Jesus replied, "The first is this: '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.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, 'He is One and there is no other than He.' And 'to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself' is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

- Mark 12:29-33

The gospel for Sunday is quite familiar to us. We sometimes refer to Jesus's command to love God and neighbor and self as the Great Commandment.

The scribe who asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment was asking a question very much on the minds of the people of his day. Some tried to expand the law almost limitlessly into ever greater numbers of rules and regulations. Others tried to summarize the law into one great statement.

The great Rabbi Hill was asked to summarize the whole law while he stood on one leg. He said: "what you hate for yourself, do not do to your neighbor. Everything else is commentary." We read in the Old Testament prophet Micah those words which attempt to summarize the law: "What does the Lord require of you? To do justice, to love kindness, and walk humbly with your God." Our own St. Augustine put it this way: "Love God and do what you will." I have a preacher friend who puts it this way: love God completely, others compassionately, and self correctly.

But Jesus' response was a very interesting one. None of what he said was particularly new.

He began by saying, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, is Lord alone." Every good Jew was quite familiar with this sentence. It was the beginning of the Shema, the creed of Judaism. That sentence always began the synagogue service in Jesus's day and still does today. It comes from Deuteronomy 6:4. Verse 5 then says "Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength."

Te verses of the Shema were placed inside the little leather box that a devout Jew wore on his forehead and wrist when praying. The Shema was also placed inside a cylindrical box called a mezuzah, which was attached to the for of every Jewish house and the door of every room within to remind the Jew of God in his daily coming and going. We have one at our house, attached to the wall of the garage door.

The second part of the Great Commandment, "to love your neighbor as yourself," was also well-known to a good Jew and comes from Leviticul 19:18. In Luke's gospel, the Great Commandment is immediately followed by the story of the Good Samaritan.

What Jesus did that was new was to combine these two commandments together. No rabbi had ever done that before. The connection Jesus makes tells us that the only way to love God is to love your neighbor.

So what can we today draw from this? I think there are at least two significant points here.

The first is the greater danger of separating knowing and doing. We all know the great commandment and recite it by heart. But does it always dwell within our hearts? Is it always the motive for our actions and thoughts? This great commandment is the measuring stick, the acid test, for all of our lives.

The second is the great danger of letting ritual or devotion take the place of love; of limiting our love of God to the time we spend in liturgy or other devotional activities. They are certainly good things. but we may recall that Jesus reserved his harshest criticism for the "religious" people of his day. those who were more into the law than the love of God and neighbor. And let's face it, sometimes it's much easier to say a rosary than to truly love some of our neighbors!