We’re set up for tension. To expect an argument, a controversy, a debate.
After all, that’s what’s been happening anytime Jesus gets into a conversation with one of the religious leaders while he’s teaching in the Temple. They ask questions to trap Jesus, and he confounds them.
And every other time a scribe – a religious legal expert – encounters Jesus in Mark’s story, it’s to criticize his teaching or practices.
So when this scribe steps up to ask Jesus “What’s the most important commandment?” we’re set up to be listening for antagonism, for another trap.
It’s no surprise to anyone, or it shouldn’t be, when Jesus promptly quotes the Shema – the commandment so central to the faith and life of Israel that it has a one-word, instantly recognizable name, like Beyoncé.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
And all your mind, Jesus adds.
This is the commandment that God’s people are to talk about constantly, to wear on their hands and heads, to place at the door of their houses and the gates of their towns.
Many rabbis of Jesus’ time – and before and since – taught this as primary. And as far as we can tell, other contemporaries of Jesus also emphasized the “second” commandment – drawn from the scroll of Leviticus – to love our neighbors as ourselves, as key to the whole law, the whole way of being that God commands of the faithful.
And if you hang out in church for very long, you’re certainly going to hear Jesus quoted on the importance of those commandments. You heard them quoted last week, in fact. So what Jesus says shouldn’t surprise us, either.
But what might be a surprise is that this is not a debate.
It’s an affirmation.
This particular scribe has actually set Jesus up to be right. To proclaim the fundamental truth that no one in the Temple (or since) could disagree about.
That the first thing of our faith, the most important thing, is to love God with absolutely all of us – your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, your whole strength.
And – impossible to separate from this – to love our neighbors (all of our neighbors) as if they are our own whole, committed, loving selves.
We – the Temple faithful, scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, unaffiliated folks, Jesus-followers, you and I – are to live as if the whole world is the love of God.
That’s the thing that matters most.
The truth we all share.
The scribe affirms this in his own words.
And Jesus affirms him.
And that’s the last time, in Mark’s telling of the story, that anyone questions Jesus about his teaching.
Mark doesn’t want anyone to miss that this isn’t up for debate. The centrality of love of God and others is the truth we all share, no matter what our other disagreements.
That’s our story at Trinity, too; our fundamental truth about our common life as a congregation: We’re here to grow in the love of God and neighbor.
In the best of times, and in pandemic times, we build our common life on that truth.
We worship together – sing and pray and listen together – as a way to love God, to bring our minds, hearts, souls, and strength into the presence of God, and offer our whole selves to that love.
We learn and study together – as children, youth, and adults – for the same purpose.
And the habits of immersing ourselves in the love of God in scripture and prayer, in harmony and in curiosity, also shape us to love our neighbors.
To practice forgiving as we have been forgiven.
To feed others as we have been fed.
To seek the face of Christ in everyone we meet, and to work to build a world of justice and peace, mutual respect and dignity, a world where, because we love God, every neighbor is loved as ourselves.
As the people of Trinity, we spend time together in crisis and in celebration. We love our neighbors by showing up for baptisms and funerals, in hospitals and homes; for hard work and parties. We love our neighbors with sandwiches and canned goods, warm coats and deodorant and Christmas gifts. And we do these things not just because we should, but because the practices of loving our neighbor – of thinking about someone else’s needs at the grocery store, of spending time with friends and deepening our human connection – helps us love God with more and more of our heart and soul, mind and strength.
Sometimes, we have differences about how we live out that love. About which kind of feeding and fundraising service activities we should focus on, and how much we can do in one month. About when we wear masks, and when we don’t. About where to focus staff time and what should be led by volunteers.
But the one thing we can’t differ on – that no one can disagree with Jesus on – is that the most important thing is to love our God with every bit of mind, soul, heart, and strength in us, and to love our neighbors as our own loving selves.
We came right back there, more than once, as our stewardship team talked this year about why we give. Opening an annual pledge drive, or talking about the church budget, often seems to set us up for tension. For debate, or at least discomfort.
But if I’ve found one thing out in my years of church, it’s that pledges and budgets are meant to be an affirmation. A recognition of the fundamental truth of the love of God in this community that we all share, no matter what our differences on how to invite people to give, or how much to spend on copier toner and youth curriculum.
And that affirmation of our fundamental truth is why I give a tenth of my income to Trinity every year. Because just like singing hymns and making sandwiches, just like bible study and prayer, setting that money aside, and writing that check over and over keeps me focused on and invested in our work, together, of growing in the love of God and neighbor.
Keeping the commitment I’ve made, to make my money a part of the love of God we share here, keeps me grounded in that love in the times when details or challenges threaten to overwhelm me, or steal my focus.
That check, that commitment, is a little like having a scribe who asks me, regularly, “What’s the most important thing?”
And the answer is always the affirming truth we can’t argue with: to love God with every bit of ourselves, and all our neighbors as if they are our whole, loving selves.
And this commandment to love is itself an affirmation. A confirmation of God’s love for us. Because you and I just can’t love that completely by our own willpower. That love comes from the certain knowledge that we are already loved that completely by God. And that we are invited to be loved that way by our neighbors.
It goes unsaid in the conversation we heard today, but Jesus knows, and the scribe knows, and both of them expect us to know, that this whole commitment of all the heart in us, all the soul, all the mind, all the strength in us, becomes possible because God first loved every bit of our hearts and minds, soul and strength, even the bits we ourselves are uncomfortable with.
We can love our neighbor – and can be loved by our neighbors - because God loves them; because they too are responding to that comprehensive love that God commits to us, before we ever ask it, before we ourselves begin to love God and one another.
That unarguable truth turns every question, every debate, about how we practice our faith into an affirmation of the faith we share.
Of how the first word, and the last word, of our faith is love.
Given without limits, because we are loved without limits.
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