Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
This
past Monday, Bishop Mengeling gave a wonderful talk on the Year of Faith and
his time at the Second Vatican Council.
He had some amazing slides from both outside and inside St. Peter’s
during some of the sessions.
Before the talk, a few members of the pastoral staff and members of the adult
formation team had dinner with Bishop Mengeling and I. At one point of the conversation,
Bishop Mengeling mentioned the questions he would have for God when he died,
and some of the others mentioned their own questions to God that they are
saving up for when they meet their Maker.
In
today’s Gospel, a scribe asked Jesus a question. Now, recall that the scribes and Jesus didn’t always get
along. The scribes, along with the
Pharisees and Sadducees, were always trying to trap Jesus, to get Him to say
something so they could write Jesus off as neither a prophet nor sent by
God. At the first hearing of the
question, maybe we think it’s another trap being set: “‘Which is the first of
all the commandments?’” Maybe, we
could think, this scribe was trying to trick Jesus into giving a wrong
answer.
Jesus
responds with the Shema, the text we heard from our first reading, which forms
the heart of the Jewish faith, and was to be said by Jews each day: “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.” He then adds a second commandment, from
the Book of Leviticus: “You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.”
The scribe then agrees with Jesus.
But rather than Jesus condemning the scribe for trying to trap Him, as
Jesus did with so many others, Jesus says, “‘You are not far from the kingdom
of God.’” This is a different type
of question; one asked not so much to trap, as to truly find out the truth.
What
question would we ask Jesus? What
question do we ask Jesus? Maybe there’s lots of little trivia
that we want to know: did Adam and Eve have belly buttons? What does Jesus really look like in His
human body? How many angels can fit on the head of a pin? But this scribe, who was basically
congratulated for his question, asked about salvation. The question of ‘what is the greatest
commandment?’ is basically a question about what the most important thing is to
know and do. And Jesus answers
that question.
Especially
in an academic community like East Lansing, we can have lots of questions for
God. Sometimes they are questions
about trivia. Sometimes they are
weightier questions about life and death, why suffering exists. Those are not bad questions. But there’s a hierarchy of truths, and
the first one on our mind should be ‘how do I get to spend eternity with God?’ If God made us for Himself, and our
hearts are restless until they rest in Him, to paraphrase St. Augustine, then
the first question on our minds should be how we come to rest in God? To answer that, we turn back to the
scribe’s question.
Jesus
answers that the first commandment is about knowing and doing. We must know who God is. Only in the measure that we know God
can we love God. If we know God
well, we can love Him more. If we
know God poorly, we won’t love God as much as we need to or want to. Jesus starts out with the unity of God;
God is one. And yet, God is love,
and love is self-diffusive; it gives out.
So our one God is also a communion of Persons: Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. And God sent His Son,
Jesus, to reveal to us in a human body just how far that love goes. That’s what we see on the cross: God’s
love. Then God sends the Holy
Spirit to those who have gotten to know Jesus in order to continue the work of
Jesus after He ascended into heaven.
That’s the Church. The Holy
Spirit continues the work of Jesus by continuing to teach the truth (the
teaching office of the Church) and by sharing God’s love with those who want it
and who have faith in God (that’s the sacramental life of the Church, where
God’s love which is grace, is poured into our hearts by the 7 Sacraments and by
our connecting to Jesus through prayer).
Just like in the New Testament, some continue to receive the truth and
love that God reveals (especially those who recognize their need for God, that
is, sinners), and there are some who continue to reject the truth and love that
God reveals (especially those who think that they have all the answers
themselves, and who don’t need anyone).
But
besides just knowing who God is, Jesus also reminds us that we are called to
love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; in other words, with all
of who we are. Jesus calls us not
just to know, but to act and respond to that love. And if we are called through Baptism to be members of
Christ’s Body, the Church, then our mission is the same as Jesus’ mission: to
reveal the truth and the love of God.
We are also called, in loving God with our entire self, to preach the
truth to others by our words and to give them the love of God through our
actions. Some may reject the light
of truth and choose to remain in the darkness of their own opinions. Some may even reject God’s love because
it makes demands on their life and calls for conversion. But, as Jesus Himself said, “‘If they
persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.’”
In
this Year of Faith, let us continually seek to rest in God by taking practical
ways to get to know God better—through prayer, study, and silence—and by taking
practical ways to love God better—through prayer, giving of our time and
talent, and supporting one another—so that, at the end of our lives, we can say
when Jesus questions us, that we have tried our best to know the God who is
One, and to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.
