Oct-31 Liturgical Study Thirtieth-first Sunday

 

Thirtieth-first Sunday in Ordinary time


Deuteronomy 6:2-6

Since Moses will not accompany Israel into Canaan, he takes great pain to stress what is important before he dies. What he leaves ringing in Israel’s ears and written before Israel’s eyes for future reading and hearing is the importance of the Lord’s instruction, command, statutes and ordinances–in a word, the Lord’s Torah.

This reading in Hebrew is called the Shema, repeated twice a day, the core confession of faith in the Jewish tradition that occurs in a context in which the Israelites are standing at the border of the Promised Land : “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone”. It is sometimes called the "prosperity gospel": If you keep the commandments, it will go well with you, and you will flourish and become many in the Promised Land that is described as “a land flowing with milk and honey” 

Love God. Love God with everything you are: heart, soul, strength. Love God with your life. To love God, then, means to obey God’s commandments.


Psalm 18

This Psalm of Praise by David the servant of the LORD on the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all of his enemies and from the hand of Saul. It was written shortly after Saul's death and before David's own enthronement.


Hebrews 7:23-28

Jesus is a perpetual priest. A one-person priesthood who lives forever. He needs no succession plan and no descendants. Jesus is ever-present to broker the relationship between humanity and God. Just as there is no limit to Jesus’ priesthood; there is no limit to the grace and mercy that God extends to those who approach God.



Gospel Mark 12:28b-34

The scribe who approaches Jesus, does so not in order to test him, but because he saw that Jesus answered the others well. The scribe asks the question that strikes the core of what it means to be faithful to God and God’s commands: Which command is the most important? Jesus, the faithful Jew, answers with the Shema and extends the conversation by supplying the second greatest commandment to include loving one's neighbor (Leviticus 19:18). 

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus told the parable of the “kind Samaritan,” in order to give more specific meaning to the term “neighbor.”

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