Mark 12:28-34
Year B
Bruce Reyes-Chow, moderator of the 208th General Assembly in 2008, spoke to a conference of youths at Montreat Conference Center in 2017. Each time he spoke, his benediction included the charge, “See one another. Hear one another. Care for one another and love one another. It’s all that easy and it’s all that hard.” By the third night, the congregation joined in with “It’s all that easy and it’s all that hard.”
In light of this story from Mark 12, we might paraphrase Reyes-Chow’s charge, “Love God. Care for one another and love one another. It’s all that easy and it’s all that hard.” And it is, isn’t it? In Matthew 22 and Luke 10, the scribe in this story appears to be trapping or testing Jesus. In Mark’s version, the scribe is impressed by Jesus’s counter-arguments to the Sadducees (Mark 12:18-27). This is particularly significant considering the context of Mark 11-12, where the tension between Jesus and the religious authorities is leading to a deadly outcome.
Amid Jesus’ conflict with the authorities, Mark shares Jesus’ teaching of the ultimate importance of the double love commandment. Matthew reminds us that “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40). Paul adds his voice when he says, “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:14) and “for the one who love another has fulfilled the law … and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Romans 13:8,9).
In Mark’s story, Jesus and the scribe agree about the importance of loving God with our whole being and loving our neighbors as ourselves. They did not break new theological ground in their conversation. The Great Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and the Holiness Code in Leviticus 19:17-19 already established the primacy of loving God and our neighbors. Although Mark doesn’t have anything like the Sermon on the Mount in his Gospel, we might have expected this important teaching to appear earlier in the story as Jesus traveled around teaching, preaching, and healing. Yet, Jesus and the scribe agree on the primary importance of love during Holy Week. A few days later, outside the city on a cross, Jesus demonstrates the deepest meaning of “Love God. Love neighbor.”
In the spirit of using Scripture to interpret Scripture, we can interpret Mark 12 through the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). A lawyer tests Jesus by asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” It’s not the same question that the scribe asks in Mark 12, but the ensuing discussion is the same. In fact, the lawyer is the one who gives the right answer about loving God and loving neighbor. Of course, the lawyer doesn’t let the conversation end with Jesus’s compliment, “You have given the right answer.” He has to ask, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus responds with a parable about a man who actually lives out the command to love your neighbor, telling the lawyer at the end, “Go and do likewise.” It’s all that easy and it’s all that hard.
St. Augustine wrote, “Whoever, therefore, thinks that he (she or they) understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all.” Thom Shuman, author of the website Lectionary Liturgies, imagines what might have happened after Jesus and the scribe agreed. In a poem he calls “then what,” he writes,
then what
did they go off
and share a pizza
and a pitcher;
did they agree
to disagree;
did they shake their heads
as the other walked away;
did one say,
‘if you knew
my neighbors
the way I do;’
while the other laughed,
‘if you knew
God the way I do;’
after they agreed
that love was what
was most important,
yet almost impossible
to live out,
what did they do next?
(published with permission)
We know what Jesus did next. He loved God and his neighbor to the very end, so much so that he found himself on a cross where, in his death, he lived out the very love he had taught. We don’t know what the scribe did next. We can only hope that he found the truth and lived it out for the rest of his life. What will we do next? We know the right answer. We hear Jesus tell us, “Go and do likewise.” It’s all that easy and it’s all that hard. But that’s how we’re called to live and what we’re called to do.
Questions for reflection
- What would loving God with everything you have and loving your neighbor as yourself look like in your congregation?
- What difference would it make in your community if you and your congregation made the commitment to love God with everything you have and to love your neighbor as yourselves in everything your congregation does?
- “It’s all that easy and it’s all that hard.” Answer honestly: Why is loving God and neighbor all that easy? All that hard?
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