31st Sunday of Ordinary Time

As a society we have an obsession with rules.  “We must do this,” or “we can’t do that.”  While rules provide a necessary structure to our society which allows it to function, they can also be used to abuse or oppress members of society, particularly minority members of a society.  There are also those who feel they are above the law, able to use their position and wealth in society to circumvent the rules or distort them to their will.  But we who profess to be Christian believe there is no law above God’s Law, which is perfect, as we learn from this week’s readings:

The Word for the 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time:
Deuteronomy 6:2-6
Psalm 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51
Hebrews 7:23-28
Mark 12:28b-34

Our first reading is from the book of Deuteronomy.  Scholars believe it is this text that King Josiah found in the temple and read aloud to the people, causing them to weep and wale.  In this passage Moses is presenting God’s commandments to the people reminding them that by following these commandments they will grow and prosper under the Lord’s care.  And for this reason, we should love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and strength.  Our Psalm reinforces that message when we sing, “I love you, Lord, my strength.”  The Lord is our protector and our deliverer.

In our gospel from Mark, Jesus quotes this very passage back to the scribes who are questioning him.  At this point in our journey Jesus has now entered the city of Jerusalem, and Jesus knows he won’t be leaving alive.  The temple priests and the whole Sanhedrin are looking for a reason to arrest him and put him to death, so he is being confronted and challenged from every direction.  In this case, one of the scribes asks Jesus which is the first of all commandments, to which he responds by quoting our passage from Deuteronomy.  Jesus then takes this question one step further by telling us that the second is to “love your neighbor as yourself.”  But rather than challenging Jesus further, the scribe appears to be swayed by Jesus, acknowledging that following these laws is better than any burnt offerings or sacrifices.  The others, seeing the scribe’s honesty, dared not ask any more questions.

Our second reading continues the “high priest” discourse from the Letter to the Hebrews.  In previous weeks we’ve learned what the role of the high priest is and how Jesus is perfectly suited to the role of the new high priest.  This week we learn how Jesus is a different high priest from all the other high priests that have come before and that through Jesus’ death and resurrection, he took on the sins of all through his death, and through is resurrection he lives and remains high priest forever.

Final Thoughts:
One of the things that made Jesus a great teacher (rabbi) was that he had a way of making everything simple to understand.  Be it through his many parables or thought his answering questions (like with today’s gospel), Jesus had the ability to get to the heart of the issue and express it in a way that anyone could understand.  By giving us the “Great Commandment” as presented in our gospel, Jesus takes the Ten Commandments, and all of the Mosaic Law Code, and breaks it down to two simple rules:  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  That’s it.  All the other laws, rules, and statutes in the Mosaic Law (and beyond) stem from these two ideals.  

Over the years various people have tried to poke holes in these two simple laws, especially the part where Jesus teaches us to love our neighbor.  Questions like “who really is my neighbor?” and “what if they don’t love me?”  But again, Jesus, and all the subsequent Apostolic writings are clear.  Everyone is your neighbor.  We don’t get to choose which ones deserve our love and which ones don’t.  We must love them all.  Period.  Not always an easy task, but then again, there is sacrifice in every act of love.  And when following this second rule seems too hard, we can always fall back on the first – love God, for as the Psalm says, he is our strength.