Word Of God

One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”

The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, He is One and there is no other than he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And no one dared to ask him any more questions. (Mark 12:28-34)

For those wondering why God usually is thought of as being male, perhaps to the detriment of the female, consider the use of the word “Lord.”  Mark quotes Jesus as saying,  “The Lord our God is Lord alone!”  Words such as these tend to trap us in the masculine forgetting the feminine.  Of course, calling Jesus our Lord makes sense, but in this passage, according to Mark, Jesus calls God “Lord.”

Importantly, God is not confined by our humanity. God is not material or physical except when made the Christ through our human acts of love and kindness.  Although, as noted by Father Richard Rohr in his book The Universal Christ (2019), Scriptures say that the “Word” was “from the beginning” (John 1:1) and that Word was always identified with “Christ” – which in time “became flesh and lived among us” (1:14).  St. Bonaventure believed that every creature is a word of God, and this was the first book of “the Bible.”

God is everywhere and in everything.  For us Christians we can say with confidence, God is in Jesus made clear through our concept of the Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Deacon David Pierce