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Mark 12:28-34
The Greatest Commandment
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
Those who have worshipped with me for long — or who have participated in these Reflections regularly – might remember that I’ve expressed the opinion that this is one of the most important passages in the whole Bible. Think about it: this passage describes a moment when a representative of humankind stood in the presence of Jesus – who was God in human form – and asked which of the many commandments is the most important. The relationship between God and the covenant people went back almost 2000 years by this point, and had included lots of commandments and ordinances. So asking which of those commandments is the most important is a major question.
It’s a question that’s asked in the passage, by “one of the teachers of the law” – in other words, by a Hebrew religious scholar. This teacher of the law hears Jesus speaking and, it seems, is impressed with what he hears. Clearly, in the gospels some exchanges between Jesus and Jewish leaders are presented as attempts to trap him. But this particular question seems to be presented as a sincere inquiry from a Hebrew theologian.
The answer Jesus gives is clear and direct — he says that the most important commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. Actually, he quotes from a passage it’s traditionally called the Shema. It basically served as the original statement of belief by the covenant people, affirming that God is one, and is worthy of our greatest allegiance. Most of us have heard the Shema lots of times in our lives of faith – all the way back to VBS when we were kids. But it probably takes an adult sensibility to really appreciate what it means to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
As far as the heart goes, we typically think of it as representing the emotional side of our nature – it’s with our heart that we feel. So it seems that we are commanded to love God with a level of emotion that reaches to passion. But it’s not immediately clear how can you command someone to love God passionately.
The thing we always need to keep reminding ourselves is that the word translated as “love” here is the Greek verb agapao – and that word really means something like “to commit yourself to advancing the interests of another.” The core of the idea is commitment, not feelings. What we’re really being commanded to do is to work as hard at advancing God’s interests as we possibly can — to ‘give it our all,’ so to speak.
Now, even though I’m saying this kind of love is a matter of commitment, not emotion, I’m not saying we’re not supposed to cultivate deep feelings for God. And the more we remind ourselves of the great price God has paid for us on the cross, the deeper our feelings of gratitude and affection are likely to become.
And the more honestly and forthrightly we confront our own sinfulness, and the truth that we’re saved by God’s grace alone, the more likely we are to experience a genuine emotional attachment to the God who invites us to call him ‘Papa.’ And our emotions really are important. The Lutheran theologian James K. A. Smith has written an excellent book entitled “You Are What You Love,” which basically makes the case that our affections shape what we are, both in relations with other people and with God. So I don’t want to trivialize emotion.
Of course, this commandment doesn’t stop with emotion. It tells us to love God with our soul, mind and strength, as well as our heart.
Let’s stop and think about the idea of soul. We usually think of soul as this immaterial thing that’s somewhere inside us and then goes to heaven when our body dies. (And actually, at one point in Christian history, somebody put a dying person on a scale to see how much their weight changed at the moment of death. The goal was to determine how much a soul actually weighs.) But the truth is that the biblical idea of soul refers to a capability, not a thing — our capability to relate to God and to other people. So loving God with all our soul means opening ourselves as much as possible to relationship with him.
We’re also commanded to love God with all our strength, which suggests to me that love for God is meant to be about doing something – it’s an active love. Genuine love for God moves us to get to work serving his kingdom and serving others in his name. That’s probably what the apostle James had in mind when he wrote, “Faith without works is dead.” Loving God with all your strength is something that’s hard to do by just sitting around.
It strikes me as interesting that the original form of the Shema — this greatest commandment — as it appears in Deuteronomy 6, says that we are to love God with heart, soul and strength. But Jesus added “mind.” Loving God ‘with all your mind,’ it seems to me, means being thoughtful about the things of the faith, using your mind to understand God’s teachings and pass them along to others. But it also means paying attention to what’s going on in our minds, not allowing them to be consumed with anger or hatred or prejudice or lust or greed. Because our minds are a kind of ‘hothouse’ – and anything we allow to take root and grow there is likely to emerge into the world at some point as physical actions.
With the teachings of Jesus, faith became a matter of psychology. So that’s why I think this most important commandment includes loving God in all four of these ways – with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
It strikes me as profoundly significant that Jesus didn’t stop there – that he went on to link love for our neighbor to our love for God. Jesus says that these two commandments are greater than all others. That’s probably why the great Roman Catholic theologian and social advocate Dorothy Day said we cannot claim to love God any more than we love our neighbors — even those we love the least. If our neighbors are made in God’s image as we are, then presumably they’re beloved children of God as we are. So claiming to love God — to be committed to advancing his interests — obligates us to a similar commitment to advance the interests of those around us.
So it seems perfectly consistent that Jesus linked these two commandments when he was asked for the most important one. After all, if God loves the world — and all the people in it — enough to die for them, it seems entirely consistent that our love for God would be characterized by serving all of our neighbors in his name.
Let’s pray. Lord, let your Spirit stir in us to nurture a greater and greater commitment to advancing your interests, and to loving you with heart, soul, mind and strength. And move us also to love others, serving and sacrificing for them as Jesus did. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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