At this point in our Sunday readings from Mark’s gospel, Jesus and his disciples have reached Jerusalem on their journey from Galilee. They’ve come up from Jericho with a sizable crowd, and they arrive at Bethany just outside the city. Then, Jesus enters Jerusalem, riding on a donkey and praised by the crowds.

But not everybody welcomes him. Mark’s gospel says he cleanses the temple and calls for making it a house of prayer instead of a den of thieves. That, of course, causes a reaction from Jerusalem’s religious leaders, the scribes and chief priests, who want to put him to death but can’t do anything because the people support him.

So they attack Jesus by words. “What’s your authority, what’s your credentials for doing these things? They’re smart, they try to trap him by difficult questions. Should we pay taxes to Caesar? What about a woman who has had seven husbands– whose wife is she in heaven? They try to kill him with questions.

But then Mark’s gospel, which we hear today, interrupts those questions by introducing a scribe who’s impressed by Jesus’ answers and sincerely wants to listen to him. “What’s the greatest commandment?” He asks.

“Love God and love your neighbor,” Jesus says. Simple words the scribe has heard before, he’s heard them many times before, but suddenly he hears them now, in a new way.

Maybe that’s what Mark’s gospel wants to tell us. The message of Jesus is simple, but we can hear it again and again, and it’s always new. It’s simple, but it keeps making sense of everything. It’s simple, but it should informs everything we do. It should cut through the pretense, the games we play, the selfishness, the politics–everything else, everything is to be done with love.

St. Paul said that in his Letter to the Corinthians. “If I don’t have love, everything else is meaningless.

The scribe must have realized that as he talked to Jesus. He must have seen love in the one before him. So should we