Barnaby R. Johns, O.S.A.
Prior Provincial
Province of St. Augustine
Readings
Dt 6:2-6
Ps 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51
Heb 7:23-28
Mk 12:28b-34
There is a great saying attributed to the Greek philosopher Epictetus: “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” I think the advice to listen is both precise and beautiful and why the greatest commandment begins with this word:
Listen: Close the mouth
Listen: Open the ears.
Listen: the word is Shema in Hebrew. Shema 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. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
We hear this commandment three times today: from Moses in the first reading from Deuteronomy, from the mouth of Jesus, and then again from the Scribe. We must listen with both ears and then go beyond in our human understanding to listen and learn with the heart. Then, and only then, we will be like the Scribe and know that we are close to the Kingdom of God revealed to us in the encounter with Jesus Christ.
And it all began with a question! If we look at the Gospels it is quite normal that Jesus listens to a question and then responds with another question. He actually does this very thing in the two passages before today’s Gospel and in so doing he reveals hypocrisy when asked about paying the imperial tax (Mk 12:15) and he reveals ignorance when questioned about the Resurrection (Mk 12:24). Jesus is asked a total of 183 questions in the four Gospels and he only answers three directly. And one of these is the answer to the scribe’s question in the Temple: “Which is the greatest of all the commandments?” Jesus doesn’t reveal hypocrisy or ignorance but something so deep that we need to place our ear to the ground and listen intently to the earthquake beneath: Jesus is God.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel once said that “God is not nice, God is not your uncle, God is an earthquake.” I love this phrase. The Scribe is not far from the Kingdom because he is experiencing this spiritual seismic revelatory shift that rocks his world. The nearness of the Kingdom of God lies in the person before him. He is awakened to this deeper reality of Jesus replacing the focal point of worship. There is no need to worship in the Temple when one will worship the God-Man who replaces the Temple. There is no need for burnt offerings and sacrifices because they will be replaced by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross where there will be a real earthquake (Matt 28:2).
He is preparing the Scribe for a New Covenant ratified on the cross where death is destroyed because he reveals that love is more powerful than death. This earthquake reveals God’s Life abiding in a new creation. God tears the veil between heaven and earth and causes the earth beneath our feet to tremble, tremble, tremble as a physical reality at the moment of the Resurrection.
The theologian Paul Tillich said that the first duty of love is to listen. Jesus is saying to us [just as Moses did in Deuteronomy]: Listen! Listen carefully to the greatest commandment: God is One, and we are to love God full-heartedly and with a full soul and a full strength, and love your neighbour as yourself. God dwells in the full-hearts, full-souls and full strength of all those who believe in him as the Son of God through the Holy Spirit.
So let us Listen and Learn: A year or two ago an alum at Villanova Preparatory School returned to Ojai [California] to talk about being his career as a music producer. His talk was really rather inspiring and crowd-pleasing but the wisest words throughout was music to my ears: “I don’t want to be the smartest person in the room because if I am then I have nothing to learn from anyone.” What is the point of being a know-it-all when being inquisitive and asking questions can help us learn so much more about what God wants to reveal to us. So, let us stand before Jesus and receive Jesus in the Eucharist and learn that he is the source of Love and that he doesn’t just know the greatest commandment, he is the greatest commandment. He is Emmanuel – God-who-is-Love-is-with-us. Listen and Learn, because it leads us to Love.
