proper worship of God.[25]
Here Jesus stresses if not the equality, then certainly the dynamic interrelationship operating between the commands to love God and to love neighbor. Accountability to one is meaningless without accountability to the other. The point is the contrast between Pharisaic legalism and the ethics of love for God and neighbor. The two commandments are not identical. At the same time, the second is not simply appended, subordinate, or derivative. The second is like the first. The passage has reference to God, but also to the neighbor. It has the one dimension, but also the other. It finds in the Creator the One who points to this creature, the neighbor.[26]
Since fellowship with God along the lines of the love of God commanded in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 is possible only in connection with personal participation in the movement of love of God toward the world, Jesus could directly link the command to love our neighbor in Leviticus 19:18 with the love for God that is the supreme commandment.[27] We find here two commands, but primarily, love is not commanded, but living reality, an impulse proceeding from the love of God for the world that lays hold of us and catches us p into its movement. Participation in the kindness of God as Creator ought to be the natural consequence of thankful acceptance of this kindness. To command love and to practice it as the fulfillment of a command is thus self-contradictory because free spontaneity is a constituent of all turning to others in love. With Augustine, love is a motivating force that differs in nature from a command and its observance. Love is a gift of grace that enables us for the first time to respond in our own conduct to the kindness of God as Creator and to the redeeming love of God to participate in them. Yet, if Christian love is participation in the love of God for the world, then we have to ask whether we can distinguish at all between love of God love of neighbor. Does not true love consist of sharing in the love of God for the world? In the depth of turning to the co-human Thou do we not also love God?[28] The Scholastic thesis concerned the unity of the act of love in such a way that primarily love of God is seen as an implication and transcendental basis of love of neighbor. Categorically explicit love of neighbor is for him the primary act of love of God, which in love of neighbor God in supernatural transendentality always has truly if nonthematically in view, and even explicit love of God is still carried by that trusting and loving opening up to the totality of reality that takes place in love of neighbor. This does not mean reduction of love of God to love of neighbor. Instead, we free explicit love of God from falsely seeming to represent an exceptional phenomenon of only marginal importance. Because God as silent incomprehensibility is at work in all the relations of humanity, however secular, we can see thematically in the explicit act of love of God what is always already the concern in all human life in co-humanity. The question remains, why this reference has to become thematic in and for itself.[29] In any case, many voices in Protestant theology have tended to answer affirmatively that one can identify love of neighbor with love of God. The problem with this is that equating love of God and love of neighbor can easily lead to a moralistic interpretation of Christianity. The relation to God can fade out as a distinct theme and be entirely lost in co-humanity. With Jesus in this statement, one can find no support for absorbing love of God into love neighbor.[30]
Yet, in this command to love God, is faith implicit already, the emphasis that Paul would bring to light? Ritschl thinks so based on the idea that faith is itself a form of love. He did so because he moved critically against Pietism and the medieval Catholic theology that had defined the relation of faith and love. Yet, in doing so, he did not want in the least to say that love of God must merge into love neighbor. His point was to make a careful distinction between our religious relation to God in faith on the one said and love as the essence of moral action on the other. Yet, the act of trust does not contain all aspects of love, for love does not just link up with the object of trust as trust itself does, but is also the power of recognizing what is different. In this way, it makes fellowship possible.[31]
Verses 32-34a are recorded only in Mark's telling of this exchange. 32 Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; 33 and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” The scribe's paraphrase of the commandments Jesus cited reflects typical Jewish touches. The scribe continues to add his own interpretations by comparing the importance of Jesus' words with the importance of cultic obedience. He designates two different kinds of cultic sacrifices here, both the "whole burnt offering" type and "sacrifices." The "burnt offerings" refer to animal sacrifices that were completely consumed by the flames. "Sacrifices" include any offerings, either animal or vegetable, made at the temple. What is unusual here is that this scribe has contrasted Jesus' comment on the Law with cultic practices. Yet, the response of the scribe has its foundation in the Old Testament.
And Samuel said, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obedience to the voice of the Lord? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. (I Samuel 15:22)
6 Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
7 Then I said, "Here I am;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
8 I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart." (Psalm 40:6-8)
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6)
6 "With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6-8)
The commandments Jesus chooses as most important are theological and ethical in nature, while the practices the scribe chooses to contrast them with are ritual in nature. He omits the name of God out of respect and a zealous obedience to the third commandment (Exodus 20:7). The addition of "and besides him there is no other" is a citation of Deuteronomy 4:35, but we find a similar phrase in Isaiah 45:6, 14, and 46:9. These are tips to Mark's Jewish readers that the gospel writer is sensitive to and knowledgeable of correct Jewish behavior and interpretations. It is at first surprising that Mark records the scribe's unsolicited assertion that the laws of love for God and love for neighbor both outweigh the importance of ritual sacrifice. The usual scribal position would have stood in the tradition of Simon the Just (c.200 B.C.) who noted, that the world rests on three things: the Law, sacrificial worship, and expressions of love (M. Aboth I.2). It was not until later rabbinical literature that rabbis reordered these elements in religious life so that works of love were superior to cultic sacrificial rituals. In fact, this new order of importance may be the prime reason for adding this scribe's surprising observation into this text. At the time of the completion of the gospel of Mark, the temple ruins were fresh. The abrupt loss of the rich tradition of cultic life was a painful, open wound for Judaism. To hear Jesus proclaim that the commands of love were the greatest commands of all, and then to hear a scribal authority not only agree but specifically add that they are "much more important" than the offerings and sacrifices the temple cultic practices had supplied, must have comforted and instilled confidence.
34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that, no one dared to ask him any question. It is clear that this kingdom reference is not to the eschatological age to come. Instead, it refers more to a condition that exists here and now. Is the kingdom near or far? The kingdom is where people recognize God as sovereign. The open-ended sound of this comment would seem subtly to appeal to both the scribe's confidence in his intellectual prowess and the man's genuine quest for the kingdom. Jesus' comment encourages the scribe to more thought, more inquiry, more "discipleship." It is unclear the direction verse 34b faces whether "no one dared to ask him any question" comments further on Jesus' replies or looks ahead to the discussion about the Messiah's Davidic heritage (vv.35-37). Now Jesus asks the questions.
This exchange between Jesus and the scribe becomes itself something of an illustration of the Great Commandment. After all, they have joined in the conviction that no commandment is greater than the love of God and neighbor. They treat each other as neighbors.[32] They have stepped away from "us versus them" categories, and created an island of reconciliation in a sea of hostility. Their common devotion to God and neighbor silences the debate, and Mark reports, "After that no one dared to ask him any question" (v. 34)
[1] Richard Bach, Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, New York: Dell Publishing, 1977.
[2] To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you lived. This is to have succeeded. —Ralph Waldo Emerson.
[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 330.
[4] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 330.
[5] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 260.
[6] (Adela Yarboro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia, [Fortress Press, 2007], 573).
[7] Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2 [18.2] 371-401], [18.3] 401-457.
[8] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 333.
[9] Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith (HarperOne, 2010), 113.
[10] Eric Hoffer
[11] Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
[Ivan]: "The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I often make plans for the service of humanity. ... Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together."
[12] John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life.
[13] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 76-7.
[14] —David Brooks, “The Shame Culture,” The New York Times, March 15, 2016.
[15] Anthony de Mello, The Way to Love (Doubleday, 1992), 96. Everywhere in the world people are in search of love, for everyone is convinced that love alone can save the world; love alone can make life meaningful and worth living. But how very few understand what love really is and how it arises in the human heart. It is so frequently equated with good feelings for others, with benevolence or nonviolence or service. But these things in themselves are not love.
Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them; otherwise, it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person.
[16] (Church Management--The Clergy Journal, in Steve Goodier, "To the Point," Quote, September 1, 1985. Story told by Joe Harding.)
[17] Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2 [18.2] 371-401], [18.3] 401-457.
[18] Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.1] 416-417.
[19] Church Dogmatics III.4 [53.1] 49.
[20] Church Dogmatics IV.1 [58.2] 105-107.
[21] Daniel J. Harrington, "The Gospel of Matthew", from the Sacra Pagina Series (The Liturgical Press, 1991),316.
[22] Albert Outler, Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit
[23] John Wesley, “Wandering Thoughts.” What is religion then? It is easy to answer, if we consult the oracles of God. According to these, it lies in one single point: it is neither more nor less than love. It is the love that is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment. Religion is the love of God and our neighbor; that is every person under heaven.
[24] John Wesley, “On Perfection.” What is then the perfection of which man is capable while he dwells in a corruptible body? It is the complying with that kind command, "My son, give me thy heart." It is the "loving the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind." This is the sum of Christian perfection: It is all comprised in that one word, Love. The first branch of it is the love of God: And as he that loves God loves his brother also, it is inseparably connected with the second: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself:" Thou shalt love every man as thy own soul, as Christ loved us. "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets:" These contain the whole of Christian perfection.
John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. "(5.) This man can now testify to all mankind, `I am crucified with Christ: Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' He is `holy as God who called' him `is holy,' both in heart and `in all manner of conversation.' He `loveth the Lord his God with all his heart,' and serveth him `with all his strength.' He `loveth his neighbour,' every man, `as himself;' yea, `as Christ loveth us;' them, in particular, that `despitefully use him and persecute him, because they know not the Son, neither the Father.' Indeed his soul is all love, filled with `bowels of mercies, kindness, meekness, gentleness, longsuffering.' And his life agreeth thereto, full of `the work of faith, the patience of hope, the labour of love.' `And whatsoever' he `doeth either in word or deed,' he `doeth it all in the name,' in the love and power, `of the Lord Jesus.' In a word, he doeth `the will of God on earth, as it is done in heaven.'
"(6.) This it is to be a perfect man, to be `sanctified throughout;' even `to have a heart so all‑flaming with the love of God,' (to use Archbishop Usher's words,) `as continually to offer up every thought, word, and work, as a spiritual sacrifice, acceptable to God through Christ.' In every thought of our hearts, in every word of our tongues, in every work of our hands, to `show forth his praise, who bath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light.' O that both we, and all who seek the Lord Jesus in sincerity, may thus `be made perfect in one!'"
[25] Karl Barth,Church Dogmatics, I.2 [18.2] 371-401], [18.3] 401-457.
[26] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.1] 216-7.
[27] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 333.
[28] Pannenberg, volume 3, 78.
[29] Rahner, Theological Investigations, VI, 264ff.
[30] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 189-192.
[31] Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, II, 103ff, 116ff.
[32] Pheme Perkins ("The Gospel of Mark," The New Interpreter's Bible [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 679).
[33] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 333.
Enjoyed this as usual. question what does it take to e in the Kingdom of God if this scribe was not far from the kingdom?-Lyn Eastman
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