How do we demonstrate our love for God?
The Jewish practice of the mezuzah – a small prayer scroll contained within a protective case and affixed to the main doorpost of a home – probably dates back to about 1300 BC, when the people settled in the land of Canaan after their sojourn in the desert. (While they may have had the words of the prayer inscribed upon a tiny scroll to carry with them through the desert, they didn’t have doorposts to affix them to!)
For the people of Moses’ time, this prayer, found in the Book of Deuteronomy and known as Shema Yisrael – 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 – was to be inscribed on their hearts, so that they would remember God at every moment of every day. If they wished to be a prosperous nation when they entered the promised land, they had to remember that the Lord was the source of all they had: lives, property, every blessing! And they were to bless God in turn: I love you, Lord, my strength, the psalmist prays in Psalm 18. It is a song of thanksgiving for God’s steadfast presence as rock of refuge, fortress, deliverer, and so much more!
In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus, challenged by a scribe, likewise cites the Shema Yisrael as the first of all the commandments. But then Jesus adds a second: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Why? Because to love your neighbor is how you live out your love for God, how you give proof of that love for God. The scribe is so impressed that he riffs off Jesus’ statement, adding that love of neighbor is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. Thanks to the scribe’s immediate grasp of Jesus’ statement, Jesus can tell him, You are not far from the kingdom of God! This scribe knows how important God’s constant presence is in his life, and is willing to love his neighbor to demonstrate his own love for God.
Jesus loved with his life, dying once for all when he offered himself on the cross, the ultimate demonstration of love for humanity. There is no long any need, the Letter to the Hebrews says, to offer sacrifice day after day; Jesus lives forever to make intercession for all who approach God through him, so that all might know the forgiveness of his eternal Father, and respond with love to the Lord who loves all by filling the world with love of neighbor, as Jesus did.
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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