Stop, Look, and Listen

“Stop, Look, and Listen” – June 23rd, 2024 (Mark 12)

Operation Lifesaver is a non-profit organization committed to preventing collisions, injuries and fatalities on and around railroad tracks and highway-rail grade crossings. Right at the top of their list of track safety basics are the words, “Always expect a train.” When it comes to trains, we’ve all heard the warning, “Stop, look, and listen.” We can’t always trust protective measures, as in the case of a 79 mph Amtrak train that came around a curve at a crossing in Illinois where the lights, bells, and boom gates failed to activate, striking a car and causing the deaths of two young men. During regular maintenance, track technicians had unintentionally deactivated the crossing protection system. People make mistakes. Electronic systems fail. Trains always win. “Stop, look, and listen” so that you and others can live!

I learned from a news article this week that every public school classroom in a particular U.S. state has been ordered to display a poster of the Ten Commandments. The article claimed that “Christians see the Ten Commandments as key rules from God on how to live.” This claim unfortunately misses something very important that Jesus Christ said about how we are to live.

Last week we looked at Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and first of three visits to the Temple. Following those, we see an array of arguments between Jesus and the chief priests, Scribes, elders, Sadducees, and Pharisees in Mark 11:27-12:34, which include a parable and a lot of questions about Jesus’ authority, paying taxes, the resurrection, David’s son, and the greatest commandment.

Today we’re going to examine the last of these arguments, in Mark 12:28-34 (NRSV) – “28 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ 29 Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” 31 The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ 32 Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”; 33 and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,” and “to love one’s neighbor as oneself,”—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ 34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that no one dared to ask him any question.”

That final statement marks Jesus’ last direct confrontation with his opponents prior to his arrest.

Before we unpack this passage further, let’s take a closer look at the Scribes. Who were they? According to Encyclopedia Britannica, originally the Scribes “had knowledge of the law and could draft legal documents … Every village had at least one scribe.” Scribes became authorities on the biblical text. Most were either priests or linked with priestly groups. But during the Hellenistic period (323–32 BCE), many non-priests also became Scribes, expanding their roles as philosophers, sophists, councilors, and teachers. In Deuteronomy 31, Moses had entrusted the Levites with the teaching of the law to “the people—men, women, and children, as well as the aliens residing in your towns.” However, this task began to be shared by the Scribes, who may or may not have had any connection at all with the Levites. A Scribe might have been Pharisaic, Sadducean, or nonpartisan. Whatever the case, their knowledge of the law gave them much power and influence as leaders of society. Scribes, along with other religious leaders, saw themselves as the ones who held the right to speak as the authoritative interpreters of God’s law.

Back to today’s encounter in Mark 12:28-34. No name is provided – we are simply told that “one of the scribes came near” and asked Jesus a question. I’d like to dub this unnamed Scribe “Sage” today because “Jesus saw that he answered wisely.” In some ways, Jesus’ interaction with Sage is similar to prior interactions Jesus had had with other religious leaders. But this interaction was unique and offers us three lessons that warn us to stop, look at, and listen to God.

The first lesson is that this is the pinnacle argument a Scribe had with Jesus. The Scribes had had many other arguments with Jesus – they asked Jesus questions about trivial things, questions to try and test or trap him, questions about technicalities. What made this encounter unique was that Sage asked about the most important thing, making this the pinnacle argument.

The reason the Scribes got into so many conflicts with Jesus is because the very way they interpreted the Scriptures was flawed. Without exception, Jesus had demonstrated that his actions and his teachings were in accordance with God’s law. But the Scribes distorted and missed God’s intentions. They refused to accept that Jesus had been appointed by God as the teacher of how to truly fulfill the covenant and do God’s will. They understood holiness as separateness, whereas God calls for holiness as love and mercy. Many Scriptures speak of this. Psalm 89:14 (NRSV) – “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.” Micah 6:8 (NRSV) – “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” The Scribes and other religious leaders worked to maintain their power base, often in cooperation with the Roman occupiers. They saw Jesus as both an enemy of the law and a threat to their power and influence. Matthew 7:28-29 tells us that “the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”

If we’re not careful, we, too, could waste a lot of time on pointless arguments, couldn’t we? The Apostle Paul instructed Titus to “avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless” (Titus 3:9). The Greek words translated “stupid”, “unprofitable”, and “worthless” also carry connotations of “empty”, “useless”, and “vain.”

Mike Livingstone, Lifeway content editor, offers three ways to recognize empty arguments. The first thing about an empty argument is that it divides. Healthy debate is a good thing, but the gospel of Jesus Christ produces unity, not division. We need to be aware of and guard against the stirring up of conflict for conflict’s sake. A person who takes pleasure in divisiveness is a person who enjoys empty arguments. The second thing about an empty argument is that it diverts. These kinds of arguments do nothing towards proclaiming or demonstrating the good news of the kingdom of God. All they do is draw attention away from the gospel. I find the economics term, “opportunity cost” helpful in this regard. This is the idea of taking into account what you are giving up in order to do something else. To invest in secondary things is to give up your investment of time, attention, and resources on the most important things. The third thing about an empty argument is that it destroys. Engaging in empty arguments has far-reaching consequences that cause real harm to people. Titus 1:10-11 warns us that “There are also many rebellious people, idle talkers and deceivers … they are upsetting whole families by teaching for sordid gain what it is not right to teach.” 2 Timothy 2:14,16-18 says, “warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening” and “Avoid profane chatter, for it will lead people into more and more impiety, and their talk will spread like gangrene … upsetting the faith of some.”

Paul’s admonition to avoid these kinds of worthless and empty controversies is directed to both those who are speaking and those who are observing or listening. It is not possible to be completely unaffected by what we see or hear. We are human, after all! Especially when we are interacting with any kind of media or social media, it is very hard to avoid “stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law” and “profane chatter.” In practicing good self-care for our own hearts and minds, it’s wise to put in some guardrails. For example, we may choose to limit ourselves to x minutes per day on social media. Perhaps an even more important guardrail is paying attention to our inner selves and being careful not to violate our own consciences. Pausing regularly to pray and ask the Holy Spirit for guidance will help us to navigate the minefields that are out there. Seeking wise counsel from others who display good fruit in their lives will help us to contend thoughtfully without being dragged into unprofitable or useless arguments. Learning to stop, look at, and listen to God means investing our time and energy in pinnacle arguments about the most important thing!

The second lesson that warns us to stop, look at, and listen to God is to be pretty agreeable. Interestingly, the encounter in our passage today is unique in that it’s the only interaction that Jesus has with a Scribe who is not completely hostile. If Sage had taken the Big Five Personality Test, he would have likely scored high on agreeableness. Agreeableness is a malleable personality trait referring to individuals who are kind, sympathetic, cooperative, warm, honest, and considerate. It is possible to become less agreeable or more agreeable over time, depending on our individual choices.

Sage saw that Jesus “answered them well” and, as a result, decided to ask Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Sage attended to Jesus’ reply and then responded, “You are right, Teacher.” It would be reasonable to conclude, based on Jesus’ other interactions with Scribes, that this Scribe might have been speaking insincerely. In previous interactions, Scribes had accused Jesus of blaspheming, tested him, tried to find an accusation against him, sought to bring a charge against him, grumbled about him, said he had Beelzebul and cast out demons by the ruler of the demons, tried to trap him in what he said, and looked for a way to put him to death. But the interaction between this Scribe and Jesus on this day was different.

Sage showed that he was pretty agreeable in mirroring Jesus’ words back to him, an act of honor and respect. Mark 12:28 tells us that Sage heard the dispute between the Sadducees and Jesus and saw that Jesus answered them well. Perhaps this is a hint that this Scribe was becoming a disciple, no longer one who had unseeing eyes or unhearing ears. Sage was a genuine and humble seeker of the way, the truth, and the life. He asked a question of this Teacher, this Rabbi whom he had noticed had answered others well. Sage stopped, looked at, and listened to Jesus, affirming what Jesus had just said. I wonder if Sage realized that day that he was conversing with the One who is “the way, the truth, and the life,” the only one through whom any person can come to God, according to John 14:6. It’s interesting that it was after Sage had seen that Jesus answered others well that he asked Jesus a question. And it was after Jesus had seen that Sage answered wisely that Jesus told him that he was “not far from the kingdom of God.” They didn’t just argue at one another; they saw each other.

Unfortunately, we are all too well acquainted with hostile arguments and down and dirty debates. Few would disagree that there has been a sharp rise in hostility, anger, and abusive speech in recent years, whether interactions occur online, in customer service, in traffic, or at home. In an article from Harvard Business Review entitled Anger has become a defining emotion of our culture, Professor Christine Porath of UNC’s Business School cites several compounding factors that have contributed to this rise in hostility, including stress from the pandemic, the economy, war, divisive politics, the changing nature of work, continued uncertainty, increasingly negative emotions, weakened ties to a community, and our reliance on technology.

When we encounter hostility personally, we may tend towards some kind of fight-flight-freeze-or-fawn response. No matter what instinctual tendencies we have, we can learn better ways of engaging in necessary and even beneficial arguments. Clinical psychologist Dr. Andrea Polard offers seven agreeable ways to be disagreeable:

• assure the other of your love and respect
• point out the areas with which you agree
• tap into your lightheartedness and smile
• lead with “I just have to disagree,” “I owe it to myself to suggest,” or “I feel compelled to point out
• do not give into possible self-doubts
• state your alternative opinion with clarity and assertion
• reassure the other and yourself of your love and respect

By being pretty agreeable, Sage was learning to stop, look at, and listen to God. Proverbs 25:11-12 speak of the benefits of agreeable speech: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise rebuke to a listening ear.”

The third and final lesson that warns us to stop, look at, and listen to God is that Sage focused on the first and greatest commandment, that which is paramount, actually. Sage asked Jesus a question that he himself could not and certainly would not answer, “Which commandment is the first of all?” The Scribes and the Pharisees were fixated on the law. They numbered 613 separate laws, categorized them, simultaneously ranking them and considering them all equally great because God had commanded each and every one of those laws. This was an unanswerable question to Sage. Surely, if Jesus chose one law as being greater than the others, he would be diminishing the importance of all other laws!

Jesus answered Sage’s question by integrating two very widely separated commands into what has come to be known as “The Great Commandment.” The first part of the Great Commandment comes from the central affirmation of Judaism known as the Shema. Shema is the Hebrew term translated “Hear!” and is the first word in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (NRSV) – “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.” N. T. Wright notes that by quoting the Shema, “Jesus is claiming nothing less than this: that through his work, his teaching, and the things he has come to Jerusalem to achieve, the central prayer and hope of Judaism is being fulfilled … the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.” The second part of the Great Commandment comes from Leviticus 19:18b (NRSV) – “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”. Contemporary theologian Ched Myers says that “this Leviticus tradition defines love of neighbor in terms of nonexploitation … prohibiting the oppression and exploitation of Israel’s weak and poor,” “precisely the commands violated regularly by the dominant Jewish social groups, especially the scribes.” Jesus’ two-part Great Commandment got right to the heart of Jewish beliefs and practices. This would most certainly not have escaped the attention of Sage, a Scribe, an authoritative interpreter of God’s law.

N. T. Wright compares Sage’s question, “Which commandment is the first of all?” to asking someone what they would grab if escaping a house fire. My daughters and I have enjoyed watching the romcom, Leap Year, together, many times. After the fire alarm sounds and sirens start blaring outside, Anna’s distracted fiancé focuses on saving his computer, insurance papers, laptop, and designer headphones. He rushes back and forth grabbing more and more things, leaving Anna to look after herself. As she becomes aware of where his true priorities lie, Anna suddenly gains clarity on her own priorities. N. T. Wright challenges us to consider: “Faced with the whole volume of Jewish law, which commandment really matters? Which one will you grasp on to in a moment of crisis? And what is the significance of that choice? What are you saying about the others?”

The first part of Jesus’ reply, the “Love God” part, is the distinctive mark of God’s true worshipers in response to God’s mercies. To love God is the fundamental religious duty expressed throughout the book of Deuteronomy. The more we learn to love and worship God, the better we will reflect God’s image, and the more we will find both our fullest meaning and our true selves. To worship God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, means that whatever we say or do, we say or do for God! This brings God glory and makes God’s kingdom visible, on earth as it is in heaven.

The second part of Jesus’ reply, the “Love others” part, speaks of showing all people the same respect and care that we show to ourselves. N. T. Wright notes that “Jesus really did believe that through his kingdom-mission Israel’s God would enable people to worship and love him, and to love one another, in a new way, the way promised in the prophets, the way that stemmed from renewed hearts and lives.”

Sage affirmed what Jesus had said, adding that “this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he responded, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Jesus’ choice of words, not far, make it clear to Sage that it is not enough to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We must also do justice to our neighbors, showing in our words and our actions that we love them as well as we love ourselves. As we’ve seen before in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus shows and tells that heaven has already-but-not-yet-fully come to earth. We show that we love God by loving our neighbor; if we don’t love our neighbor, it shows that we don’t love God.

Upon hearing Jesus’ two-part answer, Sage suddenly gained clarity on his own priorities. We aren’t told whether or not he went all in that day. But Sage clearly realized what Jesus was saying: Make loving God and loving your neighbor the highest priorities of your life. Sage could see that Jesus was elevating this double love command above the Temple and what it stood for. Sage’s answer showed that he now understood that the daily, weekly, and annual round of sacrifices and offerings were unnecessary and obsolete.

Like Sage, we are learning to stop, look, and listen. What is God telling us today? “‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ … ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Very soon, the hour would come when Jesus would show us what love looks like by laying down his life for the whole world. Why would he do that? Jesus tells us that he came so that we “may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Other translations describe the kind of life God wants for us as full, rich, satisfying, overflowing. The Message paraphrase states, “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.”

The good news that Jesus proclaimed and demonstrated is that heaven has come to earth. God’s new world, the already-not-yet kingdom of God, has begun! In Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can live abundantly right here, right now, as we love God and love people. Second century bishop and apologist Irenaeus famously said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” It brings glory to God to live fully in the hope of the shalom of God for which we were created. We center this hope in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Contemporary theologian Cornelius Plantinga offers this vivid description: “The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight – a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.”

Stop, look, and listen! Love God, love people, and live in the hope of shalom!