Sunday Worship
Everyone is most welcome to join us for our Sunday Eucharist at St Thomas' Church at 11 am or at St Agnes' at 9.15 am. Reverend Chris will be preaching and presiding on the 22nd Sunday after Trinity at both churches. Some of our Covid precautions remain in place to keep everybody safe, but we'll be singing a couple of hymns and offering refreshments after the service, and Sunday School is now back at St Thomas'.
If you're not able to be with us in person, you can find the Gospel, reflection and prayers below.
Our first hymn today is "Creator God, Who Brings Light Out Of Darkness"
Today's Gospel
Mark 12:28-34 The Greatest Commandment
One of the scribes came near and heard the Sadducees disputing with one another, and seeing that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?”
Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbour as oneself,’ — this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.
Reflection
It's funny sometimes how one’s mind flits from one idea to another. I mentioned a few weeks ago when we looked at Mark 9: v38-50; that there were so many messages packed into those six verses that it was almost impossible not write a reflection that was ten pages long.
Yet, at first when I read the Gospel passage it felt quite the opposite. The scribe asked Jesus the question, “Which commandment is the first of all?” and Jesus gave him a straightforward answer and the scribe agreed with him. So, on the face of it, that’s it – job done. However, there is one particular sentence that jumped out and niggled me: “When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” So I thought, time to go and put the kettle on and think about it..
While I was waiting for my tea to brew, I could hear a debate on the wireless about whether it was right to bring in a law that would make people prove they had been double vaccinated if they wanted to attend certain events. On the one hand some people argued it was for the benefit of public health whist others insisted it would be an infringement on human rights. Now I‘m sure most of us could talk about human rights for at least 100 pages but instead my mind flitted to the idea about laws and from that back to commandments.
If we start way back at the book of Exodus, there were the 10 commandments given by God to Moses to pass down to the people of Israel. Hopefully most of us are aware of these! This is followed by the book of Leviticus where Moses passes down many further laws from God so that ‘man’ can be pure and God can dwell among them. To be honest, Leviticus is not the easiest read in the Bible. It’s a bit light on stories and consists mainly of instructions to the priests, the Levites how to be faithful and pure. It emphasises rituals that are required for purification when people sin, and legal and moral practices. At this early time, it is established that while people will sin there are ways to purge that sin and seek forgiveness and only through doing so can man seek to come to God.
Fast forward a few centuries to modern times and we of course have many more laws. Some underpinned by those original commandments and many that have developed over time by lawmakers and judicial precedent. There are thousands of English Laws, European laws and international laws. Some laws tell us what we should do for our own benefit, for example wearing seatbelts so we don’t seriously hurt ourselves if we have a car accident. Some laws tell us what we shouldn’t do and range from not murdering someone to not smoking in public places. These are generally seen as being in place for the protection of all and show how we should live in a respectful and loving society.
There are laws about education, transport, health & safety, employment, conduct, human rights, even how bendy bananas should be! The list is endless. The law is so complex that if we are unfortunate to get into problems, we need lawyers to interpret it for us. And the lawyers need teachers to lay the groundwork for their understanding.
If we put this into context of today’s reading, the Sadducees and scribes were the ones who would fulfil a similar role. They would look at the laws in the Old Testament and interpret and transcribe them – often for their own benefit. It is often accepted that it is relatively easy to take an isolated excerpts of the bible out of context and misuse it to prove an erroneous point. There are many instances where the Holy leaders have tried to trick Jesus and test him about the scriptures.
I would like to think that the Scribe in this passage had no malicious intent, indeed he even compliments Jesus and repeats his words -“You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbour as oneself,’ . Then, Jesus then responds “… “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
He can see that the scribe is learned and has a sound grasp of the scripture but in His reply to the scribe He is saying that it’s not just about knowing what the law is, it’s about complying with the law. It is one thing to applaud the law and yet another to apply the law. If you do not live by the law you will miss the point and like the scribe, be merely making a theological comment and showing off your knowledge. For that reason, it would be fair to say that the scribe was not far from the Kingdom of God but as to whether he would ever get in, is another matter.
The first commandment is: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength”. It’s much more than going to church once a week or so and saying prayers once, twice or several times each day. The second commandment, “to love one’s neighbour as oneself” – we need to ask ourselves, are we really mindful of everyone we encounter? Do we genuinely try to be loving and kind to every individual without any preconceptions or bias?
