What is Essential

Based on Mark 12:28-34

    Earlier this week, I was attending a learning event offered by United Way. The topic was on the challenges of high school graduation rates that are lagging, especially for young people of color. In the conversation, someone talked about the opportunity non-profits have as we emerge into this pandemic changed world. He said it is like we have a clean slate, an opportunity to do things differently rather than go back to the way things were before the pandemic, ways that were not helpful. His example was that before the pandemic non-profits tended to work in silos, offering their service without much coordination with other non-profits who offered different services. But when the pandemic hit, the demand to respond in ways that carried people through the pandemic required coordination and collaborating to meet the challenge. The panelist asked, why would we want to go back to the way things were when we have the opportunity to continue to work collectively moving forward?

Mainline churches like ours are in the midst of a long-term crisis and disruption to the way things used to be for the church, that is, in the 1950s-60s, when being a church going Christian was a social and cultural norm. That hasn’t been the case in the United States since the beginning of the 70s. The pandemic really forced change on the church and revealed again how much we have lost over the decades, a loss of resources and energy, and in light of the pandemic the need to re-assess how we “do church” when we couldn’t gather in person. Even as we have been coming back to in person worship for some time, we still feel this sense of crisis, that we can’t go back to the way things used to be. The world is different, and we find ourselves as a church to again focus on what is essential to being church in the 21st century, almost post pandemic world. 

We have been here before. In the 18th century, the Church of England priest John Wesley looked around at the state of the church and the state of society and what he saw was dysfunction and pettiness in the church and a society filled with depravity and needless suffering. The church and society needed reforming as Wesley saw it. He and his collaborators were convinced of the need to get back to the essentials of what Wesley called scriptural Christianity. He wanted to see the church get back to what the church was all about, not in the fifteenth century when the Church of England came into existence when Henry the VIII decided he no longer desired to have the pope tell him whether or not he could get a divorce and marry someone else. Wesley wanted to get back to the essentials demonstrated in the book of Acts, the primitive church. He wanted to be part of a primitive church that was relevant to the society of 18th century industrial revolution Britain, a society in the midst of great crisis and disruption.

Over and over in the course of history we see how social crisis and disruption creates opportunities to start fresh, to no longer maintain a status quo that simply does not work because it doesn’t fit the challenges of the times. Crisis and disruption force us to set aside secondary things and get back to what matters most, the essentials that respond to the core needs of the human experience.

It is here that our time of crisis and disruption connects with what was happening when the gospel of Mark was likely written. It was a time of disruption for Israel, an existential crisis demonstrated by the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. You think it was bad when we couldn’t gather for in person worship. The sacred place where Jews would go to offer sacrifices on high holy days had been destroyed. The status quo was deeply disrupted. Judaism was forced under these circumstances to rethink how to carry on the tradition without a temple. Secondary issues had to be set aside in order to get to what was essential and still be a Jew.

If we keep that sense of crisis in mind when we look at this passage from Mark, it helps us get a better picture of what is being said between the lines that serves as a guide for the people in those days. But it also gives us help as we navigate through this time of crisis and disruption and we find ourselves in need of setting aside secondary things and instead focus on what is essential to still be a Christian.

Before we jump in, let’s look at what has been going on before the scribe asked Jesus this question.

Jesus is at the temple being grilled by the religious leaders: first, the chief priests and elders, then the Pharisees, last the Sadducees. They all take their shots at Jesus. The chief priests and elders, the guardians of the Temple, start off by asking Jesus who he thinks he is. They question his authority. The Pharisees, a group more concerned about how to live a righteous life, ask Jesus a political question about whether it is righteous for a Jew to pay taxes to Caesar, the source of their oppression. The Sadducees, an elitist and overly educated group of people, ask Jesus a theological question about the resurrection, a belief that Sadducees did not hold but Pharisees did believe in. Authority, politics, and theology. Those were the issues raised by these different religious leaders as they confronted Jesus while they were gathered at the Temple, the center of the Jewish tradition.

What I find interesting is that in times of disruption and crisis, leaders, those who are the guardians of the status quo, first respond to the crisis by obsessing over who has authority and other secondary concerns. I think back to the worship wars of the 80s and 90s when there was a strong push to make worship more contemporary, with modern music, drums and guitars, pastors who wore blue jeans, and questioning who had the authority to offer communion and how it should be done. Living through the worship wars, I remember the debates about who had authority to change worship styles or who could offer communion. I remember the loud shouting over the appropriateness of these changes in worship style. What drove the worship wars in the first place was the felt need to connect to a certain generation, namely baby boomers and early Generation Xers like me who were not really interested in traditional forms of church. The thought was if churches could change how they do church that this would draw people back to church and thus restore the power and influence of the church in American society. In the time of crisis, the first move was to argue over authority and the secondary issues of the proper and permissible ways to worship God in the church: ordained or lay leadership, organ or guitar, Fanny Crosby or Amy Grant. The essentials of what it meant to be a Christian in the late 20th century was overlooked. And the disconnect continued. Yes, churches that offered contemporary forms of worship grew and still do to this day while churches that are more traditional like ours continue to decline. But that’s often because people leave more traditional churches for more contemporary churches. The actual number of Christians and overall attendance in worship has been steadily declining for decades. Nothing has really changed. And younger generations are more disconnected than ever. Is it because the essentials have not been tended to and instead energy is directed toward secondary things?

After Jesus had been through this gauntlet, a scribe who had witnessed all of this found in Jesus a wise teacher. He deserved an opportunity to answer a sincere question, a question that cut to the heart of the matter. He asked Jesus what is the most important commandment. With that question, the scribe is taking the conversation to a deeper level. He is pushing aside arguments about authority, politics, and theology and instead wants Jesus to address what is essential to the Jewish tradition.

Jesus goes directly to the Shema, the prayer lifted up by every righteous Jew at sunset and sunrise, taken from Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “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.” Then Jesus adds the command found in Leviticus 19:18, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The scribe affirms what Jesus says. His response to Jesus that obeying these two commandments is more important than offering the ritual sacrifices is a scripture informed view, which Jesus and the scribe knew, especially Hosea 6:6, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

That verse from Hosea I imagine became an anchor for Jews in Mark’s day when they were living after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. They had no way to offer the sacrifices. What are they to do? Hosea, this scribe and Jesus point out what is essential. It is not the sacrifices, nor for us is the worship style. It is staying in love with God and expressing that love in our neighbor relations. That is what is essential for Jews: to love God and love neighbor. It doesn’t take a temple to do that. It didn’t ultimately matter that the Romans destroyed the Temple and literally erased Jerusalem from the map. That didn’t stop them from loving God and loving their neighbors. Of course, Jesus also takes it to the next level by calling on his followers to also love their enemies, which would be those Romans.

This essential teaching of loving God and neighbor also creates an opportunity to be more inclusive of who can be a part of this tradition. The sacrificial system and the Temple itself prevented Gentiles from being included. Now that this system has been dismantled because of what the Romans did, this disruption opens up a possibility to expand the circle of inclusion. Gentiles can love God and neighbor too.

But here’s the thing: living up to these essential commands to love God and neighbor is really hard sometimes. Maybe loving God isn’t that hard, although our recent exploration of Job gave us opportunities to name those times in our own lives where our relationship with God has been tested. When it comes to loving our neighbors though; that can be hard.

I wonder if when we face times of disruption we tend to first obsess on secondary things because it’s easier than getting at the essential issue. It is easier to argue over authority and power. It is easier to argue over politics. It is easier to argue over theology. It is easier to offer ritual sacrifices, or in our case to show up for worship on Sunday morning. All of that is easier than loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Living a life of love is harder than tending to and fighting about secondary things.

The essential things are not always the easiest things to do. But we must strive to tend to the essentials regardless. For us as Christians our essentials have been named in different ways. John Wesley offered those three simple rules that have been expressed in a modern way as do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God. But we really can boil down our essentials into one word: love. It is that simple and that hard.

When the scribe made his response, Jesus said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Where is this kingdom the scribe is not far from? Is it a place, a region of territory under God’s rule? Maybe Jesus means to say that the reign of God is some future reality when Rome and all the other emperors and despots will be brought low and only God will rule the earth. But maybe what Jesus was telling the scribe was also something that Mark’s church needed to hear and that we need to hear today. What if the reign of God is made real when people express love for God and neighbor? The scribe was not far from the kingdom of God because he had named what it takes to realize that kingdom. All that was left for the scribe to do to enter that kingdom was to do the things, to love God and neighbor. To obey these two commands is to live your life under the rule of God, Roman oppression or otherwise. No matter what crisis and disruption, to love God and to love neighbor remains as what is essential. This was true in Jesus’ day, in Mark’s day, in John Wesley’s day and in our day. The crises and disruptions are different throughout history, but the essentials remain the same. I find comfort in that and I find an anchor to hold on to in these storm-tossed times. It may not be easy. But at least it is clear and something that we can do. We can always love. And that is enough to occupy our energy.