Mark 12:28-34
28. And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all?
29. And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
30. And 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: this is the first commandment.
31. And the second is like, namely this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
32. And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, you have said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:
33. And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
34. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, You are not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that did ask him any question.
I wonder how many of you watch the Jeopardy show? We usually watch it often because it precedes Wheel of fortune! The questions on Jeopardy are always difficult but have you noticed that the contestants answer them so quickly and with relative ease? The scribe in today’s gospel story reminds me of Jeopardy when he comes to Jesus with a difficult question. He asks, “Which is the first commandment of all?
I am not sure if you are aware but by Jesus’ time, the Jews had accumulated more than 600 laws and commandments. There were major laws and minor laws and many taught that all the laws were equally binding and that it was dangerous to make any distinction among them. In that sense the scribe was asking a very difficult question. He was not looking for a certain chronological order of the commandments as opposed to asking which of the commandments was the most important or weightiest of them all.
I am assuming that with so many laws, the scribe was confused and overwhelmed. He certainly knew he could not keep all of them but at the same time he seemed to have been struggling to do
everything he can to please God. He was a good man.
I believe the same applies to many of you. There are 66 books in the bible (approx 1500 pages or more depending upon the print) which contains over 4000 years of history. I am sure for many of you this might be overwhelming; not only is the bible a lot of reading but there is also a lot in there for you to remember and understand! I know you mean well and you genuinely want to commit your life to God but I am sure that you too would like to know the shortest and quickest way to the heart of God. It seems to me that the answer is the one that Jesus gave to the scribe: This is what he said
"You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind and with all of your strength; and besides, you are to love your neighbor as yourself. There is none other commandment greater than these”.
I am not suggesting that everything else in the bible is irrelevant but rather that you give these commandments the highest priority in your life. As opposed to more than two million laws in the United States, the laws of God though many are not burdensome. Jesus reduced the 600 to two simple principles of loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. When you do these two things, you fulfill all the commandments.
The “key” is to love and therefore, I thought it might be a good idea to try and define human love. In fact, a group of children were asked “What does love mean?” and these were some of their answers: They said,
Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on cologne and they go out and smell each other.
Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.
When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.
Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.
Another said, When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love.
Love is when mummy sees daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is more handsome than Denzel Washington.
Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him home alone all day.
People use the word “love” very loosely in that we say we “love our dog” or we “love our car” or you “love some kind of pizza” or you “love some colors”, or you “love the weather” All of these descriptions sound nice but they are really only shallow expressions of love. When tested this level of love often fails. Many mummies tolerate smelly and sweaty daddies so long as they bring in a good paycheck but when that does not happen tension builds up and many a time this can escalate into irreparable differences which cause mummies to start looking out for sugar daddies!
Jesus is not talking about this kind of inconsistent and shallow love. He asks us to love God with all of our heart, all of our soul and with all of our mind and with all of our strength – but how do you do that? Simple, give God the first place in your life. You give him your all – give him every ounce. Devote every fiber of your being to him which includes your time, your money, your body, your thoughts and intellect, and your actions. You and I must allow our life to be governed and built on a foundation of layers and layers of love.
I realize though, that in theory
this might sound great but there might be a situation where your belief in God is not a problem but it’s your sense of unworthiness that prevents you or causes you to be hesitant in terms of loving God. You are unsure if God will accept your love given the fact that you might not have an impressive past. Friend, if this is where you are, take courage and let us look at Peter’s life for a moment.
Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus could have removed Peter’s name from the book of life for betrayal but instead on the shores of Galilee, for the 3 times that Peter denied him, Jesus asked him three times, Peter “Do you love me”. Let me read that passage for you from the book of John:
When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep." The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my sheep.
Jesus did not want to beat up on Peter by bringing up his past. In fact, Jesus said nothing at all about it. All that Jesus was looking for was Peters “love”. Friends, the ruling principle of the soul is to love God with all of our heart. You and I will never find God if we do not love him. Do not allow your past to keep you from drawing close to God. All of God’s commandments are important but you know and God knows that you can’t keep all of them; that is why we are saved by grace; but what you can do is to love him and your neighbor with all your being!
In speaking of love Paul says: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.
Without love you and I are nothing; we will be nothing to God and nothing to those around us. It doesn’t matter if someone treats you bad - Two wrongs will never make a right. You are God’s child, be different - reach out to them with a hug or a phone call and say “I just want you to know that I love you in Christ”. Love is what sent Jesus to Calvary and our love for him and our neighbor is what will send us
to heaven.
The scribe who accepted this teaching of Jesus was assured that he wasn’t far from the kingdom of God. He wasn’t there yet, but he was on the right track; he was on the highway to heaven not far away but surely heading there, making his way to those gates and when you do the same my friends, you too will not be far away from that wonderful Kingdom of God. Amen.
