RBWords

     There is an old saying: "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!"  The scribes were people who could read and write and had access to the scriptures that the ordinary Jew of the time did not have.  They also handled correspondence and legal matters.  This gave them a powerful status in a society where the majority could not read or write,  which some of them abused.  Jesus was highly critical of them as a class. [Matt. 23].  However, in today's gospel scripture, we learn that not all scribes were less than worthy.  

     The scribe in question was able to grasp the "big picture" of God's law.  All of the precepts (613 of them) were meant to foster love of God and neighbor.  A version of today's encounter appears in the Gospel According to Luke and Jesus' response to a scribe's similar question is the parable of the Good Samaritan.  In today's gospel scripture, the scribe seems to have been looking for an affirmation of his own thinking.  Jesus assures him that he "is not far from the Kingdom of God."  

     Our own Catholic faith has many traditions and customs that sometimes assume the status of "law."  We can get so caught up in them that we forget the whole reason for any of them.  The question to ask is whether or not we are brought closer to the Kingdom of God by loving God and neighbor by any practice.  A good Lenten question might be, "How close am I to the Kingdom of God?"  How is this happening in this season of Lent?  AMEN