31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark
12:28-34
The Scribe asked Jesus "What is the FIRST commandment." - What is the single, most important commandment?
He expects one answer, Jesus gives him two.
In his first answer, Jesus quotes the passage from Deuteronomy that we heard
in the first reading. This passage comes right after the ten commandments and, in a lot of ways, is a summary of them. If
you get this one right, all the others will fall into place.
"Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all
your strength." It’s interesting that Jesus adds "and with all your mind."
Love is the basis for
everything. It’s the bottom line. It’s the whole purpose and meaning of life. Looking at it this way, the last
judgement really only has one question: "How well did we love?"
God is not messing around on this one. The
verses that come right after this commandment in Deuteronomy say: "Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today.
Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind them at your wrist
as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates."
So, how are we doing on this? What percentage of our heart, soul, strength and mind was focused on loving God this
past week? Well, we had a holy day of obligation so I got an extra hour in. But.... speaking for myself, if "all"
means 100%, what would my score be? 60 to 70% is considered passing in school. Do I have a passing grade in this thing that
is more important than anything on earth?
...Tell you what, lets move on to the second commandment.
Jesus tells
us to "love our neighbor as our self." There is really no question who Jesus means by "neighbor" - all
of the gospels and the rest of the New Testament make it very clear that by "neighbor", Jesus means every human
being. That means we need to live our lives so that every other human being is just as important as we are.
Following
this commandment means that we care about others as much as we care about ourselves - people in 3rd World countries
as much as other Americans, people who cause us trouble as much as those who are nice to us, people whom we like as well as
those we can’t stand. It means we are never selfish, always share, never gossip or criticize, and never yell at, complain
about or put down other people.
So, How are we doing? I know, don’t ask.
This is impossible. We are human
beings. We get busy and distracted. We get upset and stressed out. Our culture pulls us in a thousand directions at once.
How are we supposed to love God and everybody else all the time?
That’s why Jesus gave us both commandments. That’s
also why he came here - to show us how to live them.
Each of these greatest commandments requires the other. We cannot
fully and totally love God all by ourselves. We need help with this. We need each other. We come together each week in order
to be reminded of the importance of God in our lives. That’s the purpose of the Mass.
We can’t love each
other if we’re just left to our own resources. We need God’s help with this. Jesus was the most loving person
who ever lived. Yet, again and again, scriptures point out times when he went off to pray to ask God’s help.
God
helps us to love each other and we help each other to love God.
Is our love perfect yet? No. This is not heaven. This
is the road to heaven. The question isn’t so much where we are on the road but what direction we are headed in. Are
we moving toward God and becoming more loving or are we going somewhere else?
Jesus does more than just give us directions,
he has walked the walk on the same road that we must travel. He knows the twists and turns, the rocks and potholes. And together,
for the most part, so do we. We need each other. We need God. We have Jesus as our friend and the Holy Spirit as our guide.
The only question is what direction we choose day-to-day, moment-to-moment. Are we moving toward God and becoming more loving,
or are we going somewhere else?
