Gospel for Sunday, November 03: Mark 12:28b-34
XXXI Sunday Year B
28 Then one of the scribes who had heard them arguing approached, and seeing how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, Listen, Israel. The Lord our God is the only Lord; 30 You shall therefore love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength. 31 And the second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment more important than these.” 32 Then the scribe said to him, “Thou hast spoken well, Master, and according to the truth that He is unique and there is no other besides Him; 33 to love Him with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 Jesus, seeing that he had answered wisely, said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And no one had the courage to question him anymore.
Mk 12:28b-34
Dear sisters and brothers of Misericordia, I am Carlo Miglietta, a doctor, biblical scholar, layman, husband, father and grandfather (www.buonabibbiaatutti.it). Also today I share with you a short thought meditation on the Gospel, with special reference to the theme of mercy.
The first commandment
(see Mt 22:34-40; Lk 10:25-28)
The great rabbinic tradition, in the welter of prescriptions and decrees of Judaism, sought, according to the question posed to Jesus by a doctor of the Law, which was “the first” (Mt 22:34-40), “the greatest” (Mk 12:28-31) commandment, the one necessary “to have eternal life” (Lk 10:25-28), the one that could summarize all the Law and the Prophets (Mt 22:40). The Talmud said that Moses came and was given 613 commandments, 365 negative (the number of days in the year) and 248 positive (the number of the members of the human body); David came and reduced them to 11, according to the text of Psalm 15; Isaiah reduced them to 6, expressed in chapter 33 (Isaiah 33:15-16); Micah reduced them to 3, according to the passage in Mi 6:8; again Isaiah summarized them into 2, according to chapter 56 (Isaiah 56:1): “Observe law and practice righteousness”; finally Habakkuk reduced them to one: ‘The righteous shall live by faith’ (Hab 2:4).
Jesus taught that “the greatest and first of the commandments” was “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind,” but that the second was “similar to the first: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Mt 22:37-38); indeed, in Mark it says, ‘There is no other commandment (ed. note: singular) more important than these’ (Mk 12:31), and Luke presents them as one commandment, omitting the verb ‘thou shalt love,’ ‘agapèseis’ (Lk 10:27). Paul accepts the Talmudic tradition and uses the aforementioned passage from Habakkuk (Hab 2:4): “The righteous shall live by faith” (Rom 1:17). But faith is entering into the logic of God’s plan of love, so Paul concludes, “Any other commandment is summed up in these words, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself…’ The full fulfillment of the law is love“ (Rom. 13:9-10); ‘For the whole Law finds its fullness in one precept: ’You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal. 5:14). This is why the apostles constantly exhort: “Above all things let there be charity, which is the bond of perfection” (Col 3:14); “Love one another intensely, with a true heart” (1 Pet 1:22); “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love remains in death…. He laid down his life for us: therefore we also must lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 Jn. 3:14, 16).
The “new commandment” of mutual love, which will become the badge of the disciples (Jn. 13:34), is the only translation of the command to love God: for God wants to be loved in man: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he sees cannot love God whom he does not see” (1 John 4:20); ”If one possesses riches in this world, and seeing his brother in need closes his heart to him, how can the love of God dwell in him? “ (1 Jn. 3:17); “He who welcomes you welcomes me, and he who welcomes me welcomes him who sent me” (Mt. 10:40); “Truly I tell you, whenever you have done these things to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you have done it to me… Whenever you have not done these things to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you have not done it to me” (Mt 25:40,45).
Paul admonishes us, “Though I distribute all my substance and give my body to be burned, but have not charity, nothing profiteth me” (1 Cor. 13:3).
By now Christians have a “new commandment” that should make them recognized among all people: to love one another (Jn. 13:34). This is the only criterion of ecclesiality proposed to us by Christ: “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35).
Why is this commandment “new”? It is revolutionary in origin: we love one another because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). Moreover, the love with which we are to love one another finds its source in God: the Greek adverb “as” (“kathòs”) in the expression “as I have loved you” (Jn. 13:34) expresses not merely a comparison, but rather causality, materiality: “Love one another with the same love with which I have loved you.” It is a new commandment in measure: we are no longer to love one another only as ourselves (Mt 19:38), but as Jesus loved us, that is, “to the end” (Jn 13:1), even to the point of laying down our lives for our friends (Jn 15:13). And it is new by extension: we are not only to love “our own,” those of our group, our race or religion, those who are sympathetic to us, but even our enemies: “For if you love only those who love you, what merit is there in that? Do not the publicans also do this? And if you give greeting only to your brothers, what extraordinary thing do you do? Do not the pagans also do this? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:46-48), ‘who maketh his sun to rise on the wicked and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust’ (Mt 5:45).
In Italian, “prossimo” has lost the original valence of the Latin “proximus,” “very near,” deriving from the adverb “prope,” meaning “near.” In Hebrew, the corresponding “re’a” means “friend, companion, colleague” (Lev 19:18): thus, it is not a matter of objective closeness, but rather of subjective friendship relationship. The question is not, “Who deserves to be loved by me? Who is my friend?” but, ”Whose neighbor am I? To whom do I make myself neighbor?”
Instead, Jesus told us that the neighbor is everyone who is far away, and he makes himself neighbor in the Parable to the Samaritan, who was the enemy, who was the unclean, who is a blasphemer, who is one who waged war against Israel (Luke 10:29-37).
Love will then be the sign of the New Covenant: mutual charity must be a sign, a tangible sacrament, of God’s supreme act of affection for mankind, the sacrifice of his Son (Mt 26:28).
Moreover, brotherly love opens us to the mystery of God: “Whoever loves is begotten of God and knows God. Whoever does not love has not known God, for God is love” (1 Jn. 4:7-8): many times our faith is weak precisely because we do not love; by loving, we can obtain the ‘knowledge’ of God, that is, enter into his intimacy: let us remember this, when we are in ”crisis of faith”…
But the ending of this passage tells us that loving is not enough: “Jesus, seeing that the man had responded wisely, said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ And no one else had the courage to ask any more questions.” You are not far off: it is not enough to love. As to the rich young man he says, “You are lacking something”; the command to love is not enough: it takes following Christ, it takes accepting Jesus who of this love is the living embodiment of God for us today.
Happy Mercy to all!
Anyone who would like to read a more complete exegesis of the text, or some insights, please ask me at migliettacarlo@gmail.com.