Reflection
‘You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your
strength.’ Was this simply the setting of an impossible ideal? For it would
seem that much of the history of the People of God is merely a demonstration of
how much they failed to live up to their calling. It is as though the priests
offering sacrifices in the temple were busy trying in vain to keep open the
lines of communication between heaven and earth. Jesus, however, lived out the
Shema to the very point of laying down his life and in so doing he unblocked
the path between God and humanity. This is how he became our way to the Father
and changed what seemed like an impossible ideal into a wonderful opportunity.
We really can love God because he has loved us first.
Sean
Goan
One of the earliest heresies dealt with by
the early church was led by Marcion, a man who taught that the Old Testament
had nothing useful to say about God. He affirmed that Jesus presented a new God
in his Father. Marcion failed to grasp that the prophetic vision of Jesus was
entirely rooted in the scriptures of the chosen people and this is very evident
in the scene put before us now. At the heart of Judaism is the She ma, the call
to love God wholly and completely. The reason for this call was an awareness
that Yahweh had revealed himself to his people through the Sinai covenant and,
in the events of the exodus, had shown himself as a compassionate saviour. The
chosen people where therefore acutely aware that their faith was based on practice
and could not be separated from love of neighbour. In the gospel, Jesus and the
scribe agree on these essentials and so offer us a reminder of what is also at
the core of Christianity.
