This weekend we hear an essential passage from Mark’s Gospel. It is one in which Jesus is asked a crucial question: which of all the commandments, is “first” and most important? Jesus’ response is immediate and direct as he points to the love of God, and that the love of neighbor is essentially a part of, or synonymous with, this same commandment. Reading this indispensable passage and summary of the commandments makes me wonder why then is there so much misunderstanding, conflict, and violence in our world. Jesus reminds us that we have so much more in common with one another than we allow ourselves to fully realize and believe.
Let us spend some time reflecting this weekend on the significance of this commandment, especially in light of the recent act of anti-Semitism, violence and loss of eleven lives at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Recently, people gathered under U.S. and Israeli flags projected on the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City this past Sunday to show solidarity with the Pittsburgh Jewish community following the mass shooting.
Jesus is quoting a familiar statement from the book of Leviticus, chapter 19, which is at the heart of all Jewish law. It is saying something significant about the centrality of love. All other specific laws are a “means to the end” of our having loving relationships with God and with one another. Love is the end and goal of our faith. The specific rules and other commands of God are essentially ways to help all of us create a deeper foundation of love in our lives and world. What a much needed, wonderful and reassuring message for our nation and world!
The specific spiritual practices and disciplines God instructs to His chosen people may initially seem difficult or onerous, but they are actually there to help support the people to develop better, more meaningful and more beautiful lives. The commandments are not about a dreary, burdensome, or gloomy set of rules. They are about the joy that comes developing loving relationships with one another. The Shema, “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, and, you shall love your neighbor as yourself” are the foundational commandments and tenets of both Judaism and Christianity. Though there are obvious differences between Christianity and Jewish dogma, doctrine and belief, we adhere to the same two commandments. It is in the simplicity of these two commandments that all religions are called to find peace and salvation.
It is important for all of us to recognize that holding onto grudges, discriminating against someone, or the very act of feeling superior because of how we practice our faith, is contrary to loving God and neighbor as God instructed us to do. It is the great confession of truth that we can see is agreed upon by both the Scribe and Jesus in the passage. Jesus adds a passage from Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” to complete the Shema. This passage is one of the few where there is a scribe who comes to Jesus impressed by Jesus’ knowledge. The scribe likes what he hears from the teacher and therefore asks him another question about the heart of Jesus’ creed. It was common, at the time of Jesus in Israel, to have disputes over which one of the more than six hundred commandments were first.
The remarkable part of this passage is not that Jesus answered wisely, but that the scribe adds this: that the Shema is much more than burnt offerings and sacrifices. It is ironic that it is through the sacrifice of Christ that the Shema is bound together as one. There is not any act that is more loving to God by Jesus than when he accepts the Cup of Suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and lovingly sacrifices His life on the Cross.
Let us think about our own lives. Are there friends, relatives, coworkers, neighbors, people in our own churches or elsewhere who we don’t like? Are there people with whom you wish you did not have to interact? Let us give them to God. Pray for them. Remember their birthdays. Say ‘hi’ to them. Give them an honest compliment. Do it because we love God, even if we don’t feel love for that individual or group. Let us love others through loving God.
Pope Francis prayed this week, “May the Most High welcome the deceased into his peace, comfort their families and sustain the wounded,” he said. “We are all, in fact, wounded by this inhuman act of violence,” Francis continued. “May the Lord help us to extinguish the eruptions of hatred that emerge in our societies, strengthening the sense of humanity, respect for life, moral and civic values, and the holy fear of God, who is Love and Father of all.”
The pope has repeatedly condemned anti-Semitism as a great moral evil of our times, insisting that all Christians “must be firm in deploring all forms of anti-Semitism, and in showing their solidarity with the Jewish people.” Francis has appealed for a common Judeo-Christian witness “to the sanctity of God and human life.” God is holy, he said in April 2015, in a meeting with European rabbis, “and the life He has given is holy and inviolable.” The enemy against which we fight “is not only hatred in all of its forms,” Francis said, “but even more fundamentally, indifference; for it is indifference that paralyzes and impedes us from doing what is right even when we know that it is right.”
As a community of faith, may we at Holy Family make a clear message of rejection of every kind of bigotry, racism, and hatred, especially anti-Semitism. Whatever our ethnic background, we all belong to one God.
-Fr. Rich Jakubik