HOMILY FOR 31ST SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME (LOVE) — YEAR B
HOMILY THEME: LOVE GOD AND YOUR NEIGHBOUR
BY: Fr. Paul Karabari
Deut. 6:2-6, Heb. 7:23-28, Mk. 12:28-34
“Which commandment is the first of all?”
The Old Testament has 613 precepts, and there is no clear standard for judging which one is greatest. The rabbis speak of some commandments as “heavy” and others as “light,” with an unending debate on their importance.
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When asked by one of the Scribes in the Gospel of today (Mark 12:28b-34 ), which was greatest of the commandments, Jesus said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
The first part is from Deuteronomy 6:4-5, which is our First Reading (see also Deuteronomy 11:13). Jews call it the Shema. The Shema builds on the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3), but adds the love requirement. To fulfill these requirements, Jewish children memorize these verses, and Jewish people wear them in phylacteries on their foreheads, post them in mezuzahs on their doorposts, and repeat them every day of their lives as part of their daily worship. The words of the Shema, recited in daily worship, are truly graven on Jewish hearts. No faithful Jew can argue with the primacy of this commandment.
Note that the God whom we are to love is ‘your God’, adding a personal dimension to our religious duty. It is not some abstract higher power that we worship, but our God; a God to whom we belong and who belongs to us, a God who acted in the past to save us, and who continues to save us in the present, a God who created us in all our splendid complexity and who knows every hair of our heads.
Shema says to love God with heart, soul, and might, but Jesus says heart, soul, and mind. Both Shema and Jesus simply ask us to love God without qualification; with all that we have and all that we are, with that which constitutes the core of our being.
Our love for God must take over our entire being. Loving God with all your mind means managing your mind and making the most of it. It means loving God logically and creatively, intuitively, and thoughtfully.
What does it mean to love God with all your strength? Someone says, ‘It means expending tremendous amounts of energy for kingdom causes. It means blood, sweat, and tears. It means servanthood and sacrifice. Energy may be the least appreciated dimension of love because it’s the least sentimental. And how we invest our energy reveals our true priorities.’ It reveals how much we love someone; in this case, God. He continues: ‘Christianity was never intended to be a noun. And when we turn it into a noun, it becomes a turnoff. Christianity was always intended to be a verb. We have got to obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit. We have got to seize opportunities to serve…At the end of the day, God isn’t going to say, “Well said, good and faithful servant”…[but] “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Nothing is more fulfilling than burning calories for a kingdom cause. Anything less than leveraging all our strength for God’s purposes is boring at best and hypocritical at worst…’
Has your own love for God grown cold? If it has, think back to where you first met Him and seek Him again like you did before pressures of life, worries, and uncertainty had worn you down. Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to God. Our relationship with God is not a place for half-heartedness. “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16).
Jesus continued, “A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’” (see also Romans 13:9 and Galatians 5:14). This comes from Leviticus 19:18, a verse which is quoted three times in this Gospel (see also 5:43 and 19:19). When Jesus says that the second commandment is like the first, he means that they are related and have similar weight. Love of God naturally leads to love of neighbour, and love of neighbour is part of loving God. 1 John 4:20 makes the linkage explicit: “If a man says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?”
Jesus said: “Love your neighbour as yourself” But we also all know that sometimes people aren’t easy to love, and that is just as true in our churches as it is in our families, work places, and neighbourhoods.
Our families, workplaces, and churches can be places of joy, peace, and unity, but they can also be places of disagreements and bitterness, often due to different personalities and different opinions. So how can we love those in our church? The first thing to keep in mind is that if we so consider how people have made themselves our enemies by their actions and inaction then there are times we have done same to God but He keeps loving us. Again, if God still love us in such a condition, then we have to love them. We can’t be impressive, but life has at various times edged us into such positions where the disadvantaged occupy today. We have our lessons and should be used positively.
Love for neighbour is a selfless, unconditional love. As such, it directs kindness, respect, and loyalty towards the loved one. What causes us to stand out from the world isn’t our words but our love for one another. When we can overcome our differences, when we can cross lines of denomination, race, and culture and truly love one another, the world is drawn to Christ, and it pays attention to what we say.
Love for neighbour means being there for them. The people who give life to us are people who notice us. They know what we love and fear. When we work to truly notice someone else, love for them grows. When we work to truly observe another person, in that self-forgetfulnes, our own soul flourishes.
Mother Teresa used to say: “If you can’t do great things, do little things with great love. And if you can’t do them with great love, do them with a little love. And if you can’t do them with a little love, do them anyway.” Love grows when you serve people. Being there for other people is the practical application of loving God and our neighbour. GOD IS STILL ON THE THRONE. May God have mercy on us, heal our world and land, bless and protect us all through Christ, our Lord Amen.
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