12:28 –
“Of all the commandments, which is the
most important?” This is the question posed to Jesus. And it’s an interesting
question. Many Christians, if this question was posed to them, would probably
be inclined to reply, “They’re all important!” A question like this might imply
that the questioner is wanting to know what areas of his religious practice
were open to a little fudging, a little less exactitude of circumspection. Many
of us would want to emphasize that since all the commands of Scripture come
from God (and particularly here we would be thinking of the commands of the New
Testament, since these are specifically directed toward us as Christians), all
are therefore reflections of his divine will and ought all to be followed in
their entirety. In that sense, there aren’t any commands that are more or less
important than any others. But Jesus doesn’t address the question like that.
Rather, he accepts the questioner’s premise, that there is a “most important”
command. This is useful for Christians to remember. Sometimes, in our zeal to
uphold the truth and power of our faith, we so emphasize the importance of
keeping all the rules of Christian conduct that we slip into legalism. It’s worth
remembering that we must leave room for grace, and that all the rules about
Christian conduct are merely offshoots of our one great command, to love God
and love others. If we are truly keeping that great command, keeping the other
rules will almost always grow naturally from that foundation. This is true not
only of conduct, but of doctrine too—remember that the great core of the faith,
the truths that we share with all Christian churches, are more important and
more foundational than the minutiae of varying interpretations regarding
sacraments, polity, or eschatology. When it comes to a tree, the roots and the
trunk are more important than the branches. Make sure you have a healthy tree
before you start spending all your time trimming the leaves into the exact
shapes you want them.
12:29 –
Jesus’ recitation of the greatest
commandment here in Mark doesn’t simply leave it at, “Love the Lord your God.”
Rather, he begins where all good Jewish theology does: with the Shema—“Hear, O Israel, the Lord your
God, the Lord is one.” In that one little phrase is hidden a great mystery of
the Godhead. When Christians declare the truth of Deuteronomy 6:4, we mean that
God is the only God, the God who created all things and fills all things and
holds them all together. He is united in his persons and his attributes, in so
high a unity that his attributes each become expressions of the totality of his
being, rather than separate aspects. Because God is one, he is the “all in all,”
always existing both throughout and beyond our material universe. Not only is
he the foundation of all reality, he is also its telos, its end, the reason and goal for which it was made. When
Jesus reminds us that the Lord is one, he is laying the theological foundation
for the greatest commandment. We must love God because he is the one and only
reality, the one and only thing that truly exists
in and of itself (on which all other existence is contingent), the one goal to
which all creation must direct itself. With such a truth in mind, our response
to this God cannot be anything other than the most all-consuming,
all-encompassing act of which we are capable: to love him with every aspect of
our being, every movement of our heart, every intention of our will.
12:30 –
“With all your heart.” The heart is the
seat of the emotional life (as in English, largely so in Greek), and so this
speaks to loving God with all the genuine fervor of true affection, not as a
rote duty (if such a thing could even be called love), but as an outflowing of
our deepest longings. “With all your soul.” The soul is that incorporeal aspect
of human existence, usually (but not always) undistinguished from “spirit.” Since
this verse speaks about loving God with the totality of our being, but does not
include a mention of “spirit,” we ought to conclude that here “soul” is
referring to the entirety of the incorporeal, spiritual aspect of humanity. Thus
we must love God not just with the whole of our earthly life, with all its
physicality, emotions, and attributes; we must also love God with our souls,
that spiritual part of ourselves that is designed to respond to God and to be
mystically united to him in the person of Christ. “With all your mind.” Here
Jesus adds a word not found in the Hebrew version of the Shema. One may suppose it is added because Jesus is speaking in a
Hellenophile world, where Greek intellectual life has so emphasized the mind,
over against the body, soul, and emotions, that Jesus felt it worthy of special
note. We are to love God with all our intellectual capacities. The call to
follow Christ is not a call to give up the life of the mind, but rather to
engage it in the highest pursuit of all, and by the light of eternal Truth to
understand all things more clearly. “With all your strength.” The Hebrew word
for “strength” is literally the word “muchness” or “veryness,” and so this part
of the verse doesn’t relate merely to human physicality (though that is
included); it speaks to loving God with all the overflowing totality of our
being—“love the Lord your God with all your everything.”
12:31 – “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Here Jesus brings together two independent commands of the Torah, one from
Deuteronomy and one from Leviticus, connects them, and gives them prominence
that their original sources never did. These are the greatest commandments, and
Jesus speaks out both of them together, when he could have conceivably given
just one commandment as his answer to the teacher of the Law. Why does he give
two? Because we must always remember that loving God and loving our neighbor
are connected. The second is a necessary outflowing of the first. This is
important to know, because we are too often willing to proclaim our love for
God while not giving a second thought to our neighbors. But, in light of this
verse, such behavior cannot be considered a genuine love for God. If we truly
loved God, we would be coming to know him and to share his affections for the
world. The truth is, God loves your neighbor—loves him enough to die for him.
How then can we claim to love God, and not love our neighbor? The second great
commandment is, in effect, a litmus test for our keeping of the first. But how
can we love someone for whom we might not actually feel any affection? The
problem here is that we often think of love in purely emotional terms. But this
is an unbiblical way of thinking. When Scripture speaks of love, it is not
saying that you have to muster up warm and fuzzy feelings for your neighbors.
It’s saying that you must act in love
towards them, regardless of your emotional state. That’s real love. Feelings come
and go, but love is the action of sharing and participating in God’s
outreaching acts of love for others. This, perhaps, is part of the reason why Jesus says you are to love your neighbor "as yourself"--when I think of how I love myself, the plain fact of the matter is that I don't always feel warm and fuzzy; more often I find myself frustrated with myself, and yet despite that lack of glowing feelings, I don't give up on myself--rather, I continue to try to do those things that I think will tend toward my good. That strikes me as the same kind of love we must give to our neighbors. And who is my neighbor? At this point, the
other Gospels answer that question by relating the story of the Good Samaritan.
And the main point derived from that story is simply this: everyone is your
neighbor, and especially the person you can’t stand. So that is the one you
must love.
12:32-34 – Here we find one of the few
instances in the Gospels where one of Jesus’ interlocutors actually gets
something right. The teacher notes that the keeping of those two commands is
more important than the whole of the Jewish Temple’s system of worship, with
all its offerings and sacrifices. This was an astonishing claim to make,
especially when standing in Jerusalem itself (as they were), in the shadow of
the Temple. But the teacher is right—all other acts of devotion, while they
have their place, are an outflow of these foundational principles, of the call
to love, and to enter into and become
participants in the love of God. All other acts of devotion—whether sacrifices
in the Old Testament, or prayers, praises, and acts of charity in the New—all such
acts are founded on, and grow out of, the great commandments. Without love, all
such acts would become meaningless. Only when done with love do they become
powerful, beautiful, and good. For this answer, Jesus commends the teacher. Those
Christians who tend towards being legalists, sticklers, or contrarians by
nature should here take note: where Jesus finds something to affirm, he affirms
it. His teachings are far more than just a criticism, a negation of all that is
wrong with the world. Rather, he commends the good he hears from this man, and
uses it as an encouragement to drive him ever nearer the Kingdom of God.