Mark 12:28-34 Commentary

Prior to our lectionary text, Jesus has been engaging in debates with the temple leaders—most recently with the Sadducees about the resurrection. Now, Mark says, a scribe who’s been listening in decides to ask Jesus his own question.

However, unlike the leaders who have gone before him, this scribe isn’t trying to debate, catch Jesus up with a stumper of a question, or trap him into saying something foolish or dangerous. This scribe has been impressed with what he’s heard from Jesus and wants to see if Jesus knows the most important part when it comes to their shared religion.

Jesus, of course, answers correctly by quoting the Shema (Deut 6.4b-5). Loving God with all of ourselves is the standard of piety. And Jesus even answers correctly by adding neighbour love, the second great commandment, to the first. There is a long tradition of piety recognizing how these two loves hold together, especially since they represent the two “tables” of the decalogue.

The scribe is quite satisfied with Jesus’s answer. I get the impression that he might feel like he’s finally found a conversation partner in Jesus—someone who can think deeply and speak on important things like he does. Quoting from another part of the scriptures (either Deuteronomy 4 or Isaiah 45 or 46) the scribe keeps his piety dialogue going by reiterating what Jesus has said, adding that such love is rooted in the fact that “God is one and besides him there is no other.”

The implication, of course, is that knowing this one true God is done through love: loving God with our whole selves, being thoroughly loved by God, loving others and ourselves because we know that love is the best way to know as well as to live.

Though it’s true that love is often a motivating factor for sacrifice—for God so loved the world, after all—it is not a prerequisite. We can make sacrifices for things and people we hate for any number of reasons. There might be some short-term gain for us or the possibility to change a less desirable situation for a better one. Our sacrifices might be foisted upon us without our permission or control. We may choose to sacrifice in order to survive. Or we might sacrifice to impress or appease and keep the so-called peace.

The scribe knows this. He speaks of loving God, others and one’s self as more important than “all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Love as more important, more worthwhile, more useful than religious rites and procedures. When sacrifices are a “cover” for sins one is not really interested in addressing, they are pointless—no matter the cost. Just see God’s words through his prophets like Hosea (6.6) and Samuel (1 Sam 15.22) or Jesus himself (Matthew 9.13).

Whereas sacrifice does not require one’s internal life to be transformed in order to be externally acted, true and godly love is always transformative, inside and out. Knowing that and being it are two different things, though, aren’t they?

Jesus tells the scribe that his knowledge indicates that he is “not far from the kingdom of God.” Not far means close. In this case, close to the real heart of the matter (pun intended). Knowing what God’s about, knowing what God intended life to be about, and being true to those things are two different things.

Have you ever noticed that in the Shema, which Jesus quotes here, the only word that is in the imperative mood is the first one? “Hear oh Israel…” the verb for love is in the future indicative, describing the holistic life of love to come for those who encounter the truth. In other words, love is not a burdensome command, but the result of knowing, encountering, and being transformed with the one true God.

And perhaps that’s why the scribe is only near the Kingdom rather than in it. Having encountered the truth, the time has come for everything to be continuously transformed by it. Better than a sacrifice made for the wrong reasons, we become loving, living sacrifices (Rom 12.1-2).

Textual Point

In his Word Biblical Commentary on the gospel of Mark, Craig Evans points out the word Jesus uses to describe the scribe is only used here in the whole New Testament. In nonbiblical sources, nounechōs (“wisely”) emphasises something or someone’s thoughtfulness.

Illustration Idea

Before moving to the city of Vancouver over four years ago, I lived across the Georgia Strait on Vancouver Island for almost ten years. While travelling and making small talk, people would often mistake my hometown as Vancouver—no matter how much I tried to explain that you’d have to fly or take a boat to actually get from Vancouver to where I lived. Sure, I was “near” Vancouver, but I definitely was not in Vancouver. In fact, I never needed to go to Vancouver at all in order to live my day-to-day life. But, on those same trips I could easily masquerade as a Vancouverite if I wanted to; only someone who was also from the area would be able to challenge me on it. Being near is not the same as being in, is it?