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:
- 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.
- 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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Friday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Timothy 3:10-17
In today’s First Reading, Paul continues to urge Timothy to make Paul’s teaching and behaviour the model of Timothy’s own life.
Paul had very clear shortcomings, of which he was well aware, but he knew also that in his devotion to the following of Jesus, he was second to none. In fact, it is because of his weaknesses that the power of Jesus shines so strongly through him:
…for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:10)
And he was passionately bound by his love for Jesus, saying:
…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.
(Gal 2:20)
So now Timothy is invited to remember Paul’s fidelity, patience and spirit of endurance as he passed through so many persecutions and sufferings. Paul mentions the three Galatian towns of Antioch, Iconium and Lystra. Paul had visited them on his first and second missionary journeys, and as Timothy was from Lystra, he would have first-hand knowledge of Paul’s sufferings in that region. Yet God had delivered Paul from all the threats and hardships he had encountered there.
Paul then enunciates a principle which occurs regularly in the New Testament and which has been a fact of life in the Church at all times:
…all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
We find similar warnings in the Gospel:
…you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. (Matt 10:22)
It was precisely in the places mentioned above that Paul had encouraged the Christians there:
It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God. (Acts 14:22)
St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), put it slightly differently when he said he hoped that his men would always experience some persecution. It was a sure sign they were doing their job. We should not be surprised, then, at attacks on or ridicule of our Christian churches.
In fact, there will always be, as Paul says, “wicked people and impostors” for whom the message of the gospel is anathema and a threat. They will do what they can to destroy it and its messengers. But as long as the gospel of Truth and Love is proclaimed it cannot fail, no matter what is thrown against it.
Timothy is urged to remain faithful to all that he learned and believed from his teachers, who include Paul as well as Timothy’s mother, Eunice, and grandmother, Lois (whose names are given at the beginning of the letter). They had taught him the word of God from his earliest years. A Jewish boy formally began to study the Scriptures when he was five years old. (Timothy, we know, was born of a gentile father and a Jewish mother and would have been seen by Jews as one of them. Because of that, Paul had had him circumcised to make him more acceptable to fellow-Jews.)
Paul says that the Scriptures, the word of God, are:
…sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Wisdom is not knowledge or information; it is a deep insight into the realities of our world and an ability to see how all things relate to each other. The particular wisdom here is that which comes through our commitment to the vision of life that Jesus and the gospel give.
Paul continues:
All scripture is inspired by God…
Paul affirms God’s active involvement in the writing of Scripture, an involvement so powerful and pervasive that what is written is the infallible and authoritative word of God. At this time, the primary reference here must be to what we call the Old Testament as some of the New Testament books had not yet even been written. However, by the time of the later books, e.g. 1 Timothy and 2 Peter, some of the New Testament books and other written material (which later would become part of the canon) were being considered as being on the same level as the Old Testament books. (At the same time, one feels that Paul would be very surprised to know that some of the letters he wrote, apparently in some haste at times, would be seen as God’s revealed word to us!)
An understanding of the Scriptures then is an essential source for:
…teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…
Armed with this understanding, all those who are “person[s] of God” will be competent and ready and able for every good work. For it is through the word of God in Scripture that we:
…may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
The Scripture contains a wisdom which should guide all our Christian lives, and it is regrettable that so many Catholics (as opposed to many Protestants) are far less familiar than they should be with God’s Word in both the Old and New Testaments. It was St Jerome who said that “ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”
It is amazing at times to hear people, who hardly ever open a Bible, pontificate about Jesus and the nature of Christianity. If we are among those who have to admit that much of the Bible is a closed book to us, let us resolve today to make ourselves more familiar with it. We will find there an inexhaustible source of inspiration for our lives.
Those with experience will tell you that, no matter how many times they read Bible passages, there is still more insight to be gained. It is not like a mystery novel that can be tossed aside once it is finished. It is more like a great piece of classical music that can be listened to again and again and which is ever open to new interpretations while remaining faithful to the original.
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Saturday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Timothy 4:1-8
Today we have our last reading from 2 Timothy organised in two parts. The first part consists of an exhortation by Paul to Timothy to be unwavering in his work of evangelising and preaching.
Paul gives this urging with great solemnity:
In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead…
He is also keenly aware of the twin facts of Christ’s return and the coming establishment of God’s kingdom in its fullest expression. After all, the eternal lives of his listeners will be depending on the commitment Timothy gives to his work.
So Timothy is charged to preach the Word through thick and thin. Paul says:
I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage with the utmost patience in teaching.
This is necessary because there will come a time when people will tire of solid teaching and will go chasing after all kinds of novelties:
For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but having their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.
That is, people have ears that want to be “tickled” by words which are in keeping with their evil desires. Instead of standing by their faith in Christ, they chase after fables and fairy tales.
What was true in Paul’s time is just as true today. In spite of the spiritual wealth and wisdom that we have in our Christian tradition, we have so many, including Catholics, who pick and choose from elements of other religious practices that they find more interesting. People move from one titillating excitement to another—there is no end.
However, some of this, we Christians must admit, is because of our own weaknesses and failure to clearly communicate our message. The Christianity that many reject is frequently a serious distortion of the original message, because it is all they have ever heard; many others have not even heard the message in any form. It can lose all meaning in face of the bombardment of new ideas which pour out from all kinds of sources.
In all such situations, Timothy is urged to ‘keep his cool’. There is a need to:
…be sober in everything, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry [service to the Gospel Way] fully.
That is what we all have to do. But to do so effectively, we must be, as we saw in yesterday’s reading, deeply inserted into the Word of God in the Scriptures.
In the second part of the reading, Paul himself can look back on his own record as an evangeliser with a certain amount of satisfaction:
As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.
It was the custom both among Jews and other religious believers to pour libations of wine, water or oil over the victims to be sacrificed. Paul views his approaching death as the pouring out of his life as an offering to Christ. Earlier, he had written to the Christians at Philippi:
But even if I am being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the service of your faith, I rejoice, and I rejoice together with all of you. (Phil 2:17)
He knows his “departure”, that is, his leaving this life, is not far away. Now in prison and at the end of his life, Paul sees himself being poured out as a total offering to God. He has given his all and is holding nothing back:
I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.
Paul looks back over 30 years of labour as an Apostle (from about 36-66 AD). Like an athlete who had engaged successfully in a contest (“fought the good fight”), he had “finished the race” and had “kept the faith”, i.e. had carefully adhered to the teaching of the gospel.
Like a runner in a race, he now deserves the garland of victory with which he is confident that the Lord will crown him when the Lord, whom he so passionately loves, comes again in judgement. He could be referring to the winner of a race or he could be referring to a crown given as a reward for a righteous life, a crown consisting of righteousness or a crown given righteously (justly) by the righteous Judge.
Can we make the same boast as Paul? Almost certainly not. But there is still time. Let us start today.
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Thursday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Timothy 2:8-15
Paul reminds Timothy today that Jesus is both descended from David and risen from the dead. This tells us that Jesus is both one of us, because he descended from a human being, and also divine, because of his rising from death to life. Since Christ is God, his death has infinite value. Since he shares our human nature, he could rightfully offer himself in our place.
This is the heart of the gospel that Paul has preached and, because of that, he is now in chains. He is presented as being in prison awaiting sentence or even execution. But he emphasises, there is no way that the word of God can be chained. There is no way that Truth can be permanently suppressed. Truth always will out (if one may paraphrase Shakespeare). Many witnesses to the gospel have proved that over the centuries, right down to our own day. Prison and torture often have the very opposite effect; they only increase the desire to make the truth known.
So Paul will gladly undergo any suffering so that those called to believe in Christ will experience salvation in Jesus’ name. No suffering is too great if it brings about the salvation of God’s chosen ones who have yet to believe, a salvation which finds its climax in eternal companionship with Christ in glory.
To illustrate his teaching, he quotes from what seems to be an early Christian hymn:
If we have died with him,
we will also live with him; (see Rom 6:8)
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he will also deny us;
(see Matt 10:22,33; Luke 12:9)
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
he cannot deny himself. (see Num 23:19; Rom 3:3-4)
The point to which Paul appeals is that suffering for Christ will be followed by glory. If we fully identify ourselves with the Christ who died on the cross, we shall also enter into glory with him. It is an exhortation to all of us to persevere in following Jesus, even when it involves difficulties and dangers.
But “if we deny him, he will also deny us”. This is certainly not to be understood as a tit-for-tat situation. It is unthinkable that God could act in that way. Rather, if we abandon the gospel or part of it for some temporary advantage, then we, by our own choice, are no longer with him.
Even when we are unfaithful, God himself remains always consistently faithful in his love for us. He cannot change. But neither can he compromise to accept us when we are in denial of truth and love. It is not he who abandons us, but we him. The choice is up to us and, if we are to be free, he must recognise our choice to separate from him.
In the final words in the reading, Timothy is told to tell the people “to avoid wrangling over words”. Paul’s warning seems to be directed at those who are being caught up in the ideas of Gnosticism. Two leaders of this heresy, Hymenaeus (see 1 Tim 1:20) and Philetus, denied the bodily resurrection and probably asserted that there is only a spiritual resurrection (similar to the error mentioned in 1 Cor 15:12-19). Gnosticism interpreted the resurrection allegorically or symbolically, but not as a reality. Paul told the Corinthians that:
…if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain and your faith is in vain. (1 Cor 15:14)
In a final piece of advice, Timothy is told that all that matters in our lives is that we try to make ourselves deserving of God’s approval, and we do that by consistently preaching and living the truth. It is a teaching we need to hear and implement in our own lives too.
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Wednesday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Timothy 1:1-3,6-12
For the remaining four days of this week we will be reading from the Second Letter to Timothy, one of the so-called “Pastoral Letters”. (The First Letter of Timothy is read during Weeks 23 and 24 in Cycle I of the First Readings.)
There are questions about the letter’s real authorship, but it is presented as a letter from the Apostle Paul to one of his most faithful assistants and companions, Timothy, who came from the Roman province of Galatia in what is part of Turkey today. In the opening of today’s letter Paul refers to Timothy as “my beloved child”. There was, indeed, a large age gap between them.
Paul calls himself an ‘Apostle’, one specially commissioned by Christ, putting him on the same level as the Twelve who accompanied Jesus in his public life. And his mission is for:
…the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus.
As an Apostle, he is being sent out to preach and explain that the Good News of that unending life with God is available to all those who open themselves to it. There then follows a prayer of thanksgiving as Paul remembers and prays for his companion, Timothy.
The main part of the letter now begins, starting with exhortations to Timothy. Paul begins by urging Timothy to “rekindle the gift of God” (the Holy Spirit) which had been given to him when Paul laid his hands on him. The gift of the Spirit can lie dormant in us unless we exercise it regularly and make it an active element in our lives. Failing to use the Spirit’s gifts is something we are all in constant danger of doing. Probably few of us effectively use the special gifts that God has given each one of us for service and benefit of others.
And Paul emphasises:
…God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
We need strength and courage, coupled with wisdom, if we are to be effective in sharing the gospel with others. It is possible that a certain lack of confidence in him by Paul was a problem for Timothy. This may have arisen because of Timothy’s relative youth. What the Spirit gives is “power…love and…self-discipline”. That power is an inner strength and not the kind of power that dominates others. The love is the great desire to work for the well-being of others, especially to bring them to become aware of and to respond to the love of God that comes to them through Jesus Christ. Self-discipline is not the suppression of desires, but rather a passion to do what is good and right.
And for that reason, Paul tells Timothy neither to be ashamed of the witness he is called to give, nor of his companion Paul, who is now languishing in prison for the sake of the gospel. In fact, he is to expect some measure of hardship in preaching the gospel. That is something we all need to be prepared for. The threat of death hangs over every Christian who proclaims the gospel, but Jesus has brought us life and immortality which no one can take away.
At the same time, Paul says, we have this huge gift of having been called to a life of holiness. We have not merited this in any way; it is pure gift. It is part of God’s plan from the very beginning, but now made visible through the life of Jesus, the Word of God among us:
…he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. (Eph 1:4)
It is in the service of this gospel that Paul was called as preacher, apostle and teacher and it is precisely because of this service that he now suffers imprisonment. Clearly he is not ashamed of this and has no regrets. Paul says with the lovely, much-quoted saying:
…I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust…
This is his total confidence in his Lord. It is a person-to-person friendship which nothing can shake. Paul is sure that his Lord will protect him to the very end.
Would that we had that confidence in Jesus that Paul had! Would that we were ready to suffer any hardship so that the gospel might be heard and accepted by more of those around us! As the Christian apologist, GK Chesterton, said: “Christianity has not failed; it has not even been tried.”
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Tuesday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Peter 3:11-15,17-18
The early Christians had high expectations that the Lord would come back to them very soon. As time passed, they began to realise that it might not be as soon as they had first thought, namely in their own lifetime. This is reflected in the way later books of the New Testament are written.
But even here in this relatively late book the anticipation is still there. We are even urged to hasten that day. How can we do this? By working harder to bring more people to know the Way of Christ, to share his vision of life and thus realise the full establishment of the Kingdom. We still have a long way to go!
The “Day of God”, the end of the world, is visualised as utter destruction of all we know now, but it will be replaced by “new heavens and a new earth”, words taken from Isaiah and also used in the book of Revelation (21:1). This new world is “where righteousness is at home”. There truth and goodness will dwell as unchanging and unchangeable elements. This will be a time when what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer—”your Kingdom come, your will be done”—will be fully realised.
For each one us, it is a reminder to lead lives “without spot or blemish” (words applied to Jesus in 1 Peter) and at peace with God. In this way, we are always prepared no matter what time the Lord decides to take us to himself. We are told to “regard the patience of our Lord as salvation”. This echoes words of Jesus in John’s Gospel that he has come not to condemn, but to bring salvation.
We are told to:
…beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability.
In this case, the warning is against Gnostic teachers who held ideas which were in conflict with the gospel. In our day too, there are many kinds of ‘error’ which can lead us far from the ways of truth, love and justice.
But we are also told to:
…grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To grow in grace is to open ourselves more and more to the experience of being loved by God. To grow in the knowledge of Jesus is not to know more about him, but to grow in a personal and intimate relationship of mutual love.
This kind of knowledge is on a different plane altogether from the esoteric knowledge that the Gnostics proclaimed. In our own day, some come pretty close to Gnosticism when they put an excessive emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy. This is a modern version of Pharisaism.
Jesus said that people would know true Christians not by their theology, but by the love they show for each other, and especially for those in any kind of need:
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
and
I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:23)
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Monday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Peter 1:2-7
Today we begin reading from the Second Letter of Peter. There will be just two readings, today and tomorrow.
According to the Vatican II Missal:
“Second Peter is one of the most interesting New Testament books. Written perhaps by a later disciple of Peter, it may be the last written book of the Bible.”
The letter begins by asserting a theme which runs through it, namely, that the only knowledge we really need is a personal knowledge of God and his Son, Jesus. The author is challenging the heretical teaching of the Gnostics, who said that the only thing needed was knowledge, independent of any behaviour. Knowledge of God and Christ necessarily leads to following the Way of Jesus, a way of both knowing and doing.
God’s loving power has given us everything we need to live a life that is full and meaningful, which is a life in close relationship with him. God has made available all that we need spiritually through our knowledge of him. No special ‘secret’ knowledge, only accessible to initiates, is necessary for the Christian to achieve fulfilment of life. The glory and power of God was manifest in the teaching and signs that Jesus gave, clearly indicating his divine origin. Later in the letter, the author will mention specifically the experience of the Transfiguration, of which Peter was a witness.
The Gnostics, who followed a way of thinking which was a constant challenge to the early Christians, believed that salvation depended on having a knowledge of “mysteries”, secret revelations, only given to them. They also tended to see evil in all material things, a kind of distorted Platonism.
God, in his love for us, has showered us with precious gifts, including material gifts. And provided we abandon a world corrupted by irrational and hedonistic desires (a false infatuation with the material), we can become sharers in the very life of God, that life of Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Our whole Christian life is ordered to having that experience.
The rest of the reading lists the steps by which we develop a well-rounded and fruitful Christian life. The foundation of our inner goodness is our total faith and trust in God’s love and our commitment to the Way shown to us by Jesus. That faith is supplemented and fulfilled by virtuous behaviour which flows from it. Virtue must be accompanied by knowledge. This means that virtue is not a mere pious veneer, but rather comes from an ever deeper understanding and grasp of the way of life that Jesus proposes to us in the Gospel—a Message accessible to all.
This knowledge leads to self-control. Many of those infected by Gnosticism, which put all emphasis on the acquisition of secret knowledge, believed that self-control was completely unnecessary. Knowledge, not behaviour, was the source of salvation. The Christian belief is quite different. The deeper our knowledge of God and Jesus, the more our whole lives, including our behaviour, are affected. We do good, not because we have to, or force ourselves to, but because we want to. Our behaviour flows naturally from our insight into what is true and good.
Self-control, in turn, leads to endurance, to perseverance even in the face of either competing attractions or painful obstacles. Endurance in turn is supported by devotion, which implies a deep warm-hearted commitment and not just a dogged stubbornness. Devotion leads to mutual affection. To be a Christian is not to go alone to God, but in companionship with others who share the same vision. This mutual affection then blossoms into love, that outgoing, unconditional desire for the well-being of the brother and sister.
This is a very different picture from the purely head-centred intellectualism of the Gnostic which can only end in a cold isolationism, with little regard for the well-being of the world in which we live. In contrast, we Christians are convinced our world is the place in which to find and love our God.
Among other things, the author here is warning us against any form of elitism, which is a constant threat to our understanding of the Christian life. Such an elitism can lead to the formation of groups which lay claim to a higher level of Christian living and look down on ‘outsiders’. The beauty of the gospel is that it can be grasped adequately by even the illiterate. (Perhaps that message was brought home some years ago when the founder of Opus Dei and scholar, Fr Josemaría Escrivá, was beatified together with Canossian Sister Josephine Bakhita, who had formerly been a slave in Latin America and had no formal schooling whatever.)
That does not mean we should not do all we can to have a deeper understanding of our faith. If we have the intellectual capacity to do so, we should. A great scandal among us is the ignorance of many educated Catholics about Scripture, theology and spirituality. At the same time, we also have to affirm that the very highest levels of mystical prayer are accessible to those with no education at all. Knowing Jesus is a lot more important than knowing a lot about him.
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Saturday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 12:38-44
We come today to the end of our readings from Mark’s Gospel. We stop just on the threshold of prophecies about the end of Jerusalem, the final coming of Jesus and the story of his passion and resurrection. There are two related passages today serving as entry points for this last phase of Jesus’ life and mission among us.
First, Jesus hits out at some of the scribes, the expert interpreters of the law. As such, they feel that they are expected to be perfect models of that law down to its smallest details. Jesus says they go around in long, flowing robes (the working poor could not afford to dress like that) and that they expect to be:
…greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!
Sadly, such behaviour, we have to confess, is still not unknown among Christian clergy and other religious leaders.
At the same time, Jesus says, these leaders were rapacious hypocrites. They did not hesitate to “devour widows’ houses” while at the same time making a show of lengthy prayers. They were the opposite of everything that Jesus was proposing as the way to love and serve God. They emphasised the external appearance rather than the inner spirit; they were concerned about being served rather than serving others; they thought only of what they could get through their privileged position rather than what they could share, especially with those in need.
Jesus warns that, precisely because of their greater knowledge of the law, their responsibilities in not keeping its real spirit will be all the greater—to whom more is given, more is expected.
The mention of widows leads on to the second part of the reading. Jesus was sitting facing the treasury of the Temple and watching the people putting in their offerings. A poor widow—and at the time, widows were almost by definition poor and, because they could no longer produce children, regarded practically as non-persons—rejected by their husband’s family. They were often reduced to poverty. Yet, it is a poor widow who approaches the treasury box and drops in two coins of negligible value.
Jesus draws the attention of his disciples who were with him and points out that the poor woman had put in more than all the others combined. They were contributing what they could easily spare while she put in her whole livelihood. It was an act of total trust in God’s providence and care for her.
It has been pointed out that she put in two coins. In other words, given her situation and under the law, she would have been more than justified in putting in just one. Compare her to the rich man who could not part with his wealth to follow Jesus.
It has also been pointed out that this anonymous woman is, in a way, a symbol of Jesus himself. He also will “empty himself”, give away everything, including his life, out of love for his Father and for us. It seems no accident that the story is placed just here as Jesus enters on his final days.
Today’s two incidents both provide matter for us to reflect on. Do we wear our Christianity just on our sleeve? Do we tend to assert our “rights” over others and expect due deference from them, e.g. in our working place? How much of what we have are we willing to share with others? Let us pray as St Ignatius prayed:
Teach us, Lord, to be generous.
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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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Wednesday of Week 9 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 12:18-27
Jesus faces another confrontation today, this time with Sadducees. The Sadducees were a group which did not accept many of the beliefs held by the Pharisees. They confined their beliefs to the Pentateuch, the so-called books of Moses that comprise the first five books of our Bible.
Among the beliefs they rejected was that of life after death. Armed with this conviction, they approached Jesus with a hypothetical case which they felt could not be answered by him.
A woman married a man, but he died before they could have children. In order that her late husband, the eldest son in his family, would have heirs, she followed a law (known as the Levirate law; see Deut 25:5-10) which said she had to marry her husband’s brother. She did so, but he also died and, in the end, she married seven brothers, all of whom died before a child could be conceived.
The Sadducees’ question to Jesus was that, if there is life after death, which of the seven men would be her real husband in the next life? For them, of course, there was no problem, but for Jesus and all those who believed in an after-life, they thought it created an insoluble situation.
Jesus answers them on two fronts. First, he says that in the next life marriage will no longer exist. People will all be related equally in a common relationship with God. Second, he astutely quotes from the book of the Exodus, a book of the Bible which the Sadducees acknowledge as divine revelation. Jesus reminds them that God spoke to Moses from out of the burning bush and:
He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
(Exodus 3:6)
Jesus adds:
He is God not of the dead but of the living…
God did not say to Moses: “I was the God of Abraham”, or “I used to be the God of Abraham”, but “I am [another I AM statement] here and now the God of Abraham”.
Perhaps we might not be altogether swayed by this argument, but faced with a text from a part of the Bible they accepted as divine revelation, it was a statement the Sadducees could not question…and they had no comeback.
It is useful for us to be able to handle distortions of our faith which can sometimes be thrown at us. It is essential that we are familiar with our Bible in order to do so. But we might also say that we do not bring people to Christ simply by besting them in arguments. The real way to bring people to Christ is by the compelling example of our words, our actions and our attitudes reflecting his love and tolerance.
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