Proper 26

Venice has its gondolas, Calcutta its pedicabs, London its distinctive black taxis, but, in the canyons of Manhattan, the yellow cab is king.

Anyone who drives the streets of the Big Apple quickly learns that taxi drivers rule the road (“WARNING: I brake for nobody”). New York cabbies pride themselves on delivering their passengers curbside in the least amount of time, even if it involves a nail-biting, careening ride through traffic-choked streets to make good on that pledge.

One of the reasons New York cabbies are so good at their work — besides their finely-tuned talent for automotive aggression — is their encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s streets. Until a few years ago, new cabbies were required to pass a grueling 80-question geography exam covering all five boroughs.

But no longer. Once the bane of new immigrants, the cabbies’ geography test has now been reduced to a paltry 10 questions!

The reason? Technology. Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are revolutionizing the taxi trade. Allan Fromberg of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission told The New York Times that the emphasis is now as much on safety as on geography. The new exam is a “practical modernization,” a “catching up to the times.”

Another factor is competition from Internet-based freelance services like Uber. A city-issued hack license no longer seems so valuable when GPS-equipped amateurs can deliver the same service at a lower cost, using their own vehicles.

Longtime yellow cab patrons are skeptical. “If I got into a cab and the driver didn’t know where Penn Station was, that’d be ridiculous,” Carolyn Baker told the Times. “I mean, would you hire a chef who never fried an egg?”

The best of the old-time New York cabbies know the streets in an almost intuitive way. It’s second nature.

In today’s Gospel, when a scribe comes up to Jesus asking which is the foremost commandment of the law, Jesus’ answer, likewise, has to do with deep, intuitive knowledge — but of a different sort. Love God with heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.

That’s all. Jesus reduces 613 commandments to just two!

 Mark places this encounter amid a series of theological clashes between Jesus and various temple officials. Remarkably, this particular scribe isn’t hostile like the others. He’s not trying to pick a fight. Quite the contrary: This is the only example in the gospels of a scribe actually agreeing with Jesus.

The scribe asks a defining question, the opening gambit of his debating stance. Depending on how Jesus answers, the scribe will ask him another question, then another — in hopes, eventually, of pigeonholing him into the school of one great Talmudic interpreter or another.

There’s no hostility evident in his approach. Engaging in debate is simply what Talmudic scholars do. Steel sharpens steel.

But Jesus’ answer defies easy categorization. Far from delivering a heavily-footnoted exegetical response, the Lord offers a schoolboy’s answer. He recites the famous shema (“Hear, O Israel …”) followed by the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18). Jesus is implying it’s not so important what believers think about the law, as it is how faithfully they live the law.

Jesus demands so little of his disciples, and yet so much. Love God and neighbor perfectly, he says. That’s all. Know this — do this — and you are not far from God’s kingdom.

We can see Jesus drawing a distinction between two different ways of knowing: head knowledge and heart knowledge. A greenhorn New York cabbie with a GPS may be able to plot a course with the best of them — but is his machine’s data-crunching capacity truly the equal of the street smarts of the seasoned veteran? Old-school cabbies intuit the ideal route as much as they think it. Their heart is their guide. Such is the essence of wisdom.

Some of us would be perfectly fine with EPS-driven Christianity (that’s “Ethical Positioning System”). We’ve studied the Scriptures. We’ve memorized verses. If we’ve got a passing knowledge of the church’s landmark creeds, then so much the better. We take pride in knowing what we’re supposed to do (or, if we don’t, we know where we can look it up right quick).

The scribe who questions Jesus is like that. He doesn’t just own an EPS. He’s programmed the thing.

But Jesus seems unimpressed by such hard-earned theological knowledge. Who is it, in his famous parable, who stops to bathe the wounds of the mugging victim? Not the tall-steeple pastor. Not the seminary professor. They pass by on the other side. It’s the immigrant of uncertain origin who sells lottery tickets at the convenience store down the street. (Who is he, anyway? We’ve never bothered to find out. Is he even Christian?)

Yes, Rabbi Jesus is the source of endless surprises.

The parent with cigarette in hand who warns the kids off tobacco with the admonition “Do as I say, not as I do” may be a cliché. Yet, it cuts rather close to reality for many Christians. We imagine it’s our right belief that will get us into heaven. We’ve wagered heavily on that.

Yet, what if the test we’ll one day be given has not 80 questions, nor even 10, but just two? Did you love God with all that is in you? And did you love your neighbor as yourself?

Mark seems to imply the scribe is pleased with Jesus’ answer. “You are right, Teacher,” he concedes. But has Jesus truly won this scribe over? We can’t analyze his tone of voice, nor can we observe the expression on his scribely face. Mark leaves that for us to figure out — although he does supply what may be a hint: “After that no one dared to ask him any question.”

Maybe Jesus’ simple, straightforward answer hits a little too close to home — not just for this confident scribe, but for a great many others as well. Maybe even us.

Sometimes, anticipating an upcoming exam, students will try to wheedle out of their teacher some hint of what’s going to be on the test. In this case, such a move is unnecessary. There’s nothing secret about this examination question. It’s been posted since the beginning of the term. The exam itself is open book.

There’s no point trying to cram for this “Love God — Love Your Neighbor” test. While knowledge of the Scriptures is certainly a help, a sheet full of Scripture citations is not, in itself, sufficient for a passing grade.

Passing this examination is not a matter of composing a cogent essay, nor answering the requisite number of multiple-choice questions. It has nothing to do with lab reports. This exam cannot be written on paper, nor tapped out on a computer keyboard. Its two questions are answered not in the conventional way, but rather in the stuff of life itself.

This defies every preconception we have about test-taking. We like things arranged in a more predictable way. We like to have a clear series of intermediate goals to achieve, each one with its own rewards. 

There’s an old story about a college professor of Christian ethics who handed out an exam that had 20 questions. The instructions said to read the entire exam before beginning to write.

Most students, seeing the number of questions, despaired of answering them all in the time allotted. They ignored the instructions and started right in on the first question.

A few students wrote nothing at all. They just looked at the paper for a while, then stared glumly into space, as though they were trying to remember something.

But one student completed the exam in a matter of minutes, submitted the paper, and walked out of the room, smiling. The others looked up for a moment, incredulous, then returned to their scribbling.

That student was the only one who passed. That student was the only one who followed the instructions fully, reading through all 20 questions before reaching the final one. The final question went like this: “Congratulations! You have followed the instructions perfectly. There is no need to answer any of the other 19 questions. Just answer this one. This question is very simple, and it is the only one that counts. Write the name of the janitor who cleans this classroom.”

It was a strangely appropriate question for a Christian ethics exam. For it sought to measure how hard the students tried to love their neighbor — the janitor, whom most habitually ignored — as themselves.

What about you? Would you pass Jesus’ discipleship test?