Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday October 31, 2021
Scripture Reading: Mark 12:28-34
Today is All Hallow’s Eve, the day before All Saints Day. As I mentioned in my mid-week e-mail this past week, in the Celtic tradition, this time of year is a thin time – a time when the veil that separates the world that we can see from the world that we can’t see, this veil becomes a little bit thinner, and we might catch a glimpse of the mystery on the other side.
All Saints Day, tomorrow, is when the church remembers and celebrates all of the saints of the church who came before us. In our Protestant tradition, we believe that everyone in the church is a saint – all of us have the Holy Spirit living in us, transforming us into Saints, into who God wants us to be. Some of the saints we will be remembering tomorrow are famous saints, known around the world – Saint Francis, Saint Augustine, Saint Peter, Saint Clare, Saint Martha. Other saints might be people who you knew personally – people who taught and guided you in your faith, people who mentored you in your faith, people who showed you, by their lives, how to live a life of faith. I think of my Grandma when I think of the saints; or a beautiful woman from my church back in Thunder Bay, who was named Martha after Jesus’s friend; or, more recently, saints like Deanna Cosman and Ginny Shaw. And then there are also all of the saints whose names aren’t known to us or the world, but whose names and lives are known to God.
And with All Saints Day tomorrow, I think that it’s very appropriate that our bible reading today is the one that we just heard, since this is not only one of my favourite passages in the bible, but it is also one of my favourite readings to preach on at funerals.
At this point in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus and his disciples have made it all the way to Jerusalem. They have entered the city in the parade that we celebrate each year on Palm Sunday. Jesus has overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple, and driven out the people who were selling the animals required for sacrifice at a significant mark-up. He has been arguing with the temple leaders who seem to be trying to trap him. He has been teaching the crowds as well as his disciples using very pointed parables that speak about the kingdom of God – about the sort of world that God wants.
It’s pretty safe to say that tensions are running pretty high at this point in the story. Jesus likely knows that his life is in danger.
And so when one of the scribes asks Jesus, “What is the most important commandment of all?” Jesus takes the opportunity to summarize all of his teachings in one quotable sentence. Everything that Jesus has been teaching, everything that Jesus has been doing, right from the beginning of his ministry back in Galilee, he summarizes for his listeners here.
The first part of his answer, it probably wasn’t a surprise for his listeners. Jesus quotes from the Shema, the part of chapter 6 of Deuteronomy that, even today, is one of the most important prayers that our Jewish siblings pray. Jesus said, “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.”
This first part of Jesus’s answer probably wasn’t a surprise – this would be considered to be a fairly orthodox answer. But maybe in the second part of Jesus’s answer, he might have surprised his listeners a bit.
After reciting part of the Shema, Jesus continues. “There’s a second one too. ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these two.”
“You shall love your neighbour as yourself” is from Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18. Leviticus is one of the books of Law in the Old Testament – part of the Torah, or Teachings. If you were to read through all of chapter 19, this verse doesn’t immediately leap off the page. Instead it is buried in a whole bunch of other laws.
But as you read through chapter 19 of Leviticus, you might start to notice a theme emerging. All of the laws in this chapter have to do with living well together. Laws like, “When you are harvesting your field, don’t harvest it right to the edge of the field so that people without food can glean from the edges.” Laws like, “Don’t steal from one another, and don’t lie to each other.” Laws like, “Don’t cheat your employees out of their wages.” Laws like, “Don’t discriminate against people with disabilities.” “Laws like, “Don’t exact vengeance on another person, or hold a grudge against another person.” And then after all of these laws, there in the second half of verse 18, “In other words, love your neighbour as yourself.”
This answer of Jesus is sometimes called the “Double Love Commandment” – Love God with your whole self, and love your neighbour as yourself. Or maybe it is a “Triple Love Commandment” instead – Love God, love your neighbour, love yourself.
Either way, I don’t think that you can separate the three loves. You can’t love your neighbour as yourself unless you love yourself first. We show our love for God by loving our neighbours. They are all part of one commandment of love.
None of this would have been new to anyone listening to Jesus that day. To the scribe who asked the question, and to anyone else familiar with the scriptures, Jesus was simply quoting from scripture. To Jesus’s followers who had been watching him heal people and feed people and teach about God’s kin-dom, they would have recognized that these two commandments – love God with your whole being, and love your neighbour as yourself – these two commandments were the foundation of everything that Jesus has said and done.
It’s almost as if Jesus, knowing that his life is going to end soon, wanted to leave his followers with an easy-to-remember summary of everything that he had been teaching. “Even if you don’t remember anything else, remember this. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbour as yourself. It’s that simple.”
Circling back to where I began, I mentioned that this was one of my favourite readings to preach on at a funeral. It is such an honour to be able to preside at the funeral of one of the saints, and reflect on how they lived their life loving God and loving their neighbours; how they spent their time on earth living out these commandments that Jesus teaches us are the most important commandments of all.
And wouldn’t the world be an amazing place indeed, if it could be said of everyone, after they died, that they lived their life loving God and loving their neighbour?
We usually end prayers, and I sometimes end sermons, with the word “Amen.” This is a Hebrew-origin word that means something like, “so be it,” or “may it be so.”
And that is how I want to end this reflection – with a prayer that we and all of God’s saints might live our lives wholeheartedly loving God and loving our neighbours with all that we are. May it be so. May it be so. So be it. Amen.
Amanda Vivian
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