 Throughout my life, I've increasingly found that reading scripture in public isn't just about feeding our own spirits and minds. It's about rehearsing the mighty acts of God for God's glory. So let's think together about Mark 12, 33. And first, let's have some tea. This is a fascinating little moment in Mark's Gospel, which Mark has uniquely. Almost everything else in Mark is in either Matthew or Luke or both, but this bit is in Mark and Mark alone. And it contains in the verse immediately after the one I just read a remarkable line from Jesus himself. Jesus saw that the lawyer had answered from deep understanding and he says, You are not far from God's kingdom. And after that, nobody dared put any more questions to Jesus, says Mark. So what's going on? Jesus is talking about the great commandment that loving God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength and your neighbors yourself. These are the great commandments. And normally in the Gospels, when the lawyers come on stage, they seem to be the bad guys. They are the ones who have their own system nicely worked out. They know which way things ought to be done and they regard Jesus as a dangerous upstart teaching folly of one sort or another. But Jesus has got them on this one because they would all agree that the Shema from Deuteronomy 6, Yero Israel, the Lord our God is one and you shall love him, heart, mind, soul and strength. That this is of course central. But this lawyer goes one beyond that because he has lived in a system which says, Yes, we are the people of God. We are gathered around the temple in Jerusalem. That is where God meets with his people and meets with them in grace. But this lawyer sees beyond the daily round of sacrifices in the temple, beyond the regular ritual offerings. He sees that something is going on in the ministry of Jesus which goes to the very heart in a way in which animal sacrifices never actually do. And so he says that to love God like that is worth far more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. And it's very interesting that at this point that Jesus says you are not far from God's kingdom. Because this passage in Mark 12 of course is part of the sequel to Jesus going into Jerusalem, overturning the tables of the money changers and as we say cleansing the temple though it isn't actually a clean up job. It's an acted parable of the temple's destruction that the temple has had its day and run its course. And this lawyer sees why. Because in the kingdom of God which Jesus is announcing and launching, there is a deeper reality going on. A reality which corresponds to the original intention of Torah way back in Deuteronomy 6 and elsewhere. And that the temple was after all a signpost pointing forwards to a different kind of reality. So that as Israel's God had promised to dwell in the temple to be with his people. So now God is dwelling with his people in the person of Jesus. That is of course central to the gospels. The idea of Jesus as the visible human presence of Israel's God. But then God is coming to dwell in the hearts of his people. So that when they love God with their heart and mind and soul and strength. This is the reality towards which the whole temple and its cult had been pointing. So Mark goes on in the very next chapter to talk about Jesus on the Mount of Olives. Explaining to his followers about the fact that the temple was going to be destroyed. It's part of that larger picture and this lawyer's answer and Mark's presentation of it helps us to see why. This is what God was really intending all along. That human beings would not just go and do something in a building somewhere and then come away again. But that their hearts, lives, souls, strength. And not least their minds would be enlivened by God's presence to do his will in a whole new way. So may God give you grace to love him with heart, mind, soul and strength. So that as the Kingdom of God becomes a reality in the world in general. It may become a reality in your life. Amen.