WELL SPOKEN
As a recent arrival in Zambia, I had not heard of
Anderson Mazoka until two days ago. He is dead now. The one who told me of him
said he could have been a great leader for Zambia. “He was compassionate,” he
said. It struck me as an unusual complement to mention in one of our leaders. We normally speak of their competence in
politics or their understanding of economics and so on. But that a leader is compassionate? That he “suffers with” the people? That
seemed new.
Towards the end of Mark’s gospel the opposition to Jesus
mounts. But there is a sudden mention of a scribe who understands. He is “one
of the scribes”, and so influenced by what his colleagues hold. But here he is speaking
for himself.
He asks Jesus what is the greatest thing in the law. What is the basic element that holds our
society together? Jesus replies> “It
is to love God and love one another” The
scribe replies, “Well spoken, teacher”,
and he repeats what Jesus had just said as if to emphasise his complete agreement.
Then Jesus says to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
It is a striking scene.
One might even not notice it in the headlong rush to condemn Jesus and
all he stood for in the closing pages of the gospels. Yet there it is: Jesus in
harmony with a leading Jew approving the central faith of the Jewish people and
making it his own. Those of us who are
Christians are reminded once again how much we owe to our Jewish roots. The
fundamental stance is love and the way we show love is through compassion. The gospels are full of examples; the woman
by the well and the parable of the
prodigal son are among the best known.
Nurtured in this tradition we can only stagger in amazement
at the news from Pakistan this week. Some people have threatened violence against
their own judges because their High Court has set aside a death sentence
against a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, over something she inadvertently did that
offended Muslims. “We just want her to be killed,” they said
4 November 2018 Sunday 31 B
Deuteronomy 6:2-6 Hebrews
7:23-28 Mark
12:28-34
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