Not Far from the Kingdom

Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that [‘YHWH] is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one’s neighbor as oneself — this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.’

When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question [Mark 12:32-34].

Two weeks into my first Economics course at Wake Forest, I was hooked. I couldn’t immediately put my finger on what attracted me to the subject. Before mid-terms, however, I realized that it wasn’t so much “the what” as it was “the who.” I had never encountered a teacher as engaging, as bright, and as articulate as Dr. John Moorhouse.

1970 was the hippie era. Weather permitting, my English professor taught in his bare feet. Our young, quite attractive Western Civ professor apparently didn’t own a bra. But Dr. Moorhouse, the ink on his Northwestern University Ph.D. in Econometrics barely dry, well, he wore finely tailored, three-piece suits, with bright, expressive ties.

Moorhouse would lecture for half the class period and then turn to the Socratic method, peppering us with challenging, but interesting hypotheticals: “Why would you expect people in New York to eat better oranges than those who live in Tampa?” (I can explain that at some other time).

I soon found myself spending extra time at Reynolds Library, wading through Economics journals. I devoured all his outside reading suggestions. I wanted to engage with Dr. Moorhouse. And I hate to admit this—I wanted to impress him.

Sometimes, I’d find a little tidbit in my reading, something relevant, but something that we hadn’t actually covered in class. I’d approach Dr. Moorhouse after class the following day. Armed with the tidbit, I’d ask an intelligent question, pretending that I had not already discovered the answer. I desperately sought dialogue, but from a position of relative safety—an interested, inquiring student seeking guidance from “the Prof.” I wonder if he saw through me.

Two thousand years before I sought dialogue with Dr. Moorhouse, another seeker approached a different teacher. While many of the seeker’s colleagues had questioned Jesus’ authority [Mark 11:28], or confronted Jesus with hostile questions about Roman taxes [Mark 12:14-15] or marriage in heaven [Mark 12:23], this unnamed scribe had been listening, watching.

As we turn to the Gospel lesson appointed for this upcoming Sunday, Mark 12:28-34 [the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year B], we can surmise that the scribe had been impressed by the skill with which Jesus answered his challengers. I suspect that the scribe sensed, as I did with Dr. Moorhouse, that here was someone different, someone worth engaging.

And so the scribe asks Jesus which is the greatest of the commandments. It’s a “safe” question—at that time—perhaps still today—every Jewish schoolchild knew the Shema, recited morning and evening [Deut. 6:7]: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

Yet something more is happening in this encounter with Jesus. Just as my carefully crafted questions to Dr. Moorhouse were less about getting answers and more about establishing connection, the scribe’s query opens a door to deeper engagement. Unlike my professorial encounter, however, this exchange between the scribe and Jesus would move far beyond intellectual sparring.

Jesus, in his inimitable fashion of turning things over before handing them back, pairs the command to love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength, with an additional mandate to love one’s neighbor. To be sure, Jesus isn’t so much offering a new idea—both commands are in Torah—as he is deftly making a seamless connection between them.

Here’s where our parallel stories diverge. Where my careful questions to Dr. Moorhouse had typically earned a measured professorial response or word of encouragement, the scribe hears Jesus words and is stunned. You can see it in his response. He allows, “You are right, Teacher” [12:32]. The scribe then awkwardly repeats back to Jesus essentially the same words that Jesus has offered to him. He adds that the combination of love—both for YHWH and for one’s neighbor—is much more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices that might ever be offered.

I wonder how Moorhouse would have responded if I, the student, had told him that he, the professor, was “right.” Moorhouse was—still is—a nice guy. He probably would have let it slide. I’d likely have responded with sarcasm. Jesus responds with love, saying:

You are not far from the kingdom of God [12:34a].

I think that Jesus looked at the scribe and saw a student who was vulnerable and who, perhaps, had been worn down by his journey. The scribe had diligently sought to maneuver within the shifting tides of his faith community. He’d no doubt heard reports of the dangerous renegade from Nazareth, the one who was teaching, healing, and preaching—the one who drew large crowds.

He’d listened to accounts of this young rabbi, whom some saw as a prophet and whom others saw as a reincarnated John the Baptizer. He’d likely heard that Jesus had openly referred to himself as Son of Man. The scribe had been told that Jesus was a blasphemer and yet, here Jesus was, affirming the most sacred statements of Judaism and more, tying love of God to love of neighbor.

This past weekend, many of the men of Blacknall Presbyterian Church enjoyed a wonderful weekend. Originally, we’d planned another “retreat” in the North Carolina mountains at Montreat, much like what we’d experienced the past two years, when about 100 of us had escaped the fevered pitch of life to spend a weekend in scripture, prayer, worship, song, and discussion. This year, because of Hurricane Helene, we had to regroup and have our gathering in Durham.

During some free time, I shared some words with several young men in the congregation. One waited until I was alone, asking if he could speak with me for a few minutes.

We chatted for a bit. Then, perhaps sensing that I was getting ready to conclude our conversation, he fervently looked at me and confessed, “Life is complicated. You know, with the kids, the marriage, the career, the economy, the church, and all that life throws at me, sometimes I don’t know what’s up and what’s down.”

He paused, and then continued, “I long for a deeper relationship with Christ. I long to be one with the Savior, to be one with the Spirit, where I can push away the crushing concerns that surround me, the pressures that I feel, the bewilderment that I all too often experience.”

Last Saturday, I had a safe, truthful, but somewhat inadequate response. I said to him, “Christ is with you in these tough times.”

I wish that I’d had the wisdom to tell him what Jesus had told the unnamed scribe so long ago, “Take heart, [sincere traveler], for you are not far from the kingdom of God.”

Those words—“not far from the kingdom” —are both blessing and challenge. They acknowledge the genuine seeking, the authentic struggle, the sincere desire to draw closer to Christ even amid life’s crushing pressures. Yet they also beckon us forward, suggesting that there’s still ground to cover, still a journey to complete. Perhaps that’s precisely where grace meets us—in that space between longing and arrival, between seeking and finding, between our careful questions and God’s transforming answers.

Just as Jesus looked with love at the questioning scribe, He looks with love at all who seek Him through life’s bewildering maze of demands and pressures. “Not far from the kingdom” isn’t a measurement of distance; it’s a promise of presence.