The scribe's question in this Sunday's Gospel passage may seem like a simple theological inquiry, but if we consider the larger context of the Gospel narrative, we can see that the scribe was trying to set a trap against Jesus. The passage takes place in Jerusalem, where many Jewish people have gathered for the Passover, the greatest feast of Judaism, celebrating the liberation of the Israelites from captivity in Egypt. However, the celebration is bittersweet, because by the time of Jesus, the Jewish people had been living under foreign occupation for hundreds of years. Just imagine a scenario where the United States has been conquered by a hostile country. What would it be like to celebrate the 4th of July while enemy tanks are patrolling the streets?
The celebration of the Passover was a highly charged time in Jerusalem, with the possibility of an uprising breaking out in order to overthrow the Romans, the current occupiers of the Holy Land. The atmosphere was especially tense at the time of Jesus because the prophecies of The Book of Daniel pointed to what we now call the first century AD as the time when the Messiah would arrive. The assumption was that the Messiah would be a military king who would defeat the Romans with divine help. As the city was preparing for the Passover, the celebration of the liberation of the Israelites, even small disturbances would have been enough for the crowds to rise up against their oppressors.
The Romans understood the situation and they sent extra forces to keep Jerusalem under control during the season of the Passover. Pilate, the Roman governor himself, would be in town for the occasion, though he did not usually stay in the city. It was against this backdrop that Jesus rode into Jerusalem, cheered by the crowds gathered for the feast.
But while the crowds welcome Jesus, the religious leaders do not. They see him as a threat to their power and they are also afraid that if an uprising starts, Jerusalem will be leveled by the Romans. As Jesus is teaching at the Temple before the Passover celebration, various members of the religious leadership of Jerusalem question him. As these exchanges unfold, Jesus and his questioners are surrounded by the Jewish crowds gathered for the event and also by Roman soldiers who are patrolling the city. The questions asked of Jesus have one goal - to make him say something that would anger either the crowds or the Romans. If the former, he loses face and his support dissipates. If the latter, he will get arrested.
The scribe in today's Gospel passage is the last one to question Jesus, asking which of the commandments from the Mosaic Law is the first. No matter which commandment Jesus picks for his answer, the scribes can argue that he is mistaken, thereby undermining him in front of the crowds. But as with all the exchanges in the sequence of questions, Jesus turns the tables. He quotes the words of the Shema, the prayer that the Old Testament commanded Jews to recite several times a day: "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" (Mark 12:30). He then adds: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31)
The scribe cannot argue with his words and instead comments approvingly. The final attempt to derail Jesus through public questions is defeated. In the process, Jesus gives us the basic tenets necessary for our spiritual life. We are to love God with our entire being and love our neighbor as ourselves. God must be in the center of our heart, our mind, our way of living. We must give up everything that pulls us away from God even in the slightest way.
The love of neighbor is deeply tied to our love of God. One of the themes of the New Testament is that our love for God is shown by how well we love the people in our lives. God loves each of us infinitely. If we truly love God, his love enters our heart and flows out through us to all of his people. If we bear hatred in our heart toward another human, that means that our heart is not fully open to God's love and our life is not fully focused on loving God.
The command to love our neighbor as our own self also presupposes a healthy sense of self love. If we are weighed down with self-hatred or are mired in arrogance, pride, and self-worship, we cannot be open to God's love for us and we cannot be channels of God's love to others. We overcome the temptation to worship ourselves by putting God in the center of our being. By doing so, we humble ourselves and accept God's lordship over our lives.
The flip side of self-worship is self-loathing, the opposite of pride. The temptation in this state is to see ourselves as worthless, as unlovable - unlovable even by God. When these dark feelings come upon us, we should recall how God demonstrated his love for us. God created us and when humanity went astray, he took on human nature and became one of us. He lived among us and then accepted suffering and death upon the Cross in order to cleanse us of our sins and to purify us.
The Letter to the Hebrews, from where the second reading for this Sunday is taken, discusses how Christ changed the way we are cleansed. In Old Testament times, when people sinned, they had to go to the priests at the Temple to ask them to offer a sacrifice on their behalf. These sacrifices were specific to the offense and had to be repeated after each sin. The limited sacrifices foreshadowed the eternal sacrifice of Christ. When Christ accepted death upon the Cross and offered himself up as the sacrifice, he made reparations for all sins past, present, and future. We just need to repent and accept his saving love by being baptized and living according to the life of the Church he established. If we sin again and fall away, we can find forgiveness through repentance and by confessing our sins to a priest, through whose words of absolution the sacrifice of Christ will cleanse us anew.
As Catholics, we also believe that each Mass is a participation in the Holy Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. Whenever the priest says Mass, we are mystically standing at the foot of the Cross, in the presence of Christ being crucified. As we participate in the Mass and receive the Eucharist, the infinite self-giving love of Christ is poured out upon us. Let us accept God's never-ending love for us. Let us love him in return with our whole soul, mind, and strength, and let us love ourselves and all others with the love that God has for us.
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The readings for the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B are:
Dt 6:2-6
Ps 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51
Heb 7:23-28
Jn 14:23
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: The Altar in the Catholic Church at Cana (c) 2016 by Zoltan Abraham.