Recently I had the privilege of beginning my study of the Hebrew language at a local synagogue.  The first meeting of this class for adult beginners was a six-hour Hebrew Marathon to learn the alphabet.  I’ve never considered languages to be my strong suit, and I knew I was really in trouble when I asked the instructor how many letters are in the Hebrew alphabet, and she couldn’t give me a definitive answer!  Despite my foreign language misgivings, the alphabet marathon was not only a wonderful experience in Hebrew, it started me thinking about the topic of languages in general.  From what I understand, English is no piece of cake to learn as an adult, either, and this morning’s Scripture text offers us one object lesson as to why this is so.  Think about the word “love.” 

              In English we use the one word, love, to say that we love our children or grandchildren, we love our parents, and we love our spouse.  Some of us love chocolate or coffee or a fine wine.  We love freedom and democracy; we love classical music or classic cars.  We love the mountains or the ocean, a crisp autumn day or daffodils in bloom.  We love football, we love to hike or ski; we love to sew or shop or read or build things.  We use one word, but we all understand that we are conveying vastly different meanings.  When I say I love my children and I love chocolate, I am not at all saying that I place the same value on them, and that is understood within the context of how we use the word “love.” 

              The word “love” figures prominently in this passage in Mark, in what is commonly referred to as the Great Commandment.  But, before we look at what Mark means by the word “love”, first, a little context.  The appearance of scribes, chief priests, elders, Pharisees, and Sadducees in the Gospel of Mark usually involves some type of confrontation, and our passage this morning is set within the context of several such encounters in which the chief priests and scribes have questioned Jesus’ authority, baited him with misleading questions, and even begun to look for a way to kill him.  In the midst of these heated disputes, one of the scribes has overheard the exchanges between Jesus and the religious leaders, and unlike the hostile scribes, this man recognizes the wisdom in Jesus’ answers.  Something about Jesus’ response has the ring of truth to it, and this scribe is able to see past their differences to respect and respond to that truth.  So, he approaches Jesus with a sincere question about the commandments, asking Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?”

              Jesus responds to the scribe with the opening line of the Shema.  The Shema is the instruction Moses had given to the Israelites generations ago which became the liturgy that faithful Jews were to recite twice daily: “Hear, O Israel:  The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.  Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your fore-head, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deut. 6:4-9) 

              The beginning of the Shema is significant, but it is the part which is most often forgotten when we recite the Great Commandment: “Hear, O Israel:  the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”  Why is that language important?  What does it have to do with the commandment to love God?  In truth, it has everything to do with it because the Great Commandment makes sense only if and when we have a right understanding of who God is which allows us to have a right understanding of our relationship to God. 

              The concept of monotheism, or belief in one God, strikes us as obvious in a way that it would not have either to the original audience to whom Moses spoke or to the first century audience whom Jesus was addressing.  We do not live in a society where there are dozens, if not hundreds, of temples and shrines dedicated to different gods.  Imagine a world in which, on your way to the local grocery store, you stopped at the temple to offer ritual sacrifices to ask the gods for a good harvest and plentiful crops.  Instead of regular visits for prenatal care to your family physician, you routinely made an offering in the shrine of a fertility goddess.  Rather than turning on the weather channel and planning your vacation or weekend outing accordingly, you went to a different god every time you wanted rain or sunshine or warm weather or cold. 

              In a world dominated by gods and goddesses for every imaginable need, it was a huge shift in world view for the tiny nation of Israel to emerge with the claim that they worshipped only one God, the Lord alone, the One True God.  Israel’s God is not one god among many; Israel’s God is not one of multiple deities each loving Israel and deserving of her worship.  No, God alone is the God whose word began creation; God alone is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  God alone delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt, out of Pharaoh’s hand, across the Red Sea and to safety.  God alone led the children through the desert and into the Promised Land.  There was not one god who provided the manna, separate gods who led them by day and night, another god who met Moses on the mountain.  The Lord God of Israel is One God, and when Jesus quotes from the Shema, “Hear O Israel:  the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” all of this history, all of this relationship, all the memories and the stories that have been handed down for hundreds of years, stories of God’s protection, God’s guidance, God’s love and forgiveness, and God’s call upon Israel as a chosen people is all bound together in that one liturgical phrase.  The scribe to whom Jesus is speaking would certainly have understood everything that Jesus was communicating. 

Like Moses before him, Jesus places all of this in the forefront of the scribes mind before he answers his question.  Remembering who God is, doesn’t it then follow that this God, without whom Israel would not even exist, is deserving of her devotion and love rather than the gods and goddesses that covered the landscape of first-century Palestine?  Jesus’ exhortation to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” is a recognition of what an appropriate response to God’s love looks like.  When Israel keeps in mind a right picture of the depth and breadth of God’s love and of God’s faithfulness, protection, and guidance through the generations, how could they do anything but respond in total, whole-hearted love?  How could they come to God with a lukewarm, half-hearted pretense of worship when they have received so much more than they deserved?  What’s called for is a response of love that permeates one’s entire life, that leaves nothing untouched by sheer delight in God.

              It is not a great leap to relate our time and place to the time and place in which Jesus is speaking.  While it’s true that we don’t routinely kill a fatted calf or make a grain offering to ensure long life or good health, we are routinely tempted to turn our allegiance from our first and eternal Love to the loves, or gods, of this world.  We are tempted to sacrifice family time, our own integrity and honesty, time for exercise or self care, and certainly a single-minded devotion to God to the gods of fame, fortune, success, and power.  These gods demand their own version of sacrifice, and all too often we ante-up just as surely as if we were offering a dove to entice the gods to make it rain on this year’s corn crop. 

We don’t often examine our choices about how we spend our time, our money, and our gifts and talents in light of a conversation about idolatry and love, but this is what Jesus is challenging us to think about.  Idolatry is a word that concerns the loves—little “l”—of our lives.  It is not a question of what we own but of what owns us.  If our love of money owns us, if that is the god at whose temple we regularly worship, we will work longer hours than is healthy, we will sacrifice our relationships, and we won’t count the cost of our idolatry to ourselves or others.  If a love of appearance owns us, that love can turn a healthy interest in fitness into an obsession or turn a desire to be thin into a dangerous and life threatening illness. What or who we love matters that much.  What owns us can literally cost us everything, even our lives.

              The irony is that the gods our culture worships cost so much but offer so little in return.  We work so hard and so long, and if we are lured by the gods of consumerism, what we have in exchange is planned obsolescence, burdensome maintenance, depreciating assets all of which is deliberately designed to make us continually dissatisfied.  Jesus offers us a better way.  Jesus offers us a way to order our hearts and our minds and our very lives that gives us the freedom to be joyful.  It gives us peace.  It gives us the satisfaction of being part of something of eternal value.  It shows us the way to truly deep and meaningful relationships, relationships which are built on trust and respect which foster intimacy.  When we love God with all our hearts, minds, soul and strength we are free—free from the concern over what others think of us, free to resist the latest Madison Avenue marketing scheme, free to be thankful rather than envious, free to trust rather than worry, free to be content.  When the things of this world do not own us, when we do not love them, there is nothing then to lose.  Jesus knows this.  “What does it profit us to gain the whole world and lose our soul?”  (Mark 8:36)  So, knowing this, Jesus responds to the scribe’s question by revisiting the Shema.  The commandment to love God is paired with the requirement to love one’s neighbor and together, the two epitomize the whole of the Mosaic law.  Love in this context means the fullest measure of loyalty that Israel—and we—owe to God.  This is not the love of chocolate bars.   This is love that speaks to what is ultimate and most defining in our lives.  As the scribe said, this love is much more important than any offering and sacrifices to which Jesus nodded approvingly, appreciated the scribe’s wisdom, and commended him for moving towards the kingdom of heaven.  May our love be found no less faithful.  Amen.