What is God’s intention?

Last Sunday, the readings introduced us to Bartimaeus, the blind man, who decided to follow Jesus even though he had the option to stay behind in Jericho. This Sunday, the readings introduce some key passages that, for some, summarize the entirety of Scripture. They flesh out what it means to pursue the heart of God. They answer the question: What is the purpose of being human? They also imply the question: What is God’s purpose in being God? The answer to the second question is not far from the answer to the first.

The first five books of the Bible, a collection called the Torah in Hebrew, are especially sacred to the Jewish people. Within the Torah, there is one verse that serves as a foundational principle within Judaism. It is called the Shema, based on the first Hebrew word of the verse, which is “Hear!” This Sunday’s first reading includes the full sentence. “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone!” (Dt 6:4). The next verse spells out one response to this revelation and proclamation: “Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Dt 6:5). Three things, the heart, soul and strength are three ways to emphasize the singular intention to follow after God wholeheartedly and hold nothing back. This vital focus helps to shape the purpose of life by loving God with one’s actions. 

Jesus is well aware of the centrality of the Shema in Jewish spiritual practice. Chapter 12 of Mark’s Gospel is a series of questioning the teacher with some of the hardest questions in order to entrap him with a potentially weak response. It feels like election season, when candidates are asked the leading questions as means of testing political affiliation. In this Sunday’s Gospel reading, however, a scribe of the Torah asks Jesus a genuine question about the central tenets of Jewish faith, and the teacher does not disappoint him. Jesus quotes the Shema, but he adds something  further, which he believes is implied in the command: “The second is this,” says Jesus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mk 12:31). 

These are the fundamental teachings of Scripture, according to Jesus. The scribe recognizes that they are indeed worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. In fact, the insight gives meaning to the sacrificial system. A deep sacrifice is the daily struggle to love God and neighbor. The burnt offerings make concrete this deeper work of the heart. This Sunday’s Gospel reading presents Jesus as one who embodies the Shema wholeheartedly, even to the point of the sacrifice of his own life in Jerusalem. 

This Sunday’s biblical readings imply one final consideration. What is God’s purpose in being God? What is God’s final intention? Does scripture reveal what this might entail? Pope Francis’s recent encyclical, Dilexit Nos (“He loved us”) suggests a response. Jesus reveals God’s heart and purpose, which is to love us. It takes a lifetime to learn how to flesh out one’s response to this love with all of one’s heart, soul and strength.