Mark 12:28-34. A scribe, seeing that Jesus answers questions well, asks Jesus which is the first commandment of all. Jesus replies that the first is that God is one, and to love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Then he goes on to say that the second is to love your neighbor as yourself, and that there is no greater commandment than these two. The scribe agrees, and says these are worth more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. When Jesus sees that the scribe understands, he says "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

This is the greatest commandment: love the one God wholly, and love your neighbor as yourself. It summarizes all the other commandments perfectly, and roots them in love, which is where they come from. Love is the heart of the commandments because God is love, so our response to him is love. If we truly love God with all of our hearts, we would not want to hurt him in any way, we would feel bad doing anything against his love, which includes doing anything to hurt those he loves - that is, everyone else.

So Jesus factually and truthfully answers the question "which is the first commandment of all." "I am the Lord your God, you shall not have false gods before me" is the first commandment, but it also is the most important commandment. When we love God first and foremost above everything else, then everything else falls into place. Loving God wholly summarizes the first three commandments - we would not want other things more than God if we love him completely, nor would we ever want to use his name inappropriately, nor would we fail to keep his holy days and worship him. Loving others as ourselves is a perfect summary of the other seven commandments. If we truly love someone else, we would not want to lie to them, hurt them, steal from them, etc. But loving others also flows from loving God - they are his creations and loved by him, so loving him means loving them.

The scribe, on hearing Jesus' answer, recognizes the truth of it and agrees saying loving like this is worth more than any sacrifice or burnt offering we can make. Yes! Often, we go through the motions, we "offer the sacrifices," checking the boxes of our faith, but not truly feeling it. Although I do believe that going through the motions is important to get us to the point where we do feel it. For example, I used to think of going to church as a kind of chore, getting it done on Sunday and then moving on with the rest of my weekend. But that was necessary for me to get to the point where I actually want to go to church on Sunday, because I love and want to worship God. Now, it's like the excitement I feel when I'm going to meet a friend. It's love! But I wouldn't have gotten to this point without the weekly exposure to the worship, even if I wasn't feeling it at the time.

The same is true for loving and doing for others. Once we love God completely, we see everyone else as someone precious to him, who deserves our love simply because they were created by God. This is true love, not indulging the other's bad behavior or disordered desires, nor forcing them to think or be like us, but accepting them as fellow sinners on their own path to God and just loving them as we find them, as God's children.

Jesus tells the scribe that he is not far from the kingdom of heaven because he understands all of this. God is love, so his kingdom is founded on love. Once we truly love God and others, we are very near his kingdom.