Last Sunday, the readings introduced us to Bartimaeus, the blind man, who decided to follow Jesus even though he had the option of staying in Jericho. This Sunday, the readings introduce a few key passages that, for some, summarize the entirety of Scripture. They explain what it means to pursue the heart of God. They answer the question: what is the purpose of being human? They also involve the question: what is God’s purpose in being God? The answer to the second question is not very far from the answer to the first.

The first five books of the Bible, a collection called the Torah in Hebrew, are particularly sacred to the Jewish people. In the Torah, there is a verse that serves as a founding principle within Judaism. We call it the Shemabased on the first Hebrew word of the verse, which is “Listen! » The first reading this Sunday includes the full sentence. “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! (Deut 6:4). The following verse states a response to this revelation and proclamation: “Therefore you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Dt 6:5). Three things, heart, soul and strength, are three ways of emphasizing the singular intention of following God wholeheartedly and holding nothing back. This vital focus helps shape life’s purpose by loving God through our actions.

Jesus is well aware of the centrality of the Shema in Jewish spiritual practice. Chapter 12 of Mark’s Gospel is a series of peppering the teacher with some of the most difficult questions in order to trap him with a potentially weak answer. It resembles an election period, where candidates are asked leading questions to test their political affiliation. However, in this Sunday’s Gospel reading, a Torah scribe asks Jesus a genuine question about the central tenets of the Jewish faith, and the teacher does not disappoint. Jesus quotes the Shema, but he adds something more, which he says is implicit in the commandment: “The second is this,” Jesus says: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mk 12, 31).

These are the fundamental teachings of Scripture, according to Jesus. The scribe recognizes that they are indeed worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. In fact, insight gives meaning to the sacrificial system. Deep sacrifice is the daily struggle to love God and neighbor. The burnt offerings concretize this deeper work of the heart. This Sunday’s Gospel reading presents Jesus as the one who embodies the Shema with all his heart, even to the point of sacrificing his own life in Jerusalem.

This Sunday’s Bible readings involve one final consideration. What is God’s purpose in being God? What is God’s final intention? Do the Scriptures reveal what this might entail? Pope Francis’ recent encyclical, Dilexit Nos (“He loved us”) suggests one answer. Jesus reveals the heart and purpose of God, which is to love us. It takes a lifetime to learn to flesh out one’s response to that love with all one’s heart, all one’s soul and all one’s strength.