31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

There sure is a lot of “love” in today’s Scripture Readings! In the First Reading (Deuteronomy 6:2-6), Moses tells the Israelites to “love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” The Second Reading (Hebrews 7:23-28) reminds us that Jesus gave himself as the perfect sacrifice for all of us – the ultimate sign of God’s love. Today’s Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 18) contains the refrain – “I love you, Lord, my strength.” And in the Gospel (Mark 12:28-34), Jesus adds a new commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which is taken from Leviticus 19:18.

God’s love is unconditional. We do not earn God’s love. It is freely given to us in spite of our faults, our imperfections, our weaknesses, and our sinfulness. But God commands that we do the same. He calls us to put him first in our lives, before anything or anyone else. But realize that Jesus adds to that the commandment that we love our neighbor as ourselves.

On the surface, this may seem an easy message to understand and to practice in our daily lives, but deeper refection challenges us to rethink this. “Love your neighbor as yourself” is not a suggestion – it is a command. To be true followers of Christ requires that we live out this command. The challenge also comes when and how we answer the question, “Who is our neighbor?” In the Gospel of Luke, this question is followed by the Parable of the God Samaritan. That parable does not appear in the Gospel of Mark, so the question remains – Who is my neighbor?

This is not a geographical question, but a theological one. Every human being is our neighbor, by virtue of having been made in the image and likeness of God. And in the end, it comes down to this: “love the ‘un-loveable’.” Love those who are hard to love, those who have hurt us, those we just don’t like very much. Clearly, loving is not always easy. We can all acknowledge that reality. It requires forgiveness. It demands setting aside judgments, and it forces us to reach beyond our own wants and needs to put others first. Sometimes, it is so difficult to love that it requires grace and prayer, and God’s guidance and intervention. But remember that anything that God asks of us – including loving our neighbor – he will give us the grace necessary to accomplish if we turn to him with a sincere and trusting heart. God’s abundant strength empowers us, and he will give us all that we need to love others, even when it is challenging and difficult.