Imagine if you will a scene just prior to birth where each individual is called into a
kind of celestial business office and told about a wonderful opportunity soon to be given to them. One can picture
God with a simple manila folder or computer disk saying something like: "Well congratulations. Your name has
come up for placement in the world and I see you've been given a hundred years, or seventy-six, or forty-one, or
seven, or even a few moments. Tell me, what is the one most important thing you hope to accomplish while you are
there?"
How would you answer that question?
In one sentence Jesus offered his challenger the key to what seems to be God's pure purpose for human existence:
to love-to love God and to love the people we meet-even as we love ourselves. Even back then, people understood
that it was not about the money you made, the land you amassed, even the children you sired. There was something
far more important, and being able to accomplish that one task…regardless of the time extended to us, would make
life not only beautiful…but highly worthwhile.
No one has ever devised a better way to live in the real world! As someone has rightly said, "it isn't that
we don't know how, it is rather a matter of doing it faithfully all the time in all of our relationships."
This conversation in Mark's gospel takes place right after Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on his final journey to the
cross. Following a series of confrontations about his authority along the way, and having broken new ground in
many areas in terms of theological understanding for his time period, Jesus now reverts to Judaism's ancient past,
and speaks out of his tradition. He begins with the "Sh'ma" (Shema) of Deuteronomy 6:4, the words pious
Jews then and now repeat at day's beginning and end: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one."
This is the fundamental truth of life, and without understanding this nothing else really matters. One God, one
possibility…no mater what name we attach.
Perhaps it is in recognition of the importance of "knowledge" that Jesus next quotes the words that follow
the Sh'ma, adding the quality of "mind" to loving God with "heart, soul, and strength." He
then quotes Leviticus 19:18, calling for "love of neighbor" in equal measure to love of self, bringing
these two commands together in a way that links love and justice. The verse he quotes from Leviticus follows prohibitions
against exploitation,--making love of neighbor about acting justly towards others, especially the poor and vulnerable.
The inquirer who asked the question, a Temple scribe, responds to Jesus' summary of the law with an extended "Amen!,"
and much like a colleague engaged in energetic conversation, picks up the thread that Jesus is weaving. He says
love is more important "than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices," echoing the tradition of the
prophet Amos: "I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though
you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them." (Am 5:21-22a).
In Mark's day, and in our own, the real question that follows is whether those who hear these words will live these
commands. Will we love God with all that we are and have? Will we love our neighbors by letting "justice roll
down like waters," as the prophet Amos calls us to do? (Amos 5:24a) Or will we find ourselves like the protagonist
in one of Garrison Keillor's stories who valued map-folding over actually taking the journey?
We may wonder about the curious way this passage ends. "After that no one dared to ask him any question."
Does the simplicity and truth of that final summation of the purpose of life and the heart of faith put to shame
all of the other non-essentials we heap onto life together as a community? Can it all come down to: If we truly
love, what else is necessary?
This past weekend on retreat, we began our exploration of the topic of "forgiveness" with the understanding
that in order to be able to extend forgiveness to even one other person--one must first experience the need to
have been forgiven themselves. A conscious knowledge of the need to be forgiven by God and an awareness that such
forgiveness is being offered as a "free gift" of unmerited grace, makes it easier for us to excuse the
slings and arrows that life and others will throw at us.
If however the journey of life begins without anyone really asking us if we wanted to be a part of it in the first
place, and our supreme responsibility can be narrowed down to simply "loving purely," then where is the
challenge?
Throughout scripture we hear story after story about people much like ourselves who despite all their faults and
shortcomings were simply trying to love and feel loved in return. Many of these stories, like that of our Old Testament
lesson from the book of Ruth point out the value of going that "extra mile," not in spite of, but because
of the disappointments life brings our way.
In this reading, Ruth, a foreign (Moabite) woman, goes beyond duty to stay with her Israelite mother-in-law Naomi
and expose herself to life in a strange land by accompanying her to live in Bethlehem. Her pledge to Naomi declares
there is no part of her life she is willing to withhold in standing by the widowed mother of her own dead husband
with a love that will not turn back,--even embracing Naomi's God as her own.
It is because of this _expression of such a deep level of commitment, that this reading is often heard at weddings.
Many scholars believe it was composed during the 4th century BCE as a protest against the dissolution of mixed
marriages mandated by Ezra and Nehemiah prior to the exiles return from the Babylonian captivity.
Others think that it may have been a tract designed to promote the theory of the Moabite ancestry of David, a tribal
society living on the eastern side of the Jordan River that had been one of Israel's ancient enemies. Controversy
over East and West Bank rites raged even then, and bloodshed on both sides was common.
Whatever its original purpose, the story is almost unique in the whole of the Old Testament as a complete narrative,
paralleled only by the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis (37- 50). In both of those stories the ability to
forgive and the triumph of love is the supreme theme.
While commonly placed between Judges and Samuel in the Christian Old Testament, the book has a place of special
liturgical significance in the Hebrew canon, where it is found first among five small festival scrolls. It comes
immediately after Proverbs, and is read in its entirety only once a year at Pentecost (Shavu'ot or Feast of Weeks)
to mark the time of the barley harvest (Ruth 1:22), Ruth's acceptance of Judaism (1:16) as the first convert, the
tradition of David's birth and death at this time, and Israel's acceptance of the Torah at Sinai, seven weeks after
the Passover and Exodus.
In other words it is a "completion book" marking a very important time of passage. As such it is appropriate
for us to be hearing about the "completion teaching" given in the final days of Jesus' earthly life,
and also appropriate for us to be sharing both on the Sunday on which we celebrate All Saints,' recognizing the
"completion" of the earthly journey of those who traveled with us in our own life experience.
Our Psalm today is the first of the final five psalms referred to as the Hallel Psalms because they all begin with
the Hebrew words for "Praise the Lord." While the other four Hallels were clearly composed as congregational
psalms, this one has a more personal sense of devotion. It tends to contrast the different capabilities of Yahweh
and humans to provide help in desperate circumstances, and recites a number of reasons for trust in Yahweh who
unlike even the greatest leaders of this world who die and disappear, remains eternal (vss 3-4).
When Jesus recognized the wisdom of the scribe he says something to him that he has said to no other teacher of
the law, to no other scribe that we have record of in this book: "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
What interesting words these are..."You are not far from the kingdom of God." Did he mean that the scribe
was about to die…or…
All of you who have really tried to do what is right, All of you who believe that God is One and that God is Good
- and that to love God and your neighbor as yourself is what God's will for us is all about…You are not far from
the Kingdom of God! And all those we remember this day, remember for their human weaknesses, and their attempts
to do the best they could, and most importantly for their great love of God…who are now part of that great cloud
of ongoing witness that surrounds and sustains us in all ways we cannot even begin to imagine…are closer to the
realization of that Kingdom than we know.
People are always going to need guidance about ethics. Some clearly need help in unscrambling how we are to understand
the authority of scripture. Much religious devotion both within and beyond Christianity assumes we are to do things,
simply "because the Bible says so" or because some authority declares us to. People need help to see
that this was one of the stances which felt most threatened by Jesus and which later (in the name of Christ) plagued
Paul. "By whose authority do you do these things?"
Many people are closer to the kingdom of God out there in the world than those inside the church because they have
grasped at least some of the perspective present in this brief exchange. Christians need to be encouraged to own
this theology as a fundamental that much fundamentalism denies. Pure loving surpasses all precepts.
These commandments easily slip down the list of priorities, wherever claims to absolute authority about the Bible
or the Church or rite and order and their protection ride high. For then God is usurped by something else, religious
or otherwise. The will to power enthrones absolutes, creates other gods--and people become obsessed with control.
This story runs against that trend. Jesus and the scribe are bearers of good news. They shift the focus, ultimately,
from obedience to love; and that makes all the difference!
It struck me with some force that these commandments omit any reference to Jesus, just one more example of His
again pushing away from himself any personal status. Consistently He says to those who are healed "your faith
has made you well" - not my power ... And when questioned about the essence of life, He once again does the
same. He always focuses our attention on God and on others.
And this is not just modesty, which he expects us to disregard. It is truth, that he expects us to follow!
If we beat people over the head with the cross, we misuse it, just as surely as "Bible - bashers" misuse
the Bible. For people of other faiths can love God (however they perceive God to be) equally and as forcefully
as we do. People of other faiths, and of no formal faith at all, can love their neighbors as successfully as we
are enabled to do so. Such responses surpass the highest law.
Henry J. Heinz, best known for his "57 Varieties" of food, was also known for his strong Christian faith,
and his activity in the life of his church. When his will was read following his death, those who were present
heard this tribute to his mother: "Looking forward to the time when my earthly career will end, I desire to
set forth at the beginning of this will, as the most important item in it, a confession of my faith in Jesus Christ
as my savior. I also desire to bear witness to the fact that throughout my life, in which there were many unusual
joys and sorrows, I have been wonderfully sustained by my faith in God through Jesus Christ. This legacy was left
to me by my consecrated mother, a woman of strong faith, and to it I attribute any success I have attained."
Is there someone who left you such a legacy of faith? Is there someone to whom you will leave the same?
Paul writes in Romans, chapter 10: Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how are they
to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?
And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?... So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard
comes through the witness of common people, just like you and I, who become the saints of God simply…through the
way they love. May we do the same.
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