Reading 1

 

Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

November 5, 2006

by David Lindmeier

 

Historians refer to the year 1905, as “Annus Mirabilis” a Latin term meaning “the miracle year.”  They do so because in that year human understanding of the physical nature of the universe was radically and fundamentally changed.  It was changed due to a series of scientific articles published by Albert Einstein that culminated in his now famous equation, E= MC2 which in a nutshell defines the relationship between energy and matter.

 

However, if not for people who sought the practical implications of this new understanding, it would have remained just an understanding, just a theory, just a few articles in a German scientific journal.

 

A radical change in understanding is one thing; knowing how to apply that understanding in real and beneficial ways is another.  Indeed, since 1905 engineers and scientists have been working on the practical application of what Einstein discovered, and it is their work that has radically transformed the world in which we live. 

 

For example, television, global positioning satellites, digital cameras and I-pods are some of the results of applying Einstein’s understanding of the universe.  So too are cell phones, smoke detectors, the personal computer and the automatic scanners used at the local supermarket.  His impact on the technological aspects of our world has been so great, it prompted one  reporter for MSNBC to write an article entitled, “It’s Albert’s World, We Just Live in it.”

 

However, our presence here (at Mass) this (afternoon/morning) is evidence that we live in more than just a material world; we also live in a spiritual world.  A world not just composed of matter, but a world in which things matter; a world that has meaning beyond an understanding of “how things work.”  That is why today’s Gospel is so significant. For in our Lord’s response to the Scribe who questions him about the greatest commandment, our human understanding of the spiritual universe is radically and fundamentally changed.  In our Lord’s response to the Scribe we are given a spiritual equation that defines the relationship between humanity and God.  In a nutshell it says love of neighbor as oneself is the equivalent of loving God.  When Jesus says, “There is no greater commandment than these”, he is not making a grammatical error.  He is using a grammatical formulation to illustrate the intimate relationship between God and God’s created beings.  Before Jesus provided this radically new understanding, it was thought love of God could best be expressed through other means such as burnt offerings and sacrifices of animals.

 

Jesus opened the heart of the scribe to this new understanding. “Well said, teacher…to love your neighbor as yourself' is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." But as we see from our Lord’s final response to the scribe, understanding alone is not enough. That is why Jesus said, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”  In other words, he wasn’t there yet.  In order to go the final distance, he had to move forward and find practical and beneficial ways to apply that understanding.

 

So that is also the challenge facing us as modern Christians.  How will we continue to find practical applications of loving God by loving our neighbor? We all have neighbors who need our love regardless if it’s the one next door or the one half a world away.  But having warm feelings and good wishes for them is not good enough. Such things can be compared to burnt offerings and sacrifices.  We’ve heard it said in the letter of James,  “if one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well," but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?    

 

I think the Church has done a magnificent job outlining how we can love God through loving our neighbor by means of its extensive social teaching Indeed, a deeper familiarity with that teaching and how it is best lived out in the world is especially important as we go to the polls this Tuesday.  We have to keep in mind that our choices involve much more than if the person we like wins or loses, it involves how we contribute through faithful citizenship to the building of God’s Kingdom on earth. 

 

And if we keep to the task, if we move forward in the Spirit of Christ, if we continue to find new and beneficial ways of applying our understanding of what it means to love God and our neighbor, the world in which we live will be transformed in ways not even Einstein dreamed.

         

(Comments to David at davidlind@CHARTER.NET .)