31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

          “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”  Now that is something you want to hear Jesus say to you!  Likely, the scribe to whom Jesus said this did not realize at the time the full significance of Jesus’ statement.  To have the eternal Son of God and the author of our salvation make such a declaration is no small thing.

          But what is more interesting to me in this exchange is that it took so little to elicit this statement from Jesus.  The scribe merely “parrots” back to Jesus his own answer to the question about which is the greatest commandment in the law.

There must have been something more happening here, something under the surface that we can’t see in the text or read in this man’s face, something at the level not just of the mind, but of the heart, as he proclaims, “You are right in saying, ‘[God] is One and there is no other than he’. And ‘to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  Yes, when this scribe said this back to Jesus, Jesus must have seen something happen in him that would prompt him to say, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”  Perhaps this scribe made a connection for the first time between the mind and heart in regard to these familiar commandments.

Jesus’ answer to this question about which is the greatest commandment isn’t particularly novel after all.  The commandment to love God alone with all one’s heart, soul, mind and strength is straight out of Deuteronomy.  Jesus quotes it perfectly here.  In fact, this is known as the Shema Yisrael, named for the first two words of this passage, “Hear, O Israel!”  It is something that Jews in Jesus’ time would have recited daily, just as many do to this day.  This is the verse that is customarily written on a tiny scroll and placed in a container called a mezuzah and is affixed to the doorposts of Jewish homes, so that upon leaving and returning home on may touch this and recite the Shema, and remember this all-important commandment.  And Jesus “addition” to love one’s neighbor as oneself is really nothing new either.  It’s right out of Leviticus.

Both of these ideas are from the Torah and would have been very familiar to Jesus’ listeners, especially to a scribe and scholar of the law.  Even the combination of these two commandments may not have been an “innovation” of Jesus, but something already familiar to the Jews of his time.  So what happens in this question and answer, and then the affirmation of Jesus’ answer and finally in Jesus’ praise of this scribe must be much more, much deeper than what we can see here.

To use analogy that I think would be familiar to our students, what I think we are seeing unfold here is difference between simply learning the material for a class and really getting the material for a class.  The scribe undoubtedly already knew (at some level) the answer that Jesus gave, from his own reading of the texts, but maybe he never really grasped it or internalized it until this moment.  But now, it seems, the “light bulb goes on” and Jesus notices this – perhaps in a smile or a glint in the eyes – and He affirms it.  More than just a “light bulb going on” in the mind of this man, Jesus must have also detected a change, or at least the start of a change, in the man’s heart.  As simple as this exchange is and as basic a concept as it is to love God and neighbor, somewhere this scribed crossed a threshold of faith that day in his conversation with the Lord.

How do we ourselves, some two-thousand years, after this exchange approach this double commandment of love of God and love of neighbor?  Is it something that for us is still only at the level of a “concept?” “Yeah, yeah, love God and love your neighbor.  Moving on. Next question.”  If so…if that’s is, more or less our attitude in regard to this commandment, then how can we change that?  How can we receive these words so that they really become a part of us?

It think most of us, myself included, have approached this twofold commandment of love of God and neighbor from the “bottom up,” so to speak.  That is, we generally start with love of neighbor.  It’s much easier, I suppose to love our neighbor who we can see than it is to love God, who we cannot see.  And often our motivation in the choices we make in life, especially the big choices, is out of desire to serve our neighbor in some way.

When I was first starting to think seriously about the priesthood I had no concept yet of the depth of the interior, spiritual formation that would be required of me to pursue and then to live this vocation.  I had no idea how important it was to cultivate a deeply personal relationship with Jesus through prayer if I was going to do this right.  All I knew was that I wanted to help people.  I saw priests kind of like “spiritual social workers,” and that was attractive to me.  Now this is not a bad motivation. In fact, it’s a pretty good motivation, but I see now that I was definitely more drawn to “love of neighbor” side of this commandment, at least initially, than the “love of God” side of it.  It was only after some time that I understood that is approach, while good, was missing something; it was incomplete

Students, I imagine you are here not just to get an education so that you can get a job (as good as both of those things are), but because you want to do something meaningful with your lives.  And that probably means that in some way you want to help people.  At least I hope this is the case.  Whether you’re studying the health sciences so that you can to restore physical health to people, or you’re studying education to enlighten and form the minds of our youth, or you’re studying business not simply to know how to make money, but how to make money serve our lives and our world instead of ruling them, or you’re studying in the arts, to share with people a glimpse into our common humanity or even a glimpse into the Divine – all of these things have at their center and foundation this desire to serve.  They are, hopefully, outwardly directed.  They are rooted in love of neighbor.  And this is a very good thing.  But as good as this already is, it could be even more.

And this is where that first part of the “great commandment” comes in – love of God.  We can, through whatever we do in this life, not only love of our neighbor but love God.  To love our neighbor well is also to honor God, who made us in His image with this outwardly directed, self-giving impulse.  To love our neighbor is also to love God who made and loves our neighbor.

Too often we thing of the two parts of this double commandment in terms of a kind of “zero sum game.”  In other words, we think that to love God as we should will necessarily mean that we have less time and energy to love our neighbor as we should, and vice versa.  But here’s the interesting thing about this: when we give ourselves over to the love of God with all our heart, mind and strength, He takes nothing away from love of neighbor.  In fact, our love of neighbor is only ever enhanced by our love of God.  Our love of God with all that we have and are gives life to our service to our sisters and brothers.

I think here of the example of Saint Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa).  She is well known for her love of neighbor, ministering for years to the poorest of the poor in the streets of Calcutta, India.  But we forget that she also insisted that she and her sisters go to Mass and spend and make a daily holy hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.  She believed that this took nothing away from their ministry to the poor, but in fact gave it life, meaning and success.  She understood, too, that in both instances, whether before the Eucharist or in caring for the sick, dying, hungry and poor, she was serving and adoring the same Christ.

And so, yes, we should love our neighbor as ourselves – whoever they may be – in our studies, in our work, in our careers and vocations.  But the choice is before us as to whether we will also love God in these endeavors.  If we can not only learn this twofold commandment of love of God and love of neighbor, but can also really get this commandment, breath this commandment, live this commandment, then it can be said of each of us, as it was said of this scribe, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”