You know, Jesus, it seems like a lot of the time you’re up against odds that you can’t win. Sure, you’re pretty good at your verbal sparring with your antagonists, but you just can’t seem to understand you need to make friends with your enemies if anything can come of this. What’s more, it detracts from what you want people to understand about you. It only comes out when there’s a dispute you’re trying to correct. Enough! Just go along to get along, and maybe they’ll listen to you once in a while.

Thanks for the advice. Understand though Jesus did not come to be divisive, but he was up against those who would see him gone. Most of the time that is. Then there was that incident when someone from the other side came with an honest question. In a short dialogue, the core of what could be unity was exposed.

Sure, Jesus was more than adamant about what he stood for. Fresh in everyone’s mind was how he raised a ruckus in the Temple, driving out the corrupt money changers that preyed on the faithful trying to fulfill and express humble worship. And yes, Jesus really dug himself in a hole when he exposed how hypocritical religious leaders were when they coyly asked him about paying taxes to Rome. Then he blatantly told some others they were theologically dead wrong in their question about resurrection. Winning friends and influencing people wasn’t his game.

Still, this individual teacher of the religious law, a scribe, noted that Jesus had stood his ground well and had made some good points, possibly issues that had concerned him as well. His learning and background would have afforded him a deep understanding of the Hebrew law. So his question while broad and open ended, may have been in hope of affording him a new insight into that to which he’d dedicated his life.

Which commandment is the first of all?

Most are familiar that the Jews had their Big Ten hand delivered by Moses himself on tablets inscribed by the finger of God. Added to them were around another 600 laws which dictated much of Jewish life. So the scribe’s question was basically, let’s get down to brass tacks,  the core of what structured not only their religion but their identity as God’s chosen people.

Jesus’ response started with an answer with which every Jew was more than familiar. The Shema is as central to Jewish faith as the Lord’s Prayer is to Christianity or the Pledge of Allegiance is to American patriotism. Recited every day, taught to children through the generations, the Shema holds the center of their beliefs, especially in that time of pagan beliefs and superstitions.

The most important commandment is this:

Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God is the one and only God. And you must love the Lord your God with all you heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.

So much is packed into this command. Its breakthrough revelation was a liberating declaration that the created universe and worldview were no longer at the whim of capricious gods and their conflicts. It gave them One. One God. Only One God. Only One God in a unified understanding and purpose with a reliable structure designed to give access to the divine.

Love is the central approach, the One approach, to this God. Love that is not limited, conditional, dependent on the self and its desires or needs. Love that has no measure because it is All. All one’s emotional heart, spiritual soul, mental acuity, physical strength. All one has and is dedicated to the One, this Only One God. Get it?

Yet, careful listeners and certainly this scribe noted that Jesus characteristically not only held up the law but also expanded it. “Mind” was not in the original prayer.  Don’t leave out this vital part of belief and behavior. How one explains one’s life and place in God’s perspective will determine how one lives in that relationship. This teacher and religious leader needed to be able to articulate this understanding for himself and those he taught. Likewise for any who ascribe to this belief of Only One God, for otherwise the emotional, spiritual, physical devotion will collapse.

Jesus doesn’t stop there: “The second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these.”

Love is the operative word here.

Jesus again expands and appends it to the first. One cannot love God without loving others. Thus, what one’s relationship is with one’s neighbor shapes that relationship also with God. If Love is the center of approach with God and neighbor, there is recognition of the work of God in one’s neighbor. The intersection of the two approaches converge in this core from which all other commands, laws, insights and discernment develop.

The scribe, this member of those antagonists who have given Jesus so much trouble, concurs. “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. I know it is important to love God with all my heart, understanding, strength, and to love my neighbors as myself.” He gets it. There is a unity of thought between them.

The religious leader also adds a perspective. “This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.” One’s worship and acts of repentance are not dismissed but rather become less of a focus if the Love of God and neighbor are primary.

So that’s it? Jesus, are you really just saying like the old Beatles song, Love is all you need? Wow. That’s not so tough. Lie and let live, love like there’s no tomorrow, give God all glory, and get on with life? But that raises the question, why has this not taken on some traction and made the world a better place and life good for everyone?

There’s the ideal to which one may aspire, and though simply expressed, tough to manufacture. Loving God and loving neighbor means that one’s right to one’s self lessens. Everything that one holds close in self-esteem, personality, identity, ideal, and purpose is sacrificed to that All. All that the heart, soul, mind, and strength entails is given to God. Loving neighbor requires no less, for it is turning away from oneself for the good of others.

So what Jesus and this guy are saying is marginally acknowledging that God exists and occasionally giving to others in need doesn’t come close. Same for those burnt offerings and sacrifices. Only by this total relinquishing of self can Love accomplish that for which it is intended. Not sure about this. If we surrender to this extent, where does that leave us?

The religious teacher of the law found himself somehow on the other side of the line where Jesus usually found himself attacked. Jesus also found himself in agreement with a representative of a party that will eventually take him down. They both spoke not from perspectives of where they stood, but from where God was and invited them to be.

To accept and dedicate one’s life to that principle is to be repositioned, reversed, redeemed.

Or as Jesus said to the scribe,

“You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”

Mark 12:28-34