• Ruth 1:1-18

Seeking relief from the latest famine, Eliemlech, a Jew from Bethlehem, took his wife, Naomi, and their sons to Moab, (the land occupied with the tribe of descendants from Lot’s incest with his sister), which had become a large, powerful, separate nation.  While there, his sons married Moabite women, Oprah and Ruth.  Over the years, all three women were widowed.  Naomi decided to return to Judah with her two Moabite daughters-in-law.  On the journey, Naomi encourages Oprah and Ruth to return to their families in Moab, who would surely take them in and give them the protection she could not promise.  They should return to their own “gods.”  In a wrenching scene, Oprah leaves, but Ruth “clung” to her mother-in-law, despite Naomi’s discouragement.  Ruth makes a moving declaration of her loyalty and affection. “Where you go I will go; where you lodge I will lodge; your God will be my God.  Where you die, I will die– there will I be buried.”  Hearing Ruth’s determination, Naomi “said no more.”

• Psalm 146

The psalmist praises the Lord for traits that always remain reliable.  Unlike “princes,” whose plans go with them when they die, God is the maker and sustainer who always does justice.  Here the psalmist lists specifically those who are always included in requirements for justice in the Torah and prophets: the oppressed, the hungry, the blind, the defamed, foreigners, orphans and widows.  “Lord will reign forever.”

OR

• Deuteronomy 9:11-14

Walter Brueggemann regards this particular summary of the Law  as an example of what he calls the “pedagogy of saturation,” which he defines as “speech” of a peculiar kind “…This speech is summons, demand, assurance, and invitation to belong to this community, and to the world uttered by this community.”  (Theology of the Old Testament, p.722)

• Psalm 119:1-8

The longest of the psalms extols the inherent worthiness and personal benefits of memorizing the Lord’s precepts/statutes/commands/righteous laws, which will never fail.

• Hebrews 9:11-14

The writer of this “letter” recasts the ancient practices and teachings about Temple worship in a new interpretation, a new interpretation applied to Christ.  As “High Priest,” Christ entered into the “Holy Place” not with the blood of animal sacrifice, but with his own blood.  If the blood of animals can “sanctify,” the writer reasons, “How much more will the blood of Christ, through the eternal Spirit who offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to the living God!”

• Mark 12:28-34

In Mark’s chronology, we are in the third day of the fateful week in which  Jesus was executed.  Mark has already established that the enemies of Jesus are out to discredit, embarrass, expose or trick him into self-incrimination, (12:13).  But Mark’s narrative, (only among the gospel writers), takes a surprising twist.  He introduces a Scribe who overhears the grilling Jesus is taking and initiates a conversation with Jesus with a straight-forward question: “which commandment is the first of all?”  Mark writes that Jesus provides a conventional conflations– love of God and love of neighbor.  The Scribe shows his agreement by providing his own,  similar summary.  But then he adds unexpectedly, “this is much more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  Jesus regards the Scribe as “wise” for saying this.  He then tells the Scribe that his comment places him close “to the kingdom of God.”  Mark notes that this exchange silences those who had been interrogating Jesus.

Biblical narratives maintain a paradox, which they make no attempt to resolve.  On the one hand, there is a high regard for tradition (the psalmist extols the wisdom of memorizing God’s “precepts”); on the other hand there is an awareness that these texts, no matter how venerable or beloved, contain something that disrupts tradition.  It is, to use the distinction provided by the writer to the Hebrews, the difference between “dead works” and “the living God.”

This paradox shows up clearly in the episode unique to Mark’s narrative.  Jesus and a sincere Scribe each provides his own summary of the Decalogue, apparently from the heart, as the psalmist has encourages us to memorize the Lord’s “precepts.”  But then the Scribe says something completely surprising– “this is more important than all the burnt offerings.”  Jesus informs the religious leader, with this insight you are close to God’s reign!  These two strangers, even potential rivals, recognize that they share something that defies expectations.  (Like the Moabite Ruth and her Jewish  mother-in-law, they find a relationship that supersedes conventional barriers.)  They recognize each other as travelers on the same path that leads to God’s reign.  While each honors tradition, demonstrating that they know it by heart, both seem to share an understanding that tradition never contains, it merely conveys.  And what it conveys is dynamic, life-giving, always surprising– “living.”  Tradition is a vehicle, not a destination, a means not an end.

A leader in the “scriptural reasoning ” movement, Robert Gibbs, has made this useful distinction: “Revelation is not information about God, but a shock that requires me to interpret the sign that the shock is.”  (Reasoning after Revelation, p.49)

The commandment to love God and to love neighbor is not “information,” it is “revelation.”  And, as “revelation,” it never looses it shock-value.  It disrupts all other religious– or any other, for that matter– expectations.  It is “tradition” that conveys, never contains, something that is “living,”  Hence, those in Mark’s gospel who intend to entrap Jesus because they regard themselves as the guardians of tradition will inevitably misjudge the message and person of Jesus.  And an anonymous  “Scribe” can come close to “God’s  reign” on his own and discover a fellow traveler in Jesus.  That the commandment to love God and others is given by the One who is literally defined as “love” and embodied in the anointed One who taught by word and example, which were sometimes quite shocking, even silencing his critics, only increases the shock waves.  If we follow these shock waves to their source, we discover we are close to “God’s reign.”

And then there is Ruth.  She comes closer to God and God’s ways through her deep love for her mother-in-law.  She leaves behind her own family and her own religion and traditions not for complex theological reasons, but out of the affection for someone who loved her first.  Or, remember the unnamed Scribe in Mark’s story.  A short, honest conversation with Jesus reveals to the man that he is not far from God’s reign.  The “shock” of revelation scrambles unexamined   assumptions; the tender love of another can draw us out of the comfort of the past into a new future, out of a tried and true path to a new path, out of a past identity to a new identity.