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Gospel: Mark 12: 28-34
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him,
“Which is the first of all the commandments?”
Jesus replied, “The first is this:
Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher.
You are right in saying,
He is One and there is no other than he.
And to love him with all your heart,
with all your understanding,
with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself
is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding,
he said to him,
“You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”
And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
The Gospel of the Lord.
***
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In Jesus’ time, there were two major schools of thought.
Some Jews wanted to expand the Law as much as possible. They were meticulous and exceptionally detailed; so much so that, in addition to the 10 Commandments, they created 613 extra rules to follow!
Other Jews treated the Law like an accordion. They wanted to collapse it down to its very essence.
This is the approach that Jesus takes.
Collapsing the Law, he says the entirety of it – and by extension all of Christianity – can be summarized in a single word: love.
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But what exactly is love?
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Love’s a bit like humility; it’s hard to define. But you know it when you see it. You know it when you feel it. And you know it when you don’t.
Throughout the centuries, poets like Dante have tried to define it with varying degrees of success. For example, he once wrote, “Love is what moves the sun and the other stars.”
Nice, but a bit too abstract to me.
Shakespeare, on the other hand, got it right.
In one of the most famous scenes from Romeo and Juliet, a young Juliet gazes down upon Romeo from her balcony and says to him:
“Romeo, the more I give to you, the more I seem to have.”
***
That’s the very essence of love: the more we give, the more we have.
Juliet lived in a world of “we,” not “me.”
Married couples and parents understand this well. Think of how delighted you are when you see your children succeed.
Or the delight teachers experience when they teach their students how to read.
Or the sense of meaning we find when giving the perfect gift, forgiving a neighbor, or volunteering to help the most vulnerable among us.
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If Juliet is right, then the more we give to anyone, the happier we become.
This is why love fulfills the Law; it’s the force that moves the sun and the other stars.
So, how can we love another person – how can we give more of ourselves away – today?
***
