“You are not far from the kingdom of God”: Love creates this Kingdom of God!
Deuteronomy 6:2-16; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28b-34
For those who are allergic to laws, and feel overwhelmed by legislations, know that you’re not alone. The fact that a scribe complains about the law in today’s gospel shows how acute the problem is. In fact, a famous biblical lawyer and pharisee, St. Paul, saw the law as a threat to salvation. St. Paul spent all his Christian life making sense of the law. He comes up with the concept of justification by faith. Today, justification by faith is not our preoccupation but Jesus’ solution to the problem of law.
First and foremost, we can identify ourselves in the struggle against the law, as drivers, policemen, politicians, we all cut corners. A walk down the streets of Nigerian cities shows how lawless some Nigerians are: neither do they respect traffic signs nor drive according to driving rules, not even the police on the road does his/her job other than taking bribes. In fact, I saw a policeman giving back change to a commercial motorist, just don’t ask me what the police sells on the highway! In Nigeria, the impression one gets is that rules are meant to be broken with impunity. How does one talk or preach about the importance of commandments in such a context?
Going by the Law, we are all criminals liable to judgment and condemnation. How do we get out of this situation/quagmire? The good news is that there’s no need for any laws, when the purpose of the law is understood. The rules and regulations we have, that is, God’s commandments, are meant to build the kingdom of God. From the statement of today’s gospel, “you are not far from the kingdom of God,” we realize that our God is a kingdom builder. From the liberation of Israel from Egypt up until the deportation to Babylon, God attempts building his kingdom through laws. Human beings, from Genesis, proved to be incapable of keeping the laws of God. Today, God gives us a new law – love.
A careful reading of our first and gospel readings reveals some contradictions. Two contradictory statements are made in the first reading: on the one hand, Israel is requested to keep all the commandments and customs of God (Deuteronomy 6:1-3); on the other, Israel is told that she has One God and the responsibility to love this One God alone (Deuteronomy 6:4-6). What is going on: has Israel many rules and regulations or only one law – to love God alone with one’s strength, heart and mind? This same contradiction continues in the gospel: of the many commandments, which of them is the most important, asks the scribe? By implication, there is a summary of all the laws of God or there is the most important law of God, the keeping of which saves one the energy to keep the rest/others!
From the very title of today’s first reading, we notice that God gives a new law: “Deuteronomy” means “second law”. If there is a second law, something happened to the first law. Jeremiah prophesied this new law “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).
The Ten Commandments were written on a stone tablet, and human beings attempted to turn this stone into flesh and failed. God punished them and sent them into exile in Babylon for breaking his laws. The physical temple that symbolized the presence of God among them was destroyed and pulled down. It was in Babylon that they learned “humanity” – how to be human beings. They realized that God has no favorites, that anyone that does the will of God is acceptable to him (Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11). They realized that those who build kingdoms upon laws saw their kingdoms crumble and fall.
The second law (Deuteronomos) is the law of love, which centers in the human heart. It is the very flesh of the heart, and it defies any law, because it is the very nature of God and defines God, for “God is love” (1 John 4:8). “The Lord our God is One Lord” is the beginning statement of the second law or the new law – the law of love. “Love” was alien to the old laws. The former laws spoke of punishments and banishments. The new law talks of love and forgiveness: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! 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” (Deuteronomy 6:4-6).
In order to unravel the contradictions of our readings, the instruction of our first reading, “Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deuteronomy 6:4-6) draws our attention to the need for God’s enlightenment. Today, an aspect of our liturgy, the sign we make after the priest/deacon introduces the gospel (a reading from the holy gospel according to . . . .) – we make signs of the cross on our forehead, lips and breast – is being explained to us. As human beings, we believe in the power of our mind or intellect, which we use to think and produce wonder works of science and technology; our heart as the seat of love and compassion, and the strength/power we muster either for good or for evil. Every faculty in the human person must become instruments of love and channeled to love of God and neighbor.
When we listen to the word of God proclaimed to us, it engages our intellect, our heart and our strength. The sign of the cross on our forehead is our request to God to enlighten us with his Holy Spirit, so that our mind will be set on doing good; so that the strength and power of our intellect will be garnered for good deeds. The sign of the cross on our lips asks God for the grace to proclaim him through our words, and a sign of the cross on our heart that God transform our hearts into a dwelling place of his word and not seat of evil.
“You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34) speaks to God’s desire to be close to his creatures. To be in the Presence of Jesus is to be “near” to the kingdom of God, for Christ is the “love” of God come down to us – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”. And the “Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). God doesn’t want us to be keepers of laws but lovers. He who loves and gives love is a lover. Love turns us into gods because God himself is love and our lover!
It is St. Paul who teaches about the immortality of love, when he says that “Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. . . So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:8, 13). The love of God which both the Old Testament and Jesus teach today remind us of the need to be like God – to be loving. The very purpose of God’s laws is to bring humanity close to God. The new law of love is about relationship with God. So that human beings may not complain about a God who is invisible, today’s gospel invites us to love our neighbors as ourselves – to see God in our neighbors. Even the Ten Commandments of God are divided into two, the first three commandments are about our relationship with God, and the other seven about our relationship with one another.
The kingdom of God is a kingdom of love. To love is to join God to build this kingdom among human beings. And to love here and now is to begin to experience immortality because love never comes to an end. In our second reading, the many Levitical priests who were appointed to minister at the temple all died. But the new priest, Jesus Christ, lives forever interceding for humanity. The newness of the priesthood of Jesus Christ is the power to become intercessors. Only love makes one intercede for the other: “Therefore, he [Jesus] is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). It is on account of love that Jesus died for the salvation of humanity. It is also through love of the other and the readiness to die for one another that Christians will bring about God’s kingdom of love.
Here and now, if we succeed in practicing the principles of love, there will be a transformation in our lives. According to Paul, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). The difficulty of obeying the laws and commandments of God disappear, when we are enveloped by love. The human tendencies to break the commandments of God are replaced by the love of God and neighbor. In fact, to love God is to keep God’s commandments. “Agapé” is to sacrifice all else for love of God: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised” (Song of Songs 8:7).
“You are not far from the kingdom of God”: Love creates this Kingdom of God! Today and always, join God in building his kingdom of love, and there will be no need to worry about laws, because by loving we keep God’s commandments!
Assignment for the Week:
Choose somebody to pray for all week long.