XXXI Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B (3 November 2024)

[* First Reading]

From the book of Deuteronomy Deut 6:2-6

SHEMA ISRAEL! Listen to Israel! In the first reading we find one of the most important texts of the Old Testament, a reminder of the preaching of Moses, which still today holds a prominent place in the religion and prayer of Israel. The book of Deuteronomy is late, even though we find it among the first five books of the Bible, and it is the result of all the reflection of God's people over many centuries after their exit from Egypt. Moses left nothing but the Tablets of the Law in stone, but his teachings were transmitted orally from generation to generation. From time to time, however, feeling the need to translate them into something written according to the places and needs of the moment, the books of the Bible were compiled almost to accompany the tumultuous events of Israel.  Thus were born the sapiential texts of King Solomon, then those of the prophets narrating the events of the people and the action of the prophets up to the exile in Babylon and the devastation of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. Once the exile was over, the Jews felt the need to return to what God had promised that the Land he had promised must be earned. It is at this point that the book of Deuteronomy (meaning the second law) was born. It appears as a second collection of Moses' teachings where the invitation "listen" resounds insistently, almost like a cry of alarm. Deuteronomy is therefore a reinterpretation of the history, exodus and teachings of Moses, many years after his death, to recall the urgency of conversion to return to the listening/obedience of the Mosaic Law. Listen, Israel: the Lord is our God, the only one is the Lord. The whole destiny of Israel is encapsulated in these two words: Shema, listen Israel! Israel, the chosen people, named after Jacob's memorable fight with God (Gen 32:29) in the Yabbok river tributary of the Jordan, is always tempted to fight against God - Moses called them a hard-nosed people. Instead, the book of Deuteronomy reminds them of the need to listen to/obey God in order to find happiness and freedom, and so even today, from the age of three or four, every Jew recites this prayer every day; indeed, he writes the Shema everywhere and even wears it on his forehead and in his arm at heart level; he stamps it on the door of his house and town. Shema Israel is to Jews what the Our Father is to Christians.

[*Responsorial Psalm]

Ps.17/18

"The Lord shows himself faithful to his anointed, that is, to his Messiah". Here, in the Responsorial Psalm, the term messiah simply means king, and the psalmist makes King David speak to the Lord while he is in trial.  We are before the year one thousand B.C. and the legitimate king was Saul, the first king of Israel, who however did not fulfil his mission well and in fact his reign began well and ended very badly because he did not want to listen to the prophet Samuel. At that point, God chose David as his successor who remained in the court of Saul who considered David as his rival and even tried to kill him on several occasions. 

In the second book of Samuel (ch.22) we read that David sang this psalm to thank God for having delivered him from his enemies, primarily Saul. Even though the psalm (17/18) was sung by David, the subject is not David alone, nor any particular character, but the entire people of God who, when they want to thank the Lord, borrow David's words while defending themselves from Saul, and so the people call God 'my rock, my fortress, my deliverer'. He invokes God my rock, in whom I take refuge because in those days caves were places of refuge and if every people had a protector god the one of Israel was far firmer than any other. In Deuteronomy (32:31) we read for example: 'For their rock is not like ours, and our enemies are witnesses'. When he speaks like this, Moses imbues the rock with a different meaning, echoing the deliverance from Egypt: "the Lord has delivered me because he loves me". And when the people sing this psalm, they recall the faithful presence of the One whose name is "I am with you" and this constant reminder is a source of hope. Like David, Israel awaits the fulfilment of the promises of the faithful God, that is, the coming of the Messiah who will definitively liberate humanity. And this is why they sing: 'Long live the Lord and blessed is my rock, exalted be the God of my salvation. He grants his king great victories, he shows himself faithful to his Messiah".

[Second Reading].

From the letter to the Hebrews (Heb 7:23-28)

The letter to the Hebrews is always surprising: written by a Jewish convert to Christ for other Jewish converts, it uses language that is comprehensible to Jews but certainly less immediately comprehensible to us. The text proceeds by contrasts that ultimately boil down to a single and fundamental one: that is, the difference between the Old and the New Covenant. In today's text, this comparison, although not explicitly declared, is present in every sentence: in the first Covenant, that is, in the Old Testament, many "became priests because death prevented them from lasting long" (v.23) and "the Law in fact constitutes high priests men subject to frailty", for this reason needing "to offer sacrifices every day, first for their own sins and then for those of the people"(27).  The priests of the Old Testament were mortal, while Jesus is immortal having immolated himself "once for all, offering himself". In the Old Testament, the priest was timeless while Christ is a priest forever; he was separated from other men according to the rite of consecration while he himself remained a sinner full of frailty, while Christ is full of power and capable of saving; the other priests were appointed according to the Mosaic law, Jesus is called directly by God as his Son. From the incomplete and imperfect first Covenant, Jesus moves believers to the perfect and final new and fulfilled Covenant. In the text, the most important themes of the Christian faith are evoked: the resurrection of Christ, risen he lives forever (v. 24-25), and the Eucharist evoked by the reference to Christ's sacrifice that he offered himself once and for all (v. 27). Christ's whole life, not just his death, was the free gift of his love for the Father to its full fulfilment, and his death on the cross is the supreme sacrifice, anticipated in the Passover supper and now renewed in every Eucharist. When Jesus says: 'this is the cup of the new covenant of my blood shed for you', the disciples knew well that 'shedding the blood' meant accepting the sacrifice of his life.  Jesus Christ is therefore the only priest for eternity. It remains useful to make reference to the last verse where it speaks of the consecration by "oath" that constitutes the Son a priest, "made perfect for ever". There is here an allusion to Psalm 109/110 important for both Jews and Christians, many times quoted in the New Testament and in particular in the letter to the Hebrews: "The Lord has sworn and does not repent: "You are a priest forever in the manner of Melkiisedek". For the first Christians who came from the Jewish world, Jesus was the promised Messiah and at the same time king and priest, consecrated to be pontiff, i.e. bridge between God and men, obedient until death to the will of the Father and consecrated forever to the mission entrusted to him according to the eternal divine plan. The evangelist Luke also presents Jesus on the cross interceding until the end for us: "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" (Lk23:34), while Matthew notes that the sheet with which Joseph of Arimathea wrapped his body is like the high priest's robe (Mt 27:59). The author of the letter to the Hebrews therefore draws his conclusion: Jesus saves us forever and always intercedes on our behalf so that "we advance with full confidence to the throne of grace" (4:16).

[Gospel].

Mk 12:28-34

What is the first of all commandments? 

The Sages of the Talmud speak of 613 mitzvòt, i.e. 613 biblical commandments. These are divided into 248 positive commandments, mitzvòt assè, and 365 negative or prohibitive commandments, mitzvòt lo tàassè. The scribe asking the question knows that the most important commandment for the Jews was the observance of the Sabbath, the transgression of which was tantamount to transgressing the entire law and was therefore punished with death. Jesus, however, had broken it several times by healing on the Sabbath and so now a scribe attempts to test him, since Jesus had silenced both the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  The scribes were the official theologians of the time who had already decided to eliminate Jesus and were looking for a way and an opportunity, but feared the crowd. The question is therefore not to learn but to mislead Jesus. As always, Jesus answers surprisingly because he says that the first is... and then he does not quote either the Decalogue or any of the 613 commandments, but refers to the Scriptures and compares two texts that are well known to all. He quotes the creed of Israel, Shemà Israel, Hear Israel, the prayer that Jews recite twice a day, morning and evening, found in the book of Deuteronomy (6:4). "The first is: Hear Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord; you shall therefore love the Lord your God with all your heart, and the Hebrew text adds the possessive to emphasise the immediacy, the force of this command, with all your soul, which is life, the psyche in Greek, with all your mind and with all your strength'. However, love for God must be translated into love for one's neighbour: this is why he adds to this prayer the second precept found in the book of Leviticus: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Lev 19:18) And he notes that there is no other commandment greater than these. The first, the famous Shema Israel, which we read today in the first reading, is joined by the second, which is a passage from the book of Leviticus often quoted by religious authorities. The Shema Israel prescribed to love God and him alone in the sense of attaching oneself to him to the exclusion of all other gods, a clear rejection of idolatry. This love of God was nothing other than a response to the love of God who had chosen Israel as his people. But can love be commanded? The initial impulse certainly cannot, but the faithfulness of love can be commanded, and that is precisely what we are talking about here: to make love an absolute law is to make every other norm of any kind relative to the love of God so that no law can take its place.  The second commandment appears in the book of Leviticus and it is the so-called law of holiness which begins: "Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy" (Lev 19:2). So already in the Old Testament, in the ideal of Israel, the love of God and neighbour merged into a single love and the Tablets of the Law translated this requirement by closely linking the relationship with God and that with one's neighbour.  This scribe is encouraged by Jesus who concludes with a formula that resembles a beatitude: 'You are not far from the kingdom of God'. It is interesting to note that Jesus' teaching is not of the type: You must, you must, you must do...but rather it is a revelation of what we already live and, in this perspective, he seems to say: "since you have understood that loving is the most important thing blessed are you because you are already very close to the kingdom of God". And it is even more interesting to note that Jesus ends the series of disputes with the Pharisees and scribes that we have seen throughout Mark's gospel in this way, with a positive note that we find only in this gospel: "You are not far from the kingdom of God".  In truth, one question still remains: "If everything was already written in the Mosaic law, what is the original contribution of Jesus"?  It is true that everything was in germ in the Mosaic Law, but Jesus announces and brings to fulfilment the final stage of revelation. And how? Firstly by extending the notion of neighbour to infinity - Mark shows in fact that he struggles against all exclusion - and secondly Jesus came to earth to live in himself these two inseparable loves: love of God and love of neighbour. Finally, Jesus came to make us capable of loving by giving us the gift of his Spirit: 'A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another' (Jn 13:35) and by this all will recognise you as my disciples.  He thus offers the scribe the most beautiful definition of the Kingdom: God reigns where love is king because the love of God nourishes the love of neighbour.

Happy Sunday to you all!

+ Giovanni D'Ercole