March 20, 2012

Mark 12:28-34

One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, He is One and there is no other than he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And no one dared to ask him any more questions.

The great question about Jesus for the Jewish leaders concerned which of the several Jewish sects did he belong to.  At the time when Jesus walked among us, four major Jewish sects claimed followers: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and that of John the Baptist.  Smaller groups following local leaders formed and dissolved with regularity, as well.  Each had a distinct way of praying and a distinct way of understanding the Law, particularly regarding the Sabbath, the purity ordinances, and their attitude towards the Temple.  The largest and most dominant group was that of the Pharisees, which began to form about 200 years before our Lord was born.  We see members of this group asking Jesus to tell them to identify himself according to his sect throughout the Gospels.  

In today’s Gospel reading, one of the scribes, most of whom belonged to the Pharisees, asks Jesus to tell him what he considers the most important commandment.  In this way, he hopes to start a line of questions which will pin Jesus down into revealing the sect to which he belongs.  The scribe fully expects the first part of the answer Jesus gives: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”  Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 6, 4-5, a passage the Jews refer to as the Shema, from the Hebrew word “hear”.  But Jesus goes further in his reply: “The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”  Jesus thus links following the Law to the love of God, and this delights the scribe, who praises him: “Well said, teacher.”  And in his turn, the scribe elaborates on what Jesus has said: “And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  The scribe seems to recognize Jesus as a Pharisee himself and he quotes from Hosea 6, 6 (for the Pharisees held the works of the Prophets to be Scripture): “It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God than burnt offerings.”  He is floored when Jesus says to him: “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”  Jesus here subtly rejects the scribe’s conclusion about him and in turn asserts his own teaching, which is particularly centered on the coming of the Kingdom.  In short, Jesus is telling the scribe, I do not belong to your sect, but you should leave your sect and belong to me.  It is no wonder, then, that “no one dared to ask him any more questions”.  

Today’s saint, St. Cuthbert (d. 687), lived and worked in the northeast corner of what is now England and southern Scotland.  Constantly on the move, he preached the Faith among the many pagans and helped in the slow conversion of the region.  He was aided in this by the performance of miracles.  Although consecrated a bishop towards the end of his life, he lived out his days as a hermit.  The Venerable Bede wrote an early life of this saint.

The following prayer is taken from the Roman Ritual:

We beseech thee, O Lord, grant us a hearing as we devoutly raise our petitions to Thee, and graciously turn away the epidemic of plague which afflicts us; so that mortal hearts may recognize that these scourges proceed from Thine indignation and cease only when Thou art moved to mercy. Through our Lord.