Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 31, 2021 – Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28B-34

I'm going to have to stay in this little space up here this morning because we’re filming this Mass for our website, but our camera person is not here to follow me around the building. He and his lovely fiancé got married yesterday in a Catholic Church way out in the Midwest, and they will be back next week.

So what do you think? Are you more of a ‘keep the commandments’ sort of person or a ‘go to Mass’ sort of person? Do you gravitate toward the worship life or the sacramental life of the church? Or do you gravitate toward the way of life that we propose for people? Today's readings land heavily on both sides of that question.

We’re going to look at the second reading first, simply because it's the more complicated. The situation that prompted the Book of Hebrews - which is not really a letter, but an essay - was the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. All Jews, including Jewish Christians, who lived in that area, continued to go to the temple for the great holidays and to offer sacrifice in the temple. And they would gather in people's homes for Eucharist. The elder, the person we now call the priest, would gather in a large public space - some rich person's hall or courtyard - and the dinner would be held there. During the dinner, the elder would take the bread, speak the words of consecration. Take the chalice, speak the words of consecration. And then this is the dinner. And they truly believed that Jesus was present, body and blood, soul and divinity, as we would say today, in that transaction. But it wasn't apparent to them there was a sacrifice.

The loss of the temple caused them to rethink what it meant to have Jesus present sacramentally. And the writer begins to talk about Jesus as the ultimate priest. He says that Jesus’ priesthood is not based on the authority given to Aaron by Moses. It goes all the way back to the beginning, and it’s given to him by God. But He is the perfect priest because He is both God and man. He’s the perfect sacrifice, and he lives forever to continue that sacrifice, the once and forever sacrifice, not in a sanctuary, where people offer animals and fruits, but in the presence of God himself. So he says you don’t have to worry anymore about not having a temple, because you have a better sacrifice.

But the thing is, that the instinct to offer sacrifice is very ancient in human beings. Our anthropological archaeologists have discovered evidence of sacrificial worship going back centuries before the beginning of what we call Old Testament times. But almost all those sacrificial activities were also the slaughter of innocent human beings. We know that in Central and South America, the great civilizations that grew up there sacrificed constantly to their gods. They didn't offer their own people as sacrifice. They offered the people they captured, their enemies.

On the other hand, we know that there was infant and child sacrifice all throughout the area where the Jewish people lived. That's the point of the story of Abraham and Isaac going to the land of Moriah. God says to Abraham, “Take Isaac, your beloved. Go to the land of Moriah and sacrifice him.” Of course all the heroes of the story gasp with horror that God had asked this of Abraham, His chosen. Abraham, who bravely left civilization, taking his God with him, so he could worship just one God. Then, of course, at the very last minute, an angel appears and rescues Isaac and they found a convenient animal in the bushes and sacrifice that. But the point of the story was that the Yahweh God did not want human sacrifice. So this great practice of offering animals and the first fruits of the harvest grew up long ago and was sort of institutionalized after the time of Moses, with the tribe of Aaron. And that’s what people offered in the temple. What did they offer it for?

The instinct to offer sacrifice always has to do with trying to get God on your side. Both the Pagan sacrifices and the sacrifices of Jews were offered to God to appease God in His anger, or to get God to give them something - good weather or fruitful harvest, protection from their enemies. Something. So, sacrificial religion was not God-centered so much as me-centered.

Return from that to the first and third readings, which are both about the two great commandments. It begins with the Shema Yisrael. Those are the first two words, ‘Hear, O Israel!’ When I had my radio show, the program before me was a Protestant program and it was just people talking. I played rock and roll for a half hour. And the show after me was also people talking. But it began this way [singing], “Shema Israel!” And, boy, if you ever want to get someone's attention, you do that. So, it stressed the fact that the Israelite faith is based on “Hear, O Israel! The Lord, your God, is Lord alone. And Him only shall you serve. You shall love Him with all your heart, soul, and strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And it’s interesting, the conversation that takes place between the scribe and Jesus. Jesus answers with the correct catechism answer about what the great commandment is, and also answers what the second commandment is, which the scribe didn’t ask him. But the scribe says to Him, “Yes it's true. Loving God with all your heart and soul and loving your neighbor as yourself is better than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

And that wasn’t an idea the scribe came up with. You find that, also, throughout the writings of the prophets. All the great prophets whose names we hear Sunday after Sunday - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Abraham. Plus, all those people were somewhat anti-liturgy. They stressed the moral obligation to worship God, adore God, and please God by the way you lived your life. A horizontal relationship with human beings was proof of your vertical relationship with Yahweh God. So, you would think maybe that the scriptures today fall on the side of religion as keeping the rules, rather than religion as worship.

But on the other hand, it is sacrificial to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. We’re not talking about emotional attachment. You don’t have to like other people. You have to love them. There’s a big difference. The theologians of the Middle Ages defined love of neighbor as “willing the good of the other.” Much of the harm done in our society comes from people not willing the good of other people. But we are called to will the good of other people. If that causes us expense on our part, there’s the sacrifice, there’s the gift to God of ourselves.

So from an emotional point of view, from the point of view of your investment, you can choose one or the other side to emphasize. But they come together when we behave in a sacrificial manner in order to love God by loving our neighbor.