“Let
them be as a pendant on your forehead.”
Dt.
6:8
The Single Big Idea of
the
Great Preacher from Nazareth
November 4, 2012, 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time
First reading from Deuteronomy
Moses spoke to the
people, saying: "Fear the LORD, your God, all his statutes and
commandments which I enjoin on you, and thus have long life. Hear then, Israel,
and be careful to observe them, that you may grow and prosper the more, in
keeping with the promise of the LORD, the God of your fathers, to give you a
land flowing with milk and honey.
Shema Yisrael! Hear O Israel! The LORD alone is our God! Therefore, you shall love the LORD your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind them at your wrist as a sign, and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates."
Shema Yisrael! Hear O Israel! The LORD alone is our God! Therefore, you shall love the LORD your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind them at your wrist as a sign, and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates."
The word
of the Lord
Thanks be to God
Alleluia,
alleluia.
A reading
from the holy Gospel according to Mark
Glory to you, Lord.
One of the scribes came up to
Jesus and asked Him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus
replied, "The first is this: `Shema Yisrael! Hear, O Israel! The Lord alone is our God! Therefore, you shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all
your strength.’[1] And
the second commandment is this: `You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.’[2] There
is no other commandment more important than these two."
The scribe said to Jesus, "Well said, Teacher! It is
true, as you say, that only the Lord is God, and that there is no other god but
He. And man must love God with all his heart, and with all his mind, and with
all his strength. And he must love his neighbor as himself. It is more
important to obey these two commandments than to offer animals and other
sacrifices to God on the altar.” Jesus noticing how wise his answer was said to
the scribe, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And no one
dared to ask Him any more questions.
The
Gospel of the Lord.
Praise
to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Introduction
Introduction
Standard Time, Election Day & Krystallnacht
On this first Sunday of November 4th 2012, Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 AM,
and we return to Standard Time. Today we set our clocks back: 6 AM becomes 5
AM. It’s lighter now when we get up at 6 AM. With
Standard Time 4 PM becomes 3PM, and it’s darker now when we go home from work
or school. It’s that season of the year when the light and darkness impinge
themselves very noticeably upon our psyches. Tuesday, November 6th
2012, will be Election Day and the Nation will go to the polls to choose a
president. Then Friday, November 9th will be the 74th
anniversary of the Krystallnacht
– The Night of the Shattered Glass. That’s the night (74 years ago)
when the Nazi’s went rampaging
throughout all of Germany, and in one night destroyed 7000 Jewish businesses,
and burned down 191 synagogues. Krystallnacht
must be told and retold, lest we forget about man’s incredible inhumanity
to man.
The Jewish Shema
In the first reading Moses commanded the
people saying, “Shema Yisrael! Hear O Israel! The
Lord alone is our God! Therefore, you shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (Dt. 6: 5) That was
the Jewish Shema.
The Christian Shema
And then there is the Christian Shema; it’s different from the Jewish Shema. In today’s
gospel a scribe (who is a very decent man) approaches Jesus and asks, “what is the
first commandment?” The Lord responds by quoting Moses: “Shema Yisrael! Hear
O Israel! The
Lord alone is our God! Therefore, you shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
(Dt. 6: 5)
But then in the same breath and
without being asked Jesus adds: “And the second commandment is this:
`You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.’” (Here Jesus is
again quoting scripture--this time from Leviticus 19:18.) Then He tells the
good scribe, “There is no other commandment greater than these two.”The scribe was delighted
with Jesus’ answer, and said to Him, "Well said, Teacher! It is true, as you say.”
The Jews of old did, indeed, have two
commandments, one to love God (Dt. 6: 5), and another to love neighbor (Lv.19:18). What’s new, however, is that Jesus nailed the two commandments together in his new Shema. By
so doing He made it clear that there’s no loving God without also loving
neighbor. Then
Jesus opened all the phylacteries[3] and
mezuzahs[4] in
Israel and placed his new Shema in
them:”Hear O Israel! The Lord alone is our God. You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and you shall love your
neighbor as you love yourself.”
The Jews’ need to prioritize.
Rabbinical tradition turned the Law
of Moses into a confusing and burdensome maze of 613 major laws and a whole
constellation of minor rules and regulations. The
people had to pay tithes on the mint, cumin and dill. (Mt. 23:23) They had to carefully wash their hands before eating and
had to give ritual ablution to all produce brought in from the marketplace.
They had to observe the correct washing of pots, pans, copper kettles, and beds.
(Mk. 7:4‑5). Then there were the countless rules and regulations for the
orthodox observance of Sabbath which often got Jesus into trouble. (Lk 6: 1-5;
Lk 14: 1-6) It was inevitable,
therefore, that the need to prioritize would eventually arise among the Jews
of old: which of their 613 major laws comes first, which one comes second, which one comes third, etc.
Rival schools sprang up around famous rabbis, each having his own different
arrangement of commandments according to importance. For some it was not much
more than an academic pastime. But for others the question of priority was not
an academic pastime but an honest-to-God question; they really wanted to sort
things out and establish a sense of priority in their lives. The good scribe in
today’s gospel was one of them.
The Catholics’ need to prioritize
Catholics too, like the Jews of old,
had need to prioritize. Right up until the eve of Vatican II (October 11,
1962), Catholics also had a confusing and burdensome maze of laws, rules
and regulations. We had laws about fasting from food and abstaining from meat
at various times of the year and before Holy Communion. We had laws that made
marriages valid or invalid. Priests had laws that made Masses valid or invalid.
There were laws that made our confessions valid or invalid. Catholics, too, were confused and heavily
burdened, and in great need of prioritizing. Then along came Good Pope John
XXIII who summoned his Church to Vatican II (1962-65), and gave it the task of
prioritizing.
But prioritizing
comes hard for the Church and hard for all of us. Some years ago the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops asked his fellow bishops to inform all pastors that the extraordinary[5]
ministers of Holy Communion will no longer be permitted to assist in the
purification of the sacred vessels after Mass! That permission was granted back
in 2002, and Rome recently refused to renew it. My gosh! My gosh! We
are knee-deep in an acute crisis of a priest shortage. A whole system of pastoral care built up over a period
of a thousand years, which gives each congregation a pastor to care for it, is
now collapsing before our very eyes. And people in high places are worried
about who may or may not do the dishes after Mass!
We
must prioritize. We must insert
Jesus’ new Shema in a mezuzah and
nail it to our doorposts, and insert it into phylacteries to be tied to our foreheads
and wrists, so that we might always remember and never forget what is the first
and the second great commandment.
One pastor relates how a church member
who signed up for a religion class at a local community college was hoping to
borrow some books from him. The pastor said, “He handed me a four-page
bibliography! I kid you not – four pages! Not only did I not have many of the books he was looking for, I’d never heard of
most of them!” There’s a mountain of literature out there, and the problem is (if
we’re not careful) like the little boy wanting to know what time it is, we’ll
find ourselves so overwhelmed with the enormity of it all, and we’ll shrug our
shoulders and say, “Never mind.”
Without oversimplifying faith, we need to keep it
simple. We need a nifty nugget. We need something tangible and concrete upon
which to build our faith. We need something that will have enough substance to
give us purpose and direction, yet not be so over-laden as to drag us down. We
need something concise enough to memorize, and simple enough for a child to
understand. And the Good News is this: Hidden in the great maze of religious
literature and church teachings, rules and regulations there is such a nifty nugget, and it is this: “You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and you
shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
The single big idea of the preacher from Nazareth
A
homiletic professor spoke to his class about the need for `a big idea’ in one’s
preaching. He told a story about President Calvin Coolidge. When he returned
home from church one Sunday, his wife asked him what the minister preached
about. "Sin,” the president said. But when his wife pressed him further
and asked what the preacher had to say about sin, President Coolidge seemed
uncertain. He replied:"I think he was against it.” The minister’s sermon
had come across as a confusing mish-mash of ideas. It hadn’t come together
under a single big idea. The great preacher
from Nazareth had a single big idea, and it was this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and you
shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
Conclusion
Prioritize!
Prioritize! Know
what’s really important. Then fasten it to your wrists and forehead and nail it
to your doorposts. Prioritize! Know what’s really important, and then drill it into your children. Prioritize! Know what’s really important as you rush on your daily
commute to Jericho and come across a man waylaid by robbers. Prioritize! Know
what’s really important, especially in these days of a very slowly recovering recession.
Prioritize! Know what’s really important especially at this time of `the
rolling year’ when the very first notes of Christmas are already being struck.
Know what’s really important as you will soon find yourself overwhelmed with
gifts to buy, cards to write, parties to throw, decorations to hang and
distances to cover. Prioritize by with the single big idea of the great
preacher from Nazareth.
[2] Leviticus 19:18.
[3] Little boxes
containing the `Shema,’ which were strapped to the forehead at prayer-time
[4] Little vials
containing the `Shema,’ which were nailed to the door-post at prayer-time
[5] Non-ordained minister of Holy Communion
[6] This section is
taken almost verbatim from a sermon entitled The Christian Shema by Dr. Philip W. Mclarty
