Making the Familiar Fresh Again

Mark 12: 28-34

Rev. Dr. Mary Alice Mulligan

 We have heard a lot of the Gospel of Mark during this liturgical year. The early chapters show Jesus feeding and healing the crowds; the half-way point is when Peter declares Jesus as the Christ; and then a shift to focused teaching of disciples as Jesus moves toward Jerusalem.

When they arrive, Mark shows Jesus’ teaching at the Temple: God’s love is active in the world; divine love is more powerful than human sin and the systematic evil which grips society. God’s love is even stronger than death. Then we hear a scribe talking with Jesus. He is not trying to trick Jesus. He respectfully engages him in a theological exchange. Religious minds frequently discussed God’s law and what it means to live according to torah, eager to improve their own understanding. The scribe here asks what is the most important commandment. Jesus replies not with one commandment but two, which together form a sacred foundation. One scholar explains, “Together, [these two] comprise the heart of faithfulness, so that religion is a matter of divine and human relationships, of personal devotion and public consequence.”[1] Imagine the scene. They are at the Temple when the scribe agrees that loving God and neighbor are more important than burnt offerings and sacrifice – the very things the Temple does (not that sacrifices don’t matter, but they are not as important as love). This is foundational guidance for every Christian throughout time. From the 12th chapter of the Gospel of Mark, listen for the word of God. 

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ —this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.

The first passage we heard today was about Ruth who lived almost 1000 years before Christ. The Mark passage is about 2000 years old. You might be familiar with both of them, which is one of the difficulties with the Bible. Parts of it are so familiar, they lose their punch. How can we recover their freshness? How can we sense their intended holy power?

Let’s start at the beginning. God loves us first. Before anything else, God’s love for us exists. Every person is drawn into being by God’s power, which is the holy power of love, because God is love. James Weldon Johnson describes creation as God looking around and saying “I’m lonely. I’ll make me a world.” But then after creating all the spectacular parts of the whole diverse world, God says, “I’m lonely still.” Until God thinks, “I’ll make me a man!”[2] In other words, God realizes it is not good to be alone, even for God. So God creates not just mountains and deep ocean beauty, as well as every growing thing, but also us, in our diverse genders in the divine image. An amazing part of those divine actions includes God’s creating us and then giving us this generous creation to use. God provides all we need for a fulfilled life, including each other.

If we think about our existence, we realize we are totally dependent on our Creator, every second of our lives. Some years ago, seminarian Ann Jones, talked about how all creation is held in God’s hands, every thing sustained by God’s love. “If God were to withdraw her hand for just a moment,” she said, “everything would disappear.” That can sort of catch us up short, can’t it? The notion that everything – all creation – would cease to exist, if God’s hand faltered, for a second? Let’s take a moment to realize what God’s creative initiative means. It means we owe God everything. Our entire being rests in God’s hands. Everything. Before anything else in our lives, we have God. God loves us first.

So then we love God back. The greatest commandment is to love God. But curiously, the direction to love God is a call to respond to God; to love God back. Even though loving God back takes attention and will power, still our love is a response to God’s love. Jesus begins his reply by quoting the Shema from Hebrew Scripture: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Deuteronomy tells us to love LORD Yahweh with all our heart, soul, and strength, but Jesus adds: and our minds. We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Loving God involves believing, thinking, and behaving. To love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength means we commit to God all we are – our will and reason (which is what the Bible means by “heart”), our inmost being (our souls), our thought processes, our questions, our intellectual pursuits, and our physical strength (our activities and resources). We offer God our absolute devotion, which means offering everything we have and are, to the ways of life which God instructs. When Jesus calls us to love God back, he means to devote our minds, our energy, and our being, to the purposes and will of God.

Which still leaves open a question of what such love looks like. How do we love God back? Certainly we commit to worship, offering God our adoration and praise. This is no small thing. We don’t just make sure we are sitting in the sanctuary every Sunday morning. Worship is not attendance – worship is pouring out devotion to our Creator, paying attention to the words we repeat in the opening prayer and the hymns. Being aware of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit among us. We love back by worshipping.

But we also love back by devoting our being, our energy, and our minds to living the way of life God directs. We love God back by learning God’s instructions and living out of them. Jesus says the greatest commandment is to respond to God’s love by loving God back.

Then loving neighbors is a logical next step. Jesus hooks love of neighbor right onto our love of God because if we love God, we devote our lives to working for a world that aligns itself with God’s purposes. Unfortunately, loving neighbors is not a warm and responsive love that takes our breath away, like loving God is. Neighbor love requires intentionally caring for the well-being of the world, which includes whomever we interact with next, regardless of who they are, or how they act. We are to make their life fuller, no matter how they treat us.

When Margret’s husband was terminally ill, he asked her to promise him she would take care of his mother. Lou’s mother was jealous, selfish, and nothing Margret ever did was good enough. Nothing. But of course Margret promised and carried out that promise for years after Lou died, not because Margret enjoyed her mother-in-law, but because she loved her out of her love for Lou.

Neighbor love is like that. We love others out of our love for God. And God’s laws tell us how to love God by loving our neighbors. If we have absorbed the teachings of Jesus, we practice generous living – like caring for the least, praying for our enemies, and speaking words of hope to those whose faith is faltering.

We also know, since Jesus speaks more about possessions, including money, than he does about any other topic, he obviously thinks our relationship with things is important. Some of us might remember the poster from years ago: “Use things; love people.” We need to be reminded because we too often use people and love our things. Instead, Jesus calls us to “use our things” to show our “love for people.” Use things; love neighbors. A commentator explains the command to love our neighbor is Christ calling us to “a way of life wholly determined by an unwavering commitment to the well-being of others.”[3] When we love God by loving our neighbors, we are reflecting our faith. The greatest commandment is to love God with our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Then loving neighbors is a logical next step.

[1] Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm, Preaching the Gospel of Mark (Westminster John Knox, 2008),, 213.

[2] James Weldon Johnson, “The Creation,” from God’s Trombones, 1927.

[3] Victor McCracken, “Theological Perspective,” Mark 12:28-34, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol 4, 264.