Let love be your aim.
Pentecost 24, Proper 26
October 31, 2021
Fr. Tim Nunez
I’m just curious, when was the last time you ran into a Scribe? We don’t really use Scribes very often. It’s an antiquated synonym for secretary or clerk of meetings, maybe a writer. But it feels like you’d need a flagon or something to really use it correctly. I remember when I was in Boy Scouts we actually had a leadership position called Scribe. The Scribe was like the clerk, which was a pretty easy job because we never made motions or took minutes or anything.
The scribes of Israel were not that. They were a guild of experts, teachers and exponents of the law. Remember that in their culture the law of Moses wasn’t just for their personal religious direction and observances. It was their law – everything from national laws to civic ordinances that defined how they lived in community.
Recall that eventually Israel was overrun and exiled to Babylon. The prophets made it explicitly clear that their exile was a consequence of their failure to live up to their end of their covenant with God. So, when they were restored to Israel they set up a framework to keep that from happening again. The scribes were part of that framework. That makes sense. But, over time, that developed into a growing legalism that lost the spirit of the law.
So this scribe is a sharp fellow. He has just heard Jesus debate successfully against the Sadducees regarding the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees didn’t believe in it and Jesus showed them from scripture why they were wrong. This scribe is impressed, so he asks him a question of ultimate importance.
The response that Jesus gives is so familiar for us. (We hear Matthew’s account of it every Sunday in the Rite I service at 8:00.) Sometimes when people try to recite the Ten Commandments they will start with these two. That isn’t technically correct but it isn’t wrong either because it does summarize the ten and more. Jesus is not just summarizing the Ten Commandments, but the entirety of the 613 Old Testament commandments and the prophets as well. We shouldn’t allow our familiarity with it to obscure the depth and brilliance of Jesus’ answer.
The first part of Jesus’ response is what you’d expect from any and every practicing Jew over the age of 5. It summarizes the first four of the Ten Commandments but also all the regulations and ordinances about all aspects of worship. It is drawn from the Shema, which we read earlier from Deuteronomy (6:4-9), “Hear, O Israel…” which was as familiar to them as the Lord’s Prayer is to us. You may recall that Jewish people traditionally have that passage written on a little scroll, rolled up a little narrow box and nailed up in their front door frame. That’s so they think about it when they are at home and when they are away.
Loving God is most important because He is the source of true meaning and purpose and we are made in His image. Jesus quotes it almost precisely except he adds the phrase, “With all your mind.” Why? We don’t get an explanation, but note that the Shema instructs God’s people to have God’s Word on our minds, in our thoughts, no matter where we go or what we are doing. Stay on it, stay on it, stay on it. It is meant to frame every aspect of our being.
N.T. Wright put it this way, “Whatever we do, we are to do for him. If we truly lived like that for a single day, God’s kingdom would have come on earth as it is in heaven. And—this is the point—Jesus seems to think that through his kingdom-work this commandment is now within our reach.”[1]
The second part of Jesus’ answer is more obscure in its source, and therefore all the more brilliant. "Love your neighbor as yourself,” is a clause, a phrase, carved out of Leviticus 19:18. Please turn to Leviticus 19:18 in your pew Bibles. It reads, “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.”
Jesus plucks that little phrase out of that sentence and, yes, it does summarize the rest of the law and the prophets. This includes the last six of the Ten Commandments but also all the laws, ordinances and rules pertaining to family and communal life, the care of the poor and the stranger.
Jesus’ answer shows us that the heart of faith isn’t about following a strict set of rules; it is about love. That makes perfect sense because love is the most important thing there is. Real love, not the romantic butterflies’ kind.
Our family had a wonderful Black Lab named Lucy. She was an amazingly good dog, loving and watching over us for a dozen years. Every night she would position herself where she could keep an eye on each of us who were home. She was especially faithful with Meg’s lupus. When Meg would have bad days, Lucy stayed with her. She would sense her pain and would gently rest her head next to her or curl up beside her.
When Lucy died, our daughter Elizabeth poured her grief into a painting of Lucy. Elizabeth has had no formal art training but she is pretty talented. Her simple painting managed to capture Lucy’s heart and our great love for her, even if you didn’t know us.
Elizabeth asked if it was any good. Meg replied that if we ever had a fire, she’d grab that picture along with our picture albums underneath it. “Right after I made sure everyone was safe, we’d take all those pictures with us. We can replace everything else.” The pictures are so important, and only important because they remind us of the people we love.
This morning we will baptize two young men, Jackson and Tucker. They are teenagers, cousins, who have come home to Lake Wales and to Good Shepherd. This is exciting, it’s a really big deal. Youth have so many distractions and these guys have decided to follow Jesus.
They have so much to learn. But it can all be summarized in these two parts, 1A and 1B, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” We can use that to summarize our faith, and also to sort through all the decisions and troubles we face in life.
AMEN
[1] Wright, T. (2004). Mark for Everyone (p. 170). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.