Year B
Mark 12:28-34
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
The Heart, Spirit, & Soul of Our Faith
A radio station a few years ago decided to run a contest. The disc jockeys invited their listeners to call in when they woke up to the sound of the radio station in the morning, and tell the listeners the very first words they spoke when they rolled out of bed. If they were the third caller, they would win some money. It didn’t take long for the contest to grow in enthusiasm. The first morning, caller number three in a groggy voice said, “Do I smell coffee burning? On another day, a sleepy clerical worker said, “Oh no, I’m late for work.” It was a funny contest and drew a rather large audience. One morning the third caller said something unusual. A voice with a Bronx accent replied, “You want to know my first words in the morning?” The DJ said, “Yes, please tell us what you said.”
The voice responded, “Shema, Israel…….Hear O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” There was a moment of silence and then the announcer said, “Sorry, I must have dialed the wrong number,” and cut to a commercial. For the pious Jew the first words every morning and then again in the evening are always the same, and they were the words the gentleman from the Bronx spoke.
They were words first spoken by Moses, who said, “Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand and as an emblem on your forehead…The commandments are to shape the heart and form a whole way of life. This important declaration found in today’s OT text, to acknowledge no other god and put nothing else in the place that belongs to God, is the heart, spirit, and soul of our faith.
The context of this reading is that the Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land after wandering for 40 years in the desert. Moses reminds the people that they must keep the commandments that God has given them and, in the process, fulfill the covenant that God has made with them. God adds a promise, declaring that they will be blessed, if they keep his covenant in the land he promised to them. Beyond this, to maintain a good standing, one must simply live in accord with God’s will, and this includes loving one’s neighbor as oneself.
An old rabbinic legend tells of a Gentile who approached a Jewish Rabbi and asked him, “Rabbi, teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.” The Rabbi’s famous response was, “What you hate for yourself, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Law; the rest is commentary. Go and learn.” The Rabbi’s assumption was that the condensed saying would provide a coherent summary for the whole Law, and give a starting point from which to interpret all the rest of the 613 precepts of the law. Establishing which was the “greatest” among the 613 was a topic commonly debated among distinguished Jewish teachers.
So the question the Jewish scribe asked Jesus today, in the Gospel text, “Which commandment comes first?” Would not be an unusual question to ask a Rabbi. It was probably intended as a trick question because if Jesus picked only one of the 613 commandments or precepts of the law, he left himself open for criticism from those who favored another commandment. In the gospel of Mark, there are over a dozen occasions when the scribes oppose Jesus. Certainly they will dispute him on whatever answer he offers. Yet, this scribe immediately backs off when Jesus answers with the Shema and it is no wonder that he did. The primary obligation, as we just heard in the reading from Deuteronomy and Jesus repeats in our gospel has always been to love God with the heart, soul, mind, and strength, with the center of all passion and trust.
This is the primary purpose of all of our lives, of human life in general. When we were baptized in the name of the Jewish Jesus and adopted into the promises of Israel, we were given the same words to follow. These words bind us to our greatest responsibility; “To love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, mind, and strength.” These words are to bind our hearts, and put nothing else in the place that belongs to God. To love God with all our heart is to love God with all our emotion, good and not so good, but emotion alone is not enough. Jesus gives us a second way to love God, with all our soul.
In Hebrew thought the soul is the breath of life therefore to love God with the soul, is to love God with every breath. You have heard me talk about the breath prayer, an ancient spiritual practice founded in the fourth century, as a way of loving God with every breath. Through brief words of prayer or petition said silently to the rhythm of one’s breath, this simple, meditative act combines praise for God with focused intention, creating a profound spiritual connection in the quiet, and even mundane, moments of the day. Let’s try it…. The early monks said, “Let every breath be a prayer.” Our breath is always the power behind our every word and song.
The commandment goes on to say, “You shall love God with all your mind.” God gave us minds to think, ideas to develop and thoughts to express: all to love God with our minds. To love God with all our strength is to keep our part of the relationship and to do the things that God makes possible for us to do. Every day God gives us ways to serve and if we pledge each new day to love God with all of our strength, we pray that the work we do will be part of God’s work so that we might walk with his love; that we might love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Yet, the true mark of our relationship and love for God is what Jesus added with the Shemah, a passage from Leviticus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Adding love for God’s people, gave those listening that day a new interpretation of the law.
Teaching that one’s love for God is imperfect unless it generates love for one’s neighbor. Those who recognize and receive God’s love for themselves are to go into similar loving action toward others. Our love for God, based upon his goodness, mercy, and grace, is to be the motivation for loving and serving other human beings. What Jesus said that day rang true for the scribe. He enthusiastically echoes Jesus’ answer, adding an emphasis of his own; “This is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And Jesus, in the temple that day during the last week of his life, with the bleating and mooing of animals and a distinctive smell of burning offerings and where he would in anger soon cleanse because of what he saw, “saw that the scribe answered wisely” and said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
Implying that any step we take toward Jesus puts us closer to the kingdom of God that Jesus represents as our great high priest. The high priests, all of them before Christ, had to offer sacrifices for themselves as sinners as well as for the sins of the people. The sacrifices of the high priest had to be repeated; Jesus’ sacrifice-on the cross-was a “once for all time.” The sinless Jesus gave himself as the sacrifice for the sins of all people. Therefore, he is able for all time to save all who come to God. What should we say when we roll out of bed each day? Thank you Lord God for your Son, Jesus, who by his life, death, and resurrection shows us how to love you with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. After all, Jesus said this is the greatest commandment and to obey it will bring us into the kingdom of God.