TO be included in the reign of God is every religious person’s wish. Obedience to God’s commandments is clearly necessary, if one is to be part of the people in covenant with God. Jesus is queried as to which commandment is most important and first of all (Mark 12:28-34).
Love of God and of neighbor
IN the face of the more than 600 prescriptions in the Mosaic Law, questions about priority was inevitable. Which is first of all? How should they be ordered? Even a scribe, an interpreter of the law who must have recognized something in Jesus and wanted to hear more of his thoughts, was prompted to ask him this significant question. The answer of Jesus is true to his Jewish faith. Without singling out any particular statute, Jesus echoes the summons of their most important prayer (Deuteronomy 6:5—“Shema Israel”): The first is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength. Jesus adds “with all your mind,” to underline the total engagement of the person; the love of God is to occupy one’s whole being. And the second (Leviticus 19:18) is to love your neighbor as yourself.
No other commandment is greater than these two, and they are interrelated and inseparable. The first commandment, from which all others flow, concerns God “who is one.” Divine oneness is absolute, which creatures should imitate by being united with God in loving communion, in complete coordination of heart, soul, mind and strength. From this arises the second commandment: the One God makes all people one, each one loving the other as oneself. These two form one commandment, “the first,” rooted in an interior act of love, an absolute commitment to God. From this inner consciousness
must flow the external obedient behavior. Otherwise the law is kept with a hard heart, and a dark mind, and a sick soul, and only a minimum of effort, as we hear of God’s lament: “These people draw near with their mouths, and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13).
On the threshold of God’s reign
THE scribe appreciates the accuracy and profundity of Jesus’ reply. He calls Jesus “teacher,” a title that carries a special significance coming from an expert of the law. And he shows his skill as interpreter of the law by his own development of Jesus’ pronouncement. Making his application and showing they are on the same page, the scribe states that the cultic practices that relate people to God are clearly less important than the inner principal attitude of loving God and one’s neighbor.
Jesus returns the compliment, recognizing the wisdom in the scribe’s words repeating His answer and emphasizing the priority of love of God and of neighbor over ritual obligations. But Jesus indicates further development: the scribe must move beyond questions of the law and toward the experience of the reign of God. He is not far from the kingdom, but not yet there. Jesus takes the conversation to the next level. With the gradation of the Jewish cultic practices, things are now not just to be evaluated in terms of legal knowledge, but in terms of the Kingdom of God. In God’s Kingdom, beyond the boundaries of Judaism, a new community will emerge and, as Jesus Himself has voiced: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Mark 11:17). What else was there to ask Jesus; He was
beyond them.
Alálaong bagá, as the law was previously written on tablets of stone and people had to look outside themselves to know what to do, Jesus has started to fulfill what God said: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33). The inner attitude of love of God and of neighbor is the foundation of the people’s covenant with God. Where no other commandments can cover all human situations and predict proper behavior, the inner consciousness of love in communion with God and neighbor will find ways and means to embody that love in the unforeseeable turns and twists of life. This inner attitude of love is first of all.
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