R. B. Williams OP, Word to the Wise THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2013 THURSDAY IN THE NINTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME [Tobit 6:10-11: 7:1bcde, 9-17; 8:4-9a and Mark 12:28-34] 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." There are three things that stand out in this dialogue from the Gospel of Mark. Bearing in mind that all the other dialogues of the past few days were adversarial and represented efforts on the part of elements of the Jerusalem Jewish elite (of different kinds) to trap Jesus in his speech, the scribe in this encounter seems to be a very different and positive person. The question that he asks is not unusual. It was the sign of a wise teacher that he could sum up the more than 600 precepts of the Mosaic Law in such a concise way. This scribe shows that not all the elite were opposed to Jesus. The second thing is that Jesus not only verbally connected the command to love God with the command to love neighbor, he lived it by welcoming all kinds of people that the elite considered to be sinners and unclean! The third thing is that Jesus is more than an ordinary wise rabbi, he is more than that because he can make the claim (in regard to the scribe), "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." This may be the reason for the last line of the passage: "And no one dared to ask him any more questions." If we accept Jesus with faith and embrace his command to love God AND neighbor, we can also then accept his assurance that we are not far from the Kingdom of God! AMEN
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 14:08:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015