31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28b-34

A little over a week after the murder
by an anti-Semitic white nationalist
of eleven worshippers
at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh,
our scriptures remind us
of how much we Christians owe
to the Jewish people,
whom Pope John Paul II called
our elder brothers and sisters
in the faith of Abraham.
In our first reading,
from the Book of Deuteronomy,
we hear the words of the Shema,
which has been described
as the closest thing Judaism has to a creed:
Sh’ma Yisra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad—
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God; the Lord is one!”
And if God is one,
then we must love this God not half-heartedly,
but with every fiber of our being:
“Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your strength.”
The one God demands of people
a single-hearted love.
Devout Jews recite the Shema each day
as part of their morning and evening prayers
to remind themselves of who God is
and who they are called to be.
The rabbis called the act of reciting the Shema
“receiving the yoke
of the kingdom of heaven.” (Berakhot Mishnah 2:5);
to say these words is to commit oneself
to the joyful task of bearing the burden
of faith in the one God.

In today’s Gospel reading,
the words of the Shema are quoted by Jesus
in response to the scribe’s question,
“Which is the first of all the commandments?”
We can presume that Jesus, as a devout Jew,
had these words on his lips twice daily,
so he probably did not have to ponder too long
as to what was the first and greatest commandment.
And he probably did have to ponder too long
before adding as the second commandment
words from the book of Leviticus:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
For this too is fundamental to Judaism:
love of God and love of neighbor—
the first and second tables of the Law—
are inextricably linked.
Jesus bore within himself the faith of Israel,
and as members of his body
we too bear this faith,
we too receive the joyful yoke
of the kingdom of heaven.

I do not want to minimize the theological differences
between Christians and Jews.
Christians, for example, interpret the Oneness of God
that the Shema proclaims
in such a way as to include the divine Threeness
of Father, Son, and Spirit—
a notion that Jews generally find odd, to say the least.
And, as we hear today in the Letter to the Hebrews,
Christians ascribe to Jesus an eternal priesthood,
seeing in his death and resurrection
the source of the world’s salvation,
another notion that Jews find odd, to say the least.
But our honest acknowledgement of such differences
must not blind us to what we share:
faith in the one God, who is the God of all peoples,
the command to love this God with undivided love,
and the knowledge that love of God calls us
to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
We too must each day and night
take up the yoke of the kingdom of heaven.

The murders at the Tree of Life synagogue
were not only a human horror,
but did violence to our common faith.
This act assaulted the idea that God is one God,
caring and providing for everyone on earth.
It trampled on the idea of single-hearted love of God
by desecrating the sabbath worship of God’s people.
It slaughtered the command to love our neighbor
as we love ourselves.
It shattered the yoke of the kingdom of God.

How do we respond to such violence and hatred?
Not with our own retaliatory hatred,
but with the love that the Shema commands,
and with a renewed commitment to this common faith.
This violence can only be repaired by God,
but we remind ourselves day and night
of this God, to whom we owe single-hearted love,
and of the neighbor whom we love for the sake of this God.
We should recite these words
before reading the news or casting a vote;
we should teach these words to our children,
until they are written on their hearts;
we should constantly ask ourselves
what our lives ought to look like
if we truly love the one God with all our heart
and with all our soul
and with all our strength,
and if we truly love our neighbor as ourselves.
If we take upon our shoulders
the joyful yoke of this common faith,
perhaps Jesus will say to us
what he said to the scribe:
“You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
Sh’ma Yisra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Matthew 12:28b-34

When in our Gospel reading a scribe comes to Jesus

and asks him which of the commandments is the greatest

Jesus’s answer is in one sense not surprising:

he replies by quoting from the book of Deuteronomy

a passage that is to the Jewish people

perhaps the most familiar passage in all of Scripture:

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.

But Jesus does not stop there.

This first and greatest commandment

seems to immediately imply a second commandment,

this one taken from the book of Leviticus:

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

What is notable about Jesus’s answer to the scribe’s question

is not so much the two passages of Scripture that he cites

but rather the way in which he joins them together:

love of God and love of neighbor go hand in hand.

Indeed, we might say that love of God and love of neighbor

are but a single love.

The great 17^th-century saint, Francis de Sales,

said that love is like the ladder that Jacob saw in his dream,

stretching between heaven and earth,

upon which the angels ascended and descended:

love is a ladder,

“raising us even to spiritual union with God,

and bringing us back to loving companionship

with our neighbors” (Treatise on Perfection Bk. 10 ch. 11).

On this weekend, when we celebrate our relationship

with our Sister Parish of St. John the Baptist 

in Sepalau, Guatemala,

it is good to remind ourselves of this single love

upon which we are raised up to God

and journey back to our neighbor.

We have had a relationship with the people of Sepalau,

a remote mountain village of about 800 people, 

for twenty years;

we have helped finance a school building, a church,

and most recently a community chicken coop.

We have sent delegations from our parish down 

every couple of years 

and, as many of you remember, 

a delegation from Sepalau

came to visit us here in Baltimore in 2008.

Maintaining this relationship has required much effort,

not only because of the physical distance of some 3000 miles,

but also because of the distance 

of language and culture and experience.

Those of us who have not been there 

cannot really imagine

the daily lives of the people of Sepalau:

the great beauty of the land and culture of Guatemala,

but also the every-day struggles of this particular village.

For example, I am sorry to say that the chicken coop project

has gotten off to a rocky start

due in part to the logistical difficulties 

of setting up a community bank account

but also due to disagreements within the village itself,

community dynamics that are themselves 

difficult for us to understand:

why can't they do things the way that we do them?

The people of Sepalau are good people, 

but they are not perfect people.

And maybe it is in this that they are most like us.

We too seek to be good – 

to love God and love our neighbor –

but we too are imperfect in that love.

While we as a parish want to show our love 

to the people of Sepalau,

the distances of time and culture 

make maintaining this relationship a challenge

and all too easy to put out of our minds

or to leave to someone else.

Perhaps this is the way 

in which love of God and love of neighbor

most resemble each other:

if it is difficult to love the neighbor whom we can see

how much more difficult is it 

to love the God whom we cannot see?

If our love of neighbor is imperfect,

how much more do we fail 

in our attempts to love God 

with all our heart,

all our soul, 

all our strength?

So while love is the ladder 

upon which we rise up to God

and which brings us back to our neighbor,

it all proves to be a pretty complicated and difficult affair.

Our faltering human love 

can seem like a pretty shaky ladder.

But thanks be to God 

that the twofold commandment

to love God and neighbor

is enfolded within the promise of God’s love for us.

In the love we show to our neighbors –

whether distant neighbors in Sepalau,

or near neighbors in Baltimore,

or the nearest neighbors of all: our friends and family –

we are simply handing on 

the love that God has shown to us:

in the end it is God’s love that is the ladder

that brings us close to God’s kingdom;

it is God’s love along which we journey 

to our neighbors near and far,

and it is God’s love that unites us together with them

to the God who is love.