Mark 12:28–31
Presented February 3, 2008, by J.D. Kline
Service Sunday
Hanging on the wall in my office is a sketch entitled “Prophets of Nonviolence,” three 20th century figures who offered powerful models of prophetic ministry, pointing the way for radical social change through nonviolent means. Each of the three embody the primary calling of a prophet, which Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann defines not simply as a matter of being an angry social critic, but much more, as “someone who, first of all, is willing to take an honest look at upsetting and unsettling realities that are denied or ignored by society at large and the powers-that-be.” Most who look at the sketch, “Prophets of Nonviolence,’ immediately recognize two of the figures—Gandhi, so instrumental in India’s independence movement, and Martin Luther King, Jr., central to the movement for peace, civil rights, and justice in this nation.
The third prophet, though lesser known, has an equally remarkable story to tell. Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, was noted for her passionate commitment to pacifism and nonviolence, to social justice and service among the poor, with a number of Catholic Worker houses in cities throughout the United States continuing to provide soup kitchens and other services for the poor. Noted peace activist Daniel Berrigan speaks of Dorothy Day in his introduction to her autobiography, The Long Loneliness. Writes Berrigan,
I am grateful beyond words for the grace of this woman’s life, for her sensible, unflinching rightness of mind, her long and lonely truth, her journey to the heart of things. I think of her as one who simply helped us, in a time of self-inflicted blindness, to see . . . . She urged our consciences off the beaten track . . . . She did this, first of all, by living as though the truth were true.
It is that phrase, living as though the truth were true, that I urge you to consider with me this morning. What is the truth upon which we choose to base our daily living, and to do so as though it were indeed true? A scribe came before Jesus asking, “Which commandment is the first of all?” The scribes of Jesus’ day, you may recall, served as interpreters of the law, and through the centuries that body of interpretation had grown to include rules and regulations for every facet of human life. Indeed, by the time of Jesus, the rabbis had determined that there were 613 commandments to be followed, 365 prohibitions or “Thou shalt nots,” and 248 positive commands. But alongside this seemingly endless attention to detail, the ancient scribes were also fascinated by attempts to gather up the totality of the law into a few brief sentences, and likely it was this quest that leads the scribe in today’s Gospel lesson to Jesus. It is as if the scribe is asking Jesus, “What do you hold as the very center, the very heart of faithfulness to God? In your way of thinking, how are the faithful to live out their faith, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute? What is the truth upon which we ought to base our lives, living as if that truth were indeed true?”
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Jesus’ answer is that he does not offer words that the scribe has not heard before. In fact, Jesus positions himself right in the heart of Jewish belief and practice, quoting a well-known passage from Deuteronomy 6. “Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Eugene Peterson paraphrases these words in The Message, “Love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.”
For centuries, these words from Deuteronomy 6 were recited daily by faithful Jews. Indeed, the passage continues,
Keep these words . . . in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (vv. 6-9).
The ancient Jews—and some smaller sects of Judaism yet today—took these words so seriously that the devout, whenever they prayed, wore on their foreheads and wrists little leather boxes called phylacteries, each containing these words from Deuteronomy 6, as a constant reminder of the call to love and serve God before all else. In addition, every Jewish home in the days of Jesus would affix to its entryway and beside each door within the house a mezuzah, a small cylindrical box containing the same reminder to place one’s loyalty and trust in God.
When Jesus chooses Deuteronomy 6, therefore, he is positioning himself in the heart of Jewish thought and practice. Over and over again in his ministry, however, Jesus urges us to move beyond mere lip service to our faith. Indeed, in response to the scribe, Jesus quotes a second commandment, this one from Leviticus 19. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” By combining the two commandments, Jesus is asserting that worship and faithful living go far beyond a verbal profession of loyalty to God. Much more, our faithfulness to God is to be lived out in our daily living, in ongoing relationships and in chance encounters. The writer of 1 John captures the spirit of Jesus when asking, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” And then John admonishes, “Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action” (3:17-18).
Further, the Gospel writers make it clear than Jesus saw his mission as focusing upon ever-expanding circles of inclusiveness. When Jesus quotes from Leviticus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” he will not let us limit our definition of neighbor only to those who think like us or look like us and act like us. In powerful words recorded in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus cries out, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44). And in one of his most-noted parables, the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus prods us to extend acts of compassion and mercy well beyond the customary and the usual.
To live as if the truth of God’s love were indeed true, to base out lives on this ancient call to love God and serve our neighbor, is to be willing to take upon ourselves the heart of a servant, to stand for justice, to pray and work for peace, to go the extra mile in relationships, to seek healing throughout all creation. It is to embrace the self-giving love of Jesus, the very lifestyle of Jesus.
There’s an intriguing passage in the book of Jeremiah. The prophet is speaking severe words of condemnation against the people of his day because they have closed their eyes to injustice and their ears to cries for compassion. Questions Jeremiah the prophet,
To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? See, their ears are closed, they cannot listen . . . . From the least to the greatest, everyone is greedy for unjust gain . . . . They have treated the wounds of my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. They acted shamefully, they committed abomination, yet they were not ashamed. They did not know how to blush (Jeremiah 6:10, 14-15).
William Sloane Coffin, noted for his peace activism and for pastoring Riverside Church in new York City, puts it this way: “The quickest way to lose your humanity is to begin to tolerate the intolerable.” So it was for the people of Jeremiah’s day who seemingly became immune to the reality of poverty and injustice and greed in their midst, so much so that they no longer knew how to blush. And so it is in our own day, when we seek to make an “easy peace” with injustice and fear, with violence and warfare, with the ever-spiraling disparity between the rich and the poor in our world. Could it be that we know longer know how to blush, that we have begun to tolerate the intolerable?
What’s required is that we begin to look at life differently, with the eyes and heart of Christ Jesus. Henri Nouwen reminds us that in so many respects, from the viewpoint of a world driven by upward mobility, Jesus’ life was a failure. Bu the end of his ministry, “success had left him, popularity had dwindled, and all his power was gone. Still,” writes Nouwen, “few lives have been so fruitful; few lives have affected the thinking and feeling of other people so deeply; few have so profoundly shaped future cultures; few have influenced so radically the patterns of human relationships.”
Nouwen writes those words in a meditation on dying and caring entitled Our Greatest Gift. His point is that we prepare for our death, not by acting as if we are infallible, not by pretending as if death is not real, but by seeking to live well, here and now—seeking to live faithfully, to love God wholeheartedly and to serve our neighbor compassionately. Writes Nouwen,
The real question before our death is not, How much can I still accomplish, or How much influence can I still exert? but, How can I live so that I can continue to be fruitful when I am no longer here among my family and friends? That question shifts our attention from doing to being. Our doing brings success, but our being bears fruit. The great paradox of our lives is that we are often concerned about what we do or still can do, but we are most likely to be remembered for who we were. If the Spirit guides our lives—the Spirit of love, joy, peace, gentleness, forgiveness, courage, perseverance, hope and faith—then that Spirit will not die but will continue to grow from generation to generation.
Is this not what it means to live as if the truth of the gospel were indeed true? The gospel calls us to a new way of being in the world, a manner of living in which, with Jesus, we willingly take on the heart of a servant; a manner of living in which we take an honest look at upsetting and unsettling realities all too often ignored in the world; a manner of living in which we seek to do justice, love tenderly, and walk humbly in God’s presence.
Some are tempted, when finding themselves in tough spots, to lament—sometimes jokingly, other times seriously—the devil made me do it. But rather than affixing blame for our failures upon a power of evil, perhaps it is time to attribute responsibility for who we are to Jesus. “Blame” it on Jesus—the One who calls us to a new way of being in the world, the One who grants us courage to ask the questions that need to be asked, the One who empowers us to model the ways of compassion, justice, peace, and servanthood. Blame it on Jesus, who has the power to transform our hearts and our daily living. Amen.