Scripture: Mark 12:28-34
Video Link: https://youtu.be/nSDaWrGlAWE
Structure:
- Introduction
- The most important
- Conclusion
Introduction:
Good morning everyone.
If you want to get to know someone better, then you need to ask good questions. A good question has a number of characteristics…
For example, a good question is simple and concise, not so long and complicated that the other person gets lost or has to ask you to repeat yourself.
A good question has an honest purpose. By that I mean, you have a good reason for asking the question. You’re not trying to trick or embarrass anyone. You are genuinely interested in learning what the other person thinks.
A good question is also open-ended, one that invites more than a yes / no answer. A question that engages the other person in conversation and maybe even reveals new insights.
Today we continue our series in the gospel of Mark. This morning’s lectionary reading is Mark 12, verses 28-34. To set the scene, Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem and is now teaching in the temple courts. Hope is running high.
Up till this point various Jewish groups have been asking Jesus bad questions. Questions designed to catch him out and embarrass him. Long, complicated questions with a dishonest purpose. Questions intended to shut Jesus down.
But in today’s lectionary reading, an expert in the law asks Jesus a good question. From Mark 12, verse 28 we read…
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 neighbour 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 neighbour 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.
May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.
The most important:
What is the most important part of a building? Is it the roof maybe? Without a roof you would get wet. But then without walls, you wouldn’t be able to put the roof on. So are the walls the most important part?
Well, the walls and the roof are important (certainly more important than the TV or the furnishings) but I reckon the foundation is the most important part.
If the foundation isn’t right, the walls and roof are likely to fall.
How about a yacht? What’s the most important part of a yacht? Is it the sail? Without the sail the yacht isn’t going anywhere. Or is it the rudder? Without a rudder the yacht could end up on the rocks.
Well, the sail and the rudder are important, but I reckon the yacht’s buoyancy is the most important thing. If the hull takes in water the boat will sink.
What about marriage? What’s the most important aspect of a marriage relationship? Is it having things in common? Is it sex or romance? Is it communication? Well, all those things are helpful to a healthy marriage but, in my view, the most important thing is commitment. In particular, a commitment to one another’s wellbeing.
Circumstances change and people change throughout the course of a lifetime. Commitment to one another’s wellbeing enables the relationship to function and to flourish through those changes. Commitment is the foundation of marriage. Commitment is the buoyancy keeping a marriage afloat through the storms of life.
In verse 28 we read how one of the teachers of the law heard Jesus give some good answers to some bad questions. Unlike the Herodians and Sadducees, who were out to trap Jesus, this teacher of the law asks Jesus a good question: Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
This question is simple and concise, it has an honest purpose and it is open-ended.
There are 613 written commandments in the law of Moses, not to mention all the other regulations added by the scribes and Pharisees. With so many rules it would be difficult to see the wood for the trees.
Did one commandment stand out from the rest? Is there one law which serves as a key for interpreting all the other laws? Yes, there is.
Jesus refers to Deuteronomy 6, verses 4-5, as the most important commandment. These verses are known as the Shema…
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
The Shema begins with a command to hear or to listen. The first duty of love is to listen. We can’t obey God unless we know what he wants. Loving God starts with listening to God.
Interestingly the Shema (the most important, most foundational) commandment includes some theological statements about God…
Firstly, the Lord (Yahweh) is our God. This speaks to Israel’s special covenant relationship with Yahweh. In Jewish and Christian thinking, God is not some impersonal force. God is not ‘the universe’. God is a conscious being, capable of personal relationship.
The idea here is that God is committed to Israel’s wellbeing and indeed to the wellbeing of all his creation. To put it more plainly, the command to love God is prefaced by the reminder that God loves us.
The Shema also affirms that the Lord (Yahweh) is one. This speaks to the theological belief that there is only one true God, not lots of gods. The Lord God does not have any rivals. He is not fighting to stay on top. The Lord God is all-powerful, almighty. Nothing poses any kind of threat to Israel’s God. Therefore, we can trust the Lord God. We can find security in him.
But wait there’s another layer of theological meaning here. The phrasing,
“The Lord is one”, indicates that God has integrity. God is whole, complete, not divided within himself. There is a harmony within God. The Lord is one.
For example, God’s justice is not at odds with his mercy. God’s justice is one with his mercy. When God destroys evil that is both an act of justice and mercy at the same time.
The substance of the Shema (the most important command) is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
The Greek word for love here is agapao (or agape). Often when we (English speakers) think of love, we imagine a pleasant warm fuzzy feeling, like falling in love. However, agape love is not always accompanied by a nice feeling.
Agape love is primarily an attitude of the mind and a decision of the will.
To love someone with agape love is to make a conscious choice to act in a way that is good for that person’s wellbeing, irrespective of how we feel.
You see, feelings cannot be commanded. We don’t have much control over whether we like someone or not. Jesus isn’t telling us what we must feel. Rather Jesus is telling us how to behave in relation to God.
Sometimes agape love requires us to go against the grain of our feelings. Thinking about thisin the context of our relationship with God, agape love says, I will remain loyal to God and obey him, even when it feels like God has abandoned me or let me down.
The Shema says, lovethe Lord your God with all your heart. In general terms the heart, in the Old Testament, represents a person’s inner life, the core of your being where loyalty resides, where desire comes from, and decisions are made. The heart speaks to what you value and where your commitment lies.
To love God with all your heart therefore is to value God above all else.
It means not splitting your loyalty between God and any other thing.
Loving God with all your heart means remaining committed to the Lord God through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer.
Your soul probably refers to your life force, the spark of life. Your soul is that unseen energy which animates your body. Your personality (your true self) comes from your soul. To love God with all your soul is to love God with all the energy and creativity and personality you possess.
This means being yourself with God. Not trying to be something you’re not. Accepting the way God has made you, being honest with him and enjoying him. Your soul is unique, like your fingerprints. No one can love God in quite the same way you can. No one can give God joy like you can.
Eric Liddell the Olympic sprinter said, “I believe God made me for a purpose – but He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure”. For Eric Liddell, running was an expression of his soul. When Eric Liddell ran, he was loving God and this gave God pleasure, a pleasure that Eric could feel in his spirit.
When do you feel God’s pleasure? Do you feel it when you are singing or when you are baking or when you play an instrument or work in the garden or paint a masterpiece or hang out with your grandkids?
We can’t always be doing the things we love. But whenever we can, we should spend time in our own soul, doing the things that God made us to do, the things that give God pleasure.
The soul and the body go together. You can’t really have one without the other. A body without a soul is like a guitar without strings or a computer without software. It’s dead. Likewise, a soul without a body is like a surgeon with no hands or a pianist with no piano. The soul needs the body to express itself.
And so loving God with all your soul goes hand in hand with loving God with all your strength. On one level your strength is your physical power and stamina. But it’s more than that. Your strength is your skill and your aptitude as well.
Are you good with your hands? How might you use your practical skills to love God? Maybe by doing odd jobs for the those who are in need?
Are you good with children? How might you use your aptitude with children to love God? Maybe by volunteering to help in Kids’ Church?
Your strength extends to the resources you possess too. Your strength might include things like your time, your money and your social connections. Therefore, to love God with all your strength means being a good steward of the time and money God has given you. Being generous with God and the poor.
Loving God then, is not just something we do on Sundays or special occasions like Christmas or Easter. Loving God is something we do everyday.
One thing we notice is that Jesus adds in loving God with all your mind as well. The original Shema doesn’t explicitly mention loving God with your mind, but it is surely implied by the terms heart, soul and strength.
Perhaps Jesus adds in loving God with your mind because he is talking with an educated man. For the teacher of the law, the mind (or one’s understanding) had special significance.
The point seems to be that God’s law is not something that can be blindly followed without thinking about it. Figuring out how to apply God’s law of love in a messy unstable world requires mental effort. It requires us to slow down and think through the implications, not just for ourselves but also for God and our neighbour.
We probably shouldn’t make too much of the distinction between heart, soul, mind and strength. While each of these words adds an interesting layer of meaning, there’s also quite a bit of overlap between them, like a Venn diagram.
The main point here is to love God with your whole being. Love God with all that you are and all that you have. That is the first and most important commandment according to Jesus. That is the key to understanding all the other commandments.
In verse 31 of Mark 12, Jesus goes on to say: “The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.”
Loving your neighbour as yourself is another way of saying, ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. Or treat others the way you would like to be treated. Of course, loving your neighbour as yourself implies that you take good care of yourself too, as Murray emphasised four weeks ago.
The Greek word Jesus uses here for loving your neighbour is agape, the same word he uses for loving God. As I mentioned earlier, agape is an attitude of the mind and a decision of the will.
The Jews of the first century would have understood their neighbour to be a fellow Jew. But as Ewan reminded us, three weeks ago, Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan demonstrates that your neighbour could be anyone you meet.
Whether you know your neighbour or not, whether you like your neighbour or not, God’s command of agape love requires you to act for their wellbeing, to the extent you can. Of course, each of us comes with our own limitations. It is not always in our power to help our neighbour as much as we might want to.
Leviticus 19 lists various practical examples of loving your neighbour…
‘Do not steal. Do not deceive one another. Do not pervert justice. Do not spread slander. Do not hate your brother in your heart. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge… but love your neighbour as yourself.’
The teacher of the Law asks Jesus a good question: ‘What is the most important commandment?’ Jesus’ reply weaves together two commandments as one. Love God with your whole being and love your neighbour as yourself.
Jesus is making the point that love for God cannot be separated from love for your neighbour. And love for your neighbour cannot be separated from love for yourself.
It’s like the apostle John says in his first letter to the early church…
19 We love because God first loved us. 20 If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. For we cannot love God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love others, whom we have seen. 21 The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love others also.
God is one. Human beings are made in the image of God and therefore to love God is to love people. These all go together.
In verse 32 of Mark 12, the teacher of the law responds positively to Jesus.
The lawyer asked a good question and he found common ground with Jesus.
Normally Jesus is at odds with the religious leaders. But Jesus does not prejudge this man by his experience of other religious experts. Jesus takes each person as he finds them.
More than this, Jesus leaves room for the teacher of the law to add his own insight. And what an insight it is. To love God and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.
This might seem ho hum to us, but it was a huge admission from an expert in the law. This religious leader was implying that the temple system with all its rituals and sacrifices wasn’t all that important, compared to love.
If loving God and neighbour is the foundation and framework of the building, then ritual sacrifice is like the furnishings. Just as the carpet and curtains make no difference to the structural integrity of the building, so too ritual sacrifice makes no difference to our relationship with God. Love is what really matters.
And Jesus couldn’t agree more. In fact, Jesus’ once for all sacrifice on the cross fulfills the law in this regard, doing away with the need for a temple building and ritual sacrifice. This teacher of the law is quite progressive for his time. Jesus commends the man saying, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
Conclusion:
One of my favourite love stories would have to be Matthew’s account of how Jesus’ parents, Mary and Joseph, got together. Jesus’ stepfather, Joseph, shows us what it means to love God and love your neighbour as yourself.
Mary was engaged to Joseph when Joseph found out Mary was pregnant.
Joseph did not know who the father was. It appeared as though Mary had committed adultery and the letter of the Law stipulated that Mary should be put to death for her crime.
Joseph had every right to feel angry, but he did not let his feelings get the better of him. Joseph took some time to love God with his mind. He considered the situation before deciding what he would do.
If Mary had cheated on him, then his love for God meant he could not marry her, for God does not condone adultery. Also, Joseph’s love for himself prevented him from marrying a woman who (it seemed) did not care for him.
But Joseph’s love for his neighbour meant he could not insist on Mary’s execution. If Mary was killed, her unborn child would die also. That would be taking an innocent life, that would be unfair.
Because Joseph was a righteous man, he decided to divorce Mary quietly and save her from public disgrace. This would leave Mary free to marry the man who got her pregnant and two lives would be saved. In this way, Joseph obeyed God’s law of love.
As it turned out, God let Joseph in on the secret that Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit. Mary had been faithful after all. So Joseph went ahead and married Mary. The rest is history.
Let us pray. Gracious God, forgive us for the times we lose sight of what is most important. Help us to love you with understanding. Help us to live in our own soul and to feel your pleasure. Help us to support the wellbeing of those around us and so glorify you. Through Jesus we pray. Amen.
Questions for discussion or reflection:
- What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
- If you had the opportunity to ask one question of Jesus, what would it be?
- Discuss / reflect on the theological meaning(s) inherent in the statement, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” What does this tell us about God?
- What is agape love? How is agape love different from romantic love? Can you think of a time in your own life when you gave or received agape love? What happened?
- When do you feel God’s pleasure? How do you (personally) spend time in your own soul? Why is this important?
- What strengths, skills or resources do you possess? How might you best use these to love God and your neighbour?
- Why does Jesus hold together loving God with loving your neighbour as yourself? Why can’t these commands be separated?
- What is significant about the teacher of the law’s response to Jesus in Mark 12:32-33?
Tawa Baptist 