The Last Question
Proper 26/24th after Pentecost; Mark 12:28-34
Some will be reading from John this week, if All Saints’ Day is transferred to Sunday, as is common in The Episcopal Church.1 Here however we will keep to the Sunday cycle and hence to Mark’s Gospel. The lectionary leaps forward though, omitting Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem because of its place in the readings of Holy Week, taking us into the middle of his time in the great city, prior to his arrest. We have thus skipped over scenes related to the looming conflict: the overturning of the money-changers’ tables (11:15-19), the cursed fig tree (11:12-14 and 20-25), and the parable of the oppressive tenants (12:1-12).
As the weeks before Advent go by, the remaining Sunday Gospels will still come from this part of the story, but will be less directly or solely focused on Mark’s narrative arc or the imminent drama of Cross and Resurrection, and instead hint at a different if related drama, that of the end of all things. Even last week’s story of Bartimaeus was the last healing miracle of the Gospel; today’s reading depicts the last question Jesus is asked, at least in a public disputation. This passage is part of interrogations from the local leadership: a question about Jesus authority (11:27-33), about taxes and Caesar (12:13-17), and the Sadducees’ test about the resurrection (12:18-27), which is referenced at the beginning of this episode where a scribe questions Jesus.
We may be surprised that this scene has a positive feel to it, whether because of the tense atmosphere or just because of who is asking the question. Morna Hooker and others point out that “scribe” here ought to be understood not merely as a technical matter of writing, but as something like “teacher of the Law” (as the episode itself makes clear). Every other time the word “scribe” appears in this Gospel, it has a more or less negative sense; just a few verses before this, after the triumphal entry and the “cleansing” of the Temple, the “scribes and Pharisees” were looking to do away with Jesus (11:18). The scribes have also featured explicitly in Jesus’ predictions of his passion. Matthew’s and Luke’s versions of this story both have the scribe “testing” Jesus, which is not friendly language.
Despite the negative depiction of the scribes, Jesus (and Mark) do not actually disparage the office of scribe, but merely report the animosity shown Jesus by the particular holders of this office. The appearance of a scribe who is “not far from the kingdom” now serves as a reminder, just before Jesus will enter further conflict with them, that his struggle is not with the Law itself, or with the Temple, let alone with Judaism. So this exchange is a kind of eye of the storm, where the truth is discussed without the implication of conflict in its own detail but where the drama remains as a kind of backdrop.
When the scribe asks about which commandment is “first,” Jesus responds that there are in fact two commandments that stand out: first to love God with all one’s heart—he quotes here the text of Deuteronomy 6:4-5, which is also the prayer known as the Shema (“Hear”) —and then to love one’s neighbor as oneself, for which he quotes Leviticus 19:18. This exchange sits comfortably in the kind of discussion of the Law that other contemporary rabbis were undertaking. Jesus’ near-contemporary Hillel was remembered as saying “That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study (b. Shabbat 31a).” Paul seems to say something similar in the Letter to the Romans (13:8-10), that love fulfills the law.
So while the result of this exchange is familiar to Christians as the “two great commandments,” this summary is entirely Jewish in nature, and presents Jesus not as an outlier or critic of the Law, but as a thoroughly orthodox (if nevertheless original) thinker and teacher. Other ancient Jewish works do some summarizing or synthesizing not dissimilar to this, but Jesus is the first we know to combine these two biblical texts, and hence to propose a concept that seems to align with the two (unequal) halves of the Ten Commandments, concerning behavior towards God and in the human community respectively.2
The scribe’s approving response refers to one specific area of legal expectation, that of “whole burnt offerings” (see Lev 1) and “sacrifices” (see Lev 3). Although there were other sacrifices as well (see Lev 2, 5) this pairing could be used as a shorthand for all the Temple offerings. In context, the point actually emphasizes the importance of these rather than diminishing them; the logic is that even these hugely important acts required by the Law were not as important as the principles that Jesus identifies. The scribe at least would have imagined these were a natural and necessary outcome of the first commandment itself, to love God.
This reveals a difference between the significance of Jesus’ saying in its earlier context and how later readers (perhaps even Mark’s original readers) might interpret it. Both the scribe and Jesus are affirming the whole of the Law, while analyzing its fundamentals. Neither is backing away from the specifics (sacrifices, dietary laws, and all). Yet later Christian readerships, including those of today, will likely understand acceptance of these two principles to allow or even require quite different specifics in non-Jewish settings.
The scene closes with Jesus acknowledging that the scribe is “not far from the kingdom of God” (12:34). This is obviously a sort of compliment to his thoughtful (“wise,” for Mark) response, but we must note a literal if less obvious meaning; that the scribe, being in conversation with Jesus himself, is already next to the one whose presence embodies the reign of God. Of course others have also been that close, but have failed to see what was in front of them. This is entirely in keeping with Mark’s presentation of the mystery of the kingdom.
The idea of the proximity of the reign of God to which Jesus refers also applies to time. While this calm and commendable exchange takes place without immediate signs of conflict or crisis, the events to come shortly will be the definitive revelation of how God’s kingdom works. This last question then, for all its serene and almost academic presentation, leads to an answer whose meaning will be displayed in stunning clarity on the Cross. The scribe is near the kingdom, not because he is knowledgeable, but because he has glimpsed something of the love of God and neighbor. He may not yet know that what Jesus now teaches and has always exemplified can only lead to one end, but the revelation of the reign of God is now close at hand.
If possible I will write a separate “note” on the John reading.
Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007, p. 566.