NOTES for Mar 12:28-34

The dialogue between Jesus and an unnamed teacher of the Torah, a "scribe," is remarkable because, at least outwardly, the participants say nothing especially unusual. The teacher of the Torah asks Jesus an elementary school question about the meaning of the Torah, the answer to which was known to any yeshiva student: the meaning of the Torah comes down to two commandments, the commandment to love God ("with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength," if we recall the corresponding line from Deuteronomy) and to love one's neighbor as oneself (as is said in Leviticus). This understanding of the meaning of the Torah was already quite traditional in Gospel times, and the teacher asks Jesus his question with the clear intention of testing His knowledge of the tradition.

Jesus gives the correct answer, the teacher approves His answer - "well said" - and in turn receives the Savior's assessment: you are not far from the Kingdom of God. What did the Savior like so much in the teacher of the Torah's reaction to His words? Perhaps that he says directly that love for God and neighbor is greater than all sacrifices? Evidently yes, for Jesus constantly reminds people that in the Kingdom and for the Kingdom the main thing is relationships, and that the question of abiding in the Kingdom is connected with a person's spiritual state, not with his activity, even if that activity is religious.

For the spiritual state, what matters is precisely that God be at the center of a person's whole life, in his heart, in his soul, that He be the center of all the efforts a person makes in his life. This, of course, is not about some abstract ideal, nor even about faith as a system of convictions around which religious people often build their lives, but precisely about God's real presence in the deepest part of the human person, in that center which in biblical language is called the heart.

Judging by Jesus' answer, He saw that for the teacher of the Torah who had turned to Him, this was not just theory, that the meaning of the Torah had become reality for him, that he lived as he taught, as far as this was possible for him as a human being. A person is limited here by his fallen nature, but if he does everything possible and lives to the maximum, fully realizing his spiritual potential, then he really is not far from the Kingdom. Only the last step remains, and the One who brought the Kingdom into the world can help him take it.