You are not far from the kingdom of God

 

 Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, "Which is the first commandment of all?"  Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is:   'Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.  And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.'  This is the first commandment.  And the second, like it, is this:  'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'  There is no other commandment greater than these."  So the scribe said to Him, "Well said, Teacher.  You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He.  And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."  Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."  But after that no one dared question Him. 

 

- Mark 12:28-34 

 

Currently, we are reading through the events of what is known to us as Holy Week, the final week of Jesus' earthly life.  Yesterday we read that the ruling Council sent to Him some of the Pharisees and the Herodians, to catch Him in His words.  When they had come, they said to Him, "Teacher, we know that You are true, and care about no one; for You do not regard the person of men, but teach the way of God in truth.  Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?  Shall we pay, or shall we not pay?"  But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, "Why do you test Me?  Bring Me a denarius that I may see it."  So they brought it.  And He said to them, "Whose image and inscription is this?"  They said to Him, "Caesar's."  And Jesus answered and said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."  And they marveled at Him. Then some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him; and they asked Him, saying:  "Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man's brother dies, and leaves his wife behind, and leaves no children, his brother should take his wife and raise up offspring for his brother.  Now there were seven brothers.  The first took a wife; and dying, he left no offspring.  And the second took her, and he died; nor did he leave any offspring.  And the third likewise.  So the seven had her and left no offspring.  Last of all the woman died also.  Therefore, in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be?  For all seven had her as wife."  Jesus answered and said to them, "Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God?  For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.  But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?  He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.  You are therefore greatly mistaken."

 

  Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, "Which is the first commandment of all?"  Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is:   'Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.  And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.'  This is the first commandment.  And the second, like it, is this:  'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'  There is no other commandment greater than these."  So the scribe said to Him, "Well said, Teacher.  You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He.  And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."  Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."  But after that no one dared question Him.  Here Jesus responds to one of the scribes, who seems to be asking his question in earnest.  Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:4-5, which is the greatest Jewish confession of faith, called the shema' (which means "hear," the first word of the confession).  But Jesus doesn't stop there.  To complete His answer, He adds Leviticus 19:18.  In this way, as my study Bible notes, Jesus combines what is already present in the Old Testament to create a new understanding:  love of neighbor is an expression of love of God.  

When Jesus answers this scribe (or lawyer) in Matthew's Gospel, He caps off His giving of these commandments with the statement, "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:40).  In Luke's Gospel, Jesus turns the question back upon the one who asks, in what we might call a Socratic manner, and asks the lawyer what his reading of the law is.  The lawyer then responds with these two commands.  But not content with that, the lawyer asks, "And who is my neighbor?"  To this question, Jesus responds by giving the parable of the Good Samaritan, an illustration of what it is to be a neighbor. (St. Luke's Gospel is the only place where we find the parable of the Good Samaritan; see Luke 10:25-37).  From these slightly varied versions of this story, we get a full feel for where Jesus is headed in His teaching, for what is important here is the fullness of the Law in the sense of the full communication of its aims.  For at the heart of these two commandments put together is a teaching on love, inseparable from the compassion of the Good Samaritan.  "What does it mean to be a neighbor?" or "Who is my neighbor?" become key questions because at the heart of Christ's teachings is the heart of God who longs to be and to create the very center of our community here in the world.  God, who is love, in this sense defines what it is to be a neighbor, or how we know who is a neighbor, and how to be a neighbor.  For in this sense, we cannot truly participate in community without God -- who is love -- at the center of community and indwelling that community through each of us.  The aim of the Law and the Prophets, therefore, is the establishment of true community, and in this way we know our Lord longs to be with us and among us in the center of that community, and teaching love as we learn also to be a neighbor and to participate in community God's way.  It's quite easy to think that we can have this all worked out in our own sense of what love is, or what compassion is.  It's simple to conjecture that we all know how we'd like others to treat us, so we can just figure this all out by ourselves.  But then comes a day when one finds that indulgence of whatever our particular desire is does not actually constitute love, or perhaps we see that for others who are stuck in the throes of addiction, or other self-destructive behaviors.  Comes the day as well when we learn that to say "no" to something is the only way to preserve our own well-being, and perhaps that of the community at large.  Love becomes not the simple four-letter-word we tend to think of it as being.  Love then becomes something complicated, something requiring wisdom, and a wisdom that can come only from the true Source of love who truly knows what is best for us and for community.  Then we get into a far more complicated area indeed, as love ultimately becomes recognized as a mystery, that can only be learned through experience with God who desires to lead us to great union with that mystery, with God who is love.  So let us ponder Christ's answer, for in it is the secret of what we are doing in the world, and the secret of the wisdom and knowledge God would have us learn through lifetimes of struggle to learn and to grow through our own deficiencies and unknowing, and even wrong-knowing.  Let us consider God's love, for in that love God welcomes us to become truly neighbors, among those who can love with all their heart.  For this is what it means to dwell in the Kingdom, and even to see God (Matthew 5:8).