November 3, 2024

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle B

Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28-34

There may be some converts to Catholicism here today from other Christian denominations, or maybe even visitors and others that are not Catholic. I hope they would join me in saying that the various mainline Protestant churches agree with the Catholic Church on most things. Unfortunately, it is the few things that we disagree on that we all tend to spend time talking about. This comparison is important because it will help us understand the relation of Jesus and his disciples to the scribes and the Pharisees. The Pharisees and the scribes get a bad rap if one does not read carefully as well as know some of the history of the era in which Jesus lived. To be fair, when the evangelists assembled their gospels, many of the synagogues that initially tolerated the followers of this new Christian way as a group within Judaism had kicked them out of their congregation as heretics to Judaism. So often the evangelists’ resentment against “the Jews” and various Jewish groups is very noticeable. But the actual picture was more complicated. Today's Gospel points to one of those hints.

In it, we have a scribe asking Jesus for clarification. Now sometimes we have people trying to trap Jesus into making a misstatement that they could use against him. But we don't have an indication here that this is so, and after Jesus answered the scribe, the scribe summed up the teaching in such a way that Jesus then praises the scribe for his understanding, so much so that he tells him that he is “not far from the kingdom of God” [Mark 12:34 NABRE]. So who were the scribes and the Pharisees?

The scribes were experts who studied Jewish law. Even though they were part of the Roman Empire and Roman law overrode local laws in some aspects of life, in most matters Rome left it to the local area officials to enforce their own law, so Jewish law still was in effect concerning marriage, inheritance, civil cases concerning grievances, and so forth. So the scribes were experts in the Mosaic law, the lawyers and the magistrates. A scribe then described an occupation and a level of education held by a person.

Pharisee on the other hand was not an occupation but a member of a Jewish religious movement. Many of the scribes were Pharisees, although not all. Pharisees wanted a return to religious fundamentals that many Jews had fallen away from over the centuries of domination by the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. Not only did these foreigners conquer Palestine militarily, their pagan culture and philosophy had begun to replace a Hebrew understanding of God and our relationship to that God with pagan practices, especially Greek philosophy. The Pharisees were trying to reverse this. This is why you so often in the gospels hear about a Pharisee quoting some biblical rule that they don't think Jesus or his disciples are following. In other words, the Pharisees wanted to get back to that old time religion. And this is also why so many of the Pharisees are hanging around Jesus and why he so often eats in the houses of Pharisee leaders: Jesus too was a descendant of Abraham, and Jesus too wanted the Jewish people to return to a fuller worship of the Father.

Now I know this is a lot of historical information, but it is important to know because it gives a fuller understanding of what Jesus is trying to teach. Jesus never goes against any fundamental teaching about God in the Old Testament. In fact, he specifically states in Matthew’s Gospel that he did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill it [Matthew 5:17]. The law and the prophets was the way that the teachings of the Old Testament were referred to, what the Pharisees were so anxious to see revitalized. So what is Jesus telling us in today's Gospel when he praises the scribe for saying “‘to love [God] … and to love your neighbor as yourself’ is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices” [Mark 12:33]? He is not telling the scribes and Pharisees that temple sacrifices were not important – they were very important to the people of the old covenant, the Jewish law. He is saying that they are important, but there is a priority here, and love of God and neighbor is even more important.

So how does this insight help us here today. We don't do temple sacrifices anymore. The one-time sacrifice of Jesus on the altar of the cross has eliminated the need for us to do this particular type of communal worship anymore. This is the "once for all" sacrifice that the second reading today speaks of. However, we still need to follow the lead of Jesus and attend communal worship of our God and thanksgiving for our salvation, which is for Catholics the celebration of the sacrifice of the Mass. In doing so, we are following Jesus, who throughout his public ministry always attended his synagogue on the Sabbath, as well as traveling to Jerusalem for the high holy days. So we still have rules about Mass attendance, fasting, sacrament frequency, and so forth, and let no one think for a second that they are not important. They are, for the rules that our Church puts out are based on living in accordance with the life and teaching of Christ.

But make no mistake about it. No matter how often we come to Mass, no matter how many rosaries we say, no matter the expense of a pilgrimage to a holy shrine, if we don't love God and our neighbor as ourselves above all things, it is all for nothing. If you read today’s Gospel as saying that “burnt offerings and sacrifices” were unimportant or optional for the Jews as long as they loved God and neighbor, you have read it incorrectly. Now that Jewish “burnt offerings and sacrifices” have been replaced, after Christ’s passion and resurrection, by the sacrifice of the Mass, let us not think that it is not important. Liturgy, communal worship, sacraments, personal prayer are all still very important. But what Christ teaches us today is that a true love of God and its necessary demonstration in the love of neighbor are more important.

This has an implication that is relevant especially this upcoming week, the week that we hold a national election. The history of Jesus also is important here, because it is important to note that Jesus, at no time in any gospel, talked about politics. He ever said that the Roman emperor should do something, or that King Herod should enact some law, or that Pontius Pilot should stop doing something. In fact, he told the Pharisees to pay their taxes, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. All of Christ’s teachings are aimed, not at government but at his disciples, not at a group but at individuals, at us, at you and me, and what we do, the actions that prove our love of God and neighbor. Since we live in a democracy, we should vote and become civically involved to have our laws reflect the values that we hold as Christians. But no matter what happens this week, whoever might win the election, Christ is still calling us as individuals, you and me, not the government, to display the love of one another tangibly in the lives of those around us, the people that we encounter in our lives. That must be our priority. Let us vote on Tuesday, but then let us reach out to someone in need on Wednesday, then again on Thursday, and on every day after that. Politics is all about what “they” should do. Everyone always knows what “they” should do. But Jesus never said what “they” should do. He was all about what we should do – you and I, his disciples, in our own lives. If we don’t take this lesson on priorities away from here, we deserve the same scolding that Jesus often gave to the scribes and Pharisees, who always seemed to be telling others what “they” should do.

As we continue with our Mass, may this Eucharistic sacrifice bring us into communion with all people worshiping our great God. Let us pray for our country and its leaders, and then work to build a better country starting in our own families, our own workplaces, our own neighborhoods, our own schools demonstrating our love for all. May we all learn from Jesus what the true priorities in life must be.