Friday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Mark 12:35-37

In the face of the confrontations he has been experiencing Jesus now lays claim to his true identity. It had long been the belief among the Jews that the Messiah would be a descendant of the family of David. (On the other hand, the Samaritans saw the Messiah coming through the prophetic line; see John 4.)

Jesus, we know from the genealogies the Gospel gives us, was of the family of David. But today he affirms he is more than just a descendant of David. He is in fact David’s Lord. In the Gospel, Jesus quotes from Psalm 110, and we need to remember that David was believed to be the author of all the Psalms, themselves words inspired by the Holy Spirit.

In the Psalms, David says:

The Lord [God] says to my lord [the Messiah],
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.” (Ps 110:1)

Jesus, then, is saying two things to his opponents:

1. Jesus, the descendant, is the Lord of his ancestor, King David, and he is the Messiah-King who will sit at the right hand of God. He is, then, also the Lord of those who are challenging him.
2. God promises that he will crush all the enemies of the Messiah-King.

The argument used in this reading could hardly be used today, as we have a better understanding of the authorship of the Psalms than people had in Jesus’ time.

Nevertheless, there are many other elements in the Christian Testament which lead us to the same conclusion: Jesus is Lord of all. We should ask ourselves: Does my life give testimony to that belief?

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Thursday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Mark 12:28-34

Not all the Pharisees and Scribes were hostile to Jesus—we have Nicodemus as one very good example. And here today we have a scribe who approaches Jesus with no apparently hostile motive. He had seen how well Jesus had dealt with the challenges put to him by various groups. He now comes to ask a question which was much debated among scholars.

There were more than 600 commandments in the Jewish Law, and it was often asked which of these had priority over the others. Unusual for him, Jesus immediately answers the man’s question. Was this because, unlike on other occasions, it was asked with politeness and respect and was a genuine request for an opinion?

In answering the question Jesus does not give just one commandment but two:

Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 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.

and

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Both answers are taken from the Law of Moses (Deut 6:4-5 and Lev 19:18 respectively) and so satisfy his questioner’s request. However, as we read through the New Testament and especially the words of Jesus in the Gospel, we know that Jesus gives his own twist to these two commandments.

First, in answering a question about which is the most important commandment, he gives two commandments which, in his view, are quite inseparable; one cannot be kept without the other. We cannot say we love God and then refuse to love our neighbour. He will make two other refinements. He will extend the meaning of ‘neighbour’ to include every single person and not just the people of one’s own race, religion or family (see Luke 10:30-37). And he will set as the standard of love, not just the love we are able to show, but the depth of love which he will show by dying for us (John 15:13).

The scribe is very pleased with the answer that Jesus gives and expresses full agreement, and:

When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

That is to say, the scribe is very close to having the spirit of the gospel and to the following of Jesus. He still has to make the crucial step of committing himself to follow Jesus and become actively involved in the work of the Kingdom.

Whether Nicodemus or this scribe took that step or not we do not know. However, we can make our choice to start today or renew our commitment to keep this double commandment and to reflect on how well we put them together.

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