31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
Deut 6:2-6; Heb 7:23-28; Mk 12:28-34
+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
5 Nov 2006
In today’s gospel we come very close to the heart of the matter with Jesus’ endorsement of the two great commandments of love; that we love one another and that we love God, although we must remember that Our Lord places the commandments in the reverse order. The one God, the unseen God comes first.
There are accounts of similar incidents in chapter 22 of Matthew and Luke’s chapter 10, but it is difficult to work out clearly how they relate to one another and which version is more accurate, more truly describes the actual exchange. Here the discussion is between an honest disciple or at least a genuine searcher for truth, whom Jesus commends as being “not far from the Kingdom of God”. In Matthew the situation is one of public controversy and the questioner is a lawyer trying to trap Jesus.
When I speak publicly to adults I like to leave time for questions from the audience and when I speak to primary or secondary students I always do so. On many occasions I am asked the same or similar questions. Therefore we also have the possibility that in the three gospel accounts we have jumbled reports of more than one incident.
Today I often try to impress on my listeners, and especially young listeners, the importance of recognizing the central claims of the Catholic Church; what we stand for most importantly. Therefore on the back page of every volume of the “To Know, Worship and Love” catechetical series we have listed the four foundational Catholic truths. Catholicism is not a smorgasbord, because it is recognizing Christ for who he is and accepting at least his central teachings. If we feel that our conscience will not permit us to do this (an unusual way of thinking and speaking), we are not Christians.
Therefore the disciple’s question “what is the first of all the commandments?” was not unusual then and it is not unusual now among people who are searching for the truth and striving to clarify their ideas and beliefs.
The rabbis around Jesus’ time discussed these issues and there are significant parallels with our distinguishing between mortal and venial sins i.e. between death bearing sins that separate us from God and lesser faults which mar our relationships with God and one another.
Hillel the Elder, a famous Jewish rabbi who died in 10 A.D. replied to a question from a non-Jew about the most important commandment in these words: “What you yourself hate, do not do to your neighbours: this is whole law and the rest is commentary. Go and learn it”.
Our Lord’s answer to a similar enquiry begins in a different way by quoting the Shema from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy about our obligation to love the one true God. We often call this command “Shema”, as I did, which is the Hebrew word for “listen”, which introduces Moses’ teaching.
Two points are important in the Shema – God is one and only one and there are not many gods, one for each people or tribe or for different areas of life, such as love or war. Secondly this one true God is Israel’s god, because they are his chosen people.
There is a profound development in Our Lord’s teaching and we have no evidence for this in the Judaism of that time or earlier, because Jesus links the love of our neighbour essentially with the love of God. Now they are two sides of one coin and, as we find in John’s gospel, we cannot claim to love the God we cannot see, if we do not love in practice ALL those around us and especially those close to us.
It is difficult to spell out completely what love of all our neighbours might mean, as all of us do not like everyone equally well and might even find some quite annoying. The Old Testament book of Leviticus (19:18) spells out the foundations as we are not to nurture hatred of others and not to take revenge. Christians are called to go beyond this of course to practise the type of love prescribed in the Greek word “agape”, which is well translated by the English term “sacrificial compassion”.
One final particularity. This is the only reference in the three Synoptic gospels to human love for God and there are only five such references in St. Paul’s writings. The New Testament emphasis is on God’s love for his people, for all of us; an undeserved outpouring of his care and compassion on an undeserving humanity. In God’s love He gives himself to us, most of all in his Son.
To love God is the first great commandment for us but the love of God is the climax of piety, not its beginning. (J. B. Argus 1969).
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
