Gifts of Love
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Intro- Ask kids- whats the most important rule in your house?
If you made all the rules for your house, what would the most important rule be?
Ask adults- what is the most important rule in your house now? What do you think your parents most important rule was?
Today we stumble into Jesus into the middle of a debate about God’s rules, essentially. We will jump right in and see how it unfolds.
The New Revised Standard Version The First Commandment
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?”
I’ll pause here for a second to say that this isn’t an unimportant question because at its core its a question about priorities. Its also a question about God’s deepest desires for human life in response to God’s call, command, and work. I’d like to hope that this question isn’t one that is foreign to us- the question of what God desires from us. Its a question that gets answered a bunch of different ways by a bunch of different people throughout time. It is commonly said that there are 613 laws in the Torah. Over time, various Jewish religious leaders took to debating each other over the “greater” and “lesser” ones. Several of the prophets take those laws and condense it into a shorter set. For Micah, its “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.” For Amos it is simply “Seek the Lord and you will live.” Those are their answers to the question of “what does God want from me?” or “what is most important to God?” Here, a scribe, someone well-versed in the Torah, jewish law, but clearly not identified as either a pharisee or a saducee, walks up as Jesus is in the middle of a dispute with the Saducees, likes what he hears, and reaches for what seems to be his go-to question on the matter of following God. And perhaps what we learn about this scribe is that following God is important to him, or else why bother with this question? Also, unlike other religious leaders so often in the book of Mark, this one isn’t trying to trap or trick Jesus- he’s looking for a conversation about something that is deeply important. So Jesus responds-
The New Revised Standard Version The First Commandment
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.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Here in just three verses Jesus conveys the heart of God. But he’s not telling them something new. Instead, Jesus is reciting scripture. Its - the Shemmah, a daily prayer and teaching. And while it often goes unnoticed here, I feel like I’ve got to point out the importance of this verse in light of the audience that is around Jesus. Before this scribe walks up, Jesus is debating the Saducees and in response to the ridiculous hypothetical scenario they’ve dreamed up to challenge him with, Jesus basically tells them in verse 24, “The reason you don’t get it is because you don’t understand scripture or God.” And now, in their presence Jesus recites a scripture that has everything to do with understanding God and God’s relationship to humanity. And, while there are so many other passages in the prophets that answer this question with a similar idea though different wording, Jesus doesn’t use those. Instead, he reaches for Deuteronomy. Why? Well, the Saducees who are still standing there after their argument with Jesus are part of a Jewish religious group that only holds the first five books of the Old Testament as sacred, as scripture. So even though the scribe who Jesus is talking with isn’t a part of their group, Jesus still answers in a way that is understandable by all who are present. He’s answering this man’s question and furthering the debate with the Saducees all at the same time, letting them know the answer is right in front of them if they’d just listen, if only they had “ears to hear.”
Lets unpack those images Jesus uses a little bit as well- heart, soul, and strength. In the ancient world, and especially in Jewish thought at this time, the heart was understood not as a thing that pumps blood around the body, but as the center of all desires, thoughts, passions, inclinations, actions- the brain doesn’t do didly, its all the heart. Just your neighborhood friendly reminder that the bible is a lot of things, but a great medical text book isn’t one of them, though it does certainly preserve how people thought at the time. So, to love God with all of your heart is to be completely oriented towards God- nothing else matters. And then he says to love God with all your soul. The hebrew word from the passage in deuteronomy that we translate “soul” is Nephesh- and it doesn’t really mean “soul” the way we often think of it, as some second piece of ourselves. Instead, it really means “life” or “being”- to love God with the whole of your life, the whole of your being. To love God more than life itself. And then to love God with all of your strength. Jesus isn’t talking muscles here, at least not solely muscles. In ancient Jewish thought, the idea of “strength” was about resources- everything at your disposal that you can use- the weight your name, status, honor, and influence carries. The strength of a person is measured in the whole of their resources, and whether that means you have a lot at your disposal or only a little, the point is that all of it is used for God.
The second part of Jesus answer is also a quotation from the Torah, from . There, God says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Because God is God and you are living because of the work of God, you should respond to that love by loving those who are around you. To love God with your heart, soul, and strength means you love your neighbor- those two things are, as Jesus points out here, intrinsically linked.
Once again, the scribe likes what he hears from Jesus.
The New Revised Standard Version The First Commandment
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.”
So while Jesus has been more than happy to answer this question in a way that is understandable by both the scribe and the saducees, the scribe himself is the one who, in response to Jesus teaching, makes the final point in the argument with the Saducees. When the scribe says “this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices,” he’s saying what the prophets said over and over, right? “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” “I’m sick of your offerings, let me see you live lives of justice.” “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. This is what the Lord requires of you.” All those great teachings from the prophets repeated here by the scribe in front of the Saducees who care only about sacrifices and their place as the leaders in the temple. The reason the Saducees don’t understand the failure of their hypothetical situation, the reason they don’t understand Jesus, the reason they don’t understand God is because they care more about systems, structure, order, and laws, than they do human beings. They love God’s rule system, especially because in their current position as temple leaders its what gives them power, but they care more about that system and maintaining it than they do the individuals who are in their care as shepherds of the people of God. They love God for their own benefit. The interaction here between the scribe and Jesus reminds us that true love of God benefits others.
The New Revised Standard Version The First Commandment
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.
“you’re not far from the kingdom.” What is it that Jesus has been teaching and talking about since the very beginning of his ministry in Mark? Isn’t his first teaching “The kingdom of God is here, change your hearts and lives and believe the gospel.” Here, this scribe and Jesus discuss what is at the core of the gospel- the love of God and the love of neighbor.
Conclusion: Love of God should define who we are, everything that we do. Its easy to tell if thats the case or not by whether or not our actions towards our neighbors .
The good news for us here is that God has been modeling this from the very beginning both through law and through actions, encouraging the followers of God to act compassionately towards each other. God ultimately does this on our behalf through Jesus. Love has defined Gods’ actions towards us completely, and there is no better news than that.