Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 26, 3 November 2024: Ruth 1:1-18; Psalm 146; Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 12:28-34
“Which commandment is the first of all?” The scribe’s question to Jesus is not a trick question, but it’s a hard one: the Torah contains over 600 commandments, and sorting them out is an intellectual challenge. Jesus answers in what have become familiar words, but were not when he said to the scribe,
“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 neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
The first commandment is known in Judaism as the “Shema”, from the first word of the commandment, “Hear”. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5). Faithful Jews will recite the Shema twice a day, at rising and going to bed, as an affirmation of their faith. If you are faithful, you love God completely, with heart, soul, mind and strength: this is not an easy faith. And so Jesus’ response is an entirely orthodox Jewish response.
The second part of his answer is less formulaic for first century Jews, but still orthodox: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. This too draws on the Torah, in Leviticus 19:18. It summarizes a whole raft of commandments which detail how one is to treat others. Similarly, Rabbi Hillel the Elder (who died about 20 years before Jesus) answered a similar question by saying, “That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”
It is worth paying attention to the fact that you love others as you love yourself. Loving yourself, treating yourself with respect, acknowledging your needs, is necessary to serve others well. Churches have not always been good at talking about this; women in particular are often urged to a sacrificial giving without respect to their needs. But taking care of ourselves does not necessarily make us narcissistic egomaniacs: it makes us healthy human beings. You cannot offer love to others if you do not offer it to yourself.
Over the past several weeks we had had some more challenging readings from Mark; he has repeatedly reminded his followers of the need to give up what they have to follow him. He tells them it will be hard, and they will suffer. Yet here, asked for the central commandments, he turns to love. The love here is not the soft pictures of romantic love, but the hard work of treating everyone we meet the way we would want to be treated. It does not come easily.
Our reading from the Book of Ruth offers a vision of another kind of love. In this case, it is the faithfulness of a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law. Naomi is widowed, and her sons have died. She is too old to have more sons for them to marry. She wants to send her daughters-in-law home to their families of birth, so they can be married and have children. She has nothing to offer. And yet, despite repeated urging, Ruth refuses to leave her. In a lovely poem, Ruth makes a promise:
Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people, and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried.
Naomi and Ruth will support each other: in the end, Ruth will marry again, and have a son, so Naomi is protected in her old age. As we will see next week, the story is complicated, but here we have a simple statement of faithfulness. Ruth will not let Naomi return to her home alone.
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 neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.
It sounds simple. It is the work of a lifetime.