23rd August >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Matthew 22:34-40 for Friday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘Which is the greatest commandment of the law?’. (2024)

23rd August >> Fr. Martin’s Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Matthew 22:34-40 for Friday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘Which is the greatest commandment of the law?’.

Friday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Matthew 22:34-40

The commandments of love

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees they got together and, to disconcert him, one of them put a question, ‘Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?’ Jesus said, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets also.’

Gospel (USA)

Matthew 22:34-40

You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Reflections (7)

(i) Friday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

The Pharisee who questioned Jesus in today’s gospel reading claimed to be looking for the most important commandment out of the hundreds that were in the Jewish Law. However, Jesus did not reply to his question by giving him one commandment, but two, what he called the greatest or first commandment and a second commandment that ‘resembles it’. It seems that Jesus did something very original here. He took two commandments that were in different books of the Jewish Scriptures, the first commandment that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, which is in the book of Deuteronomy, and the second commandment, ‘you must love your neighbour as yourself’, which is in the book of Leviticus. Jesus brought these commandments together in a way that was unique to him. What is common to both commandments is that little word ‘love’. It is as if Jesus is saying, ‘if you really want to get to the heart of God’s Law, what it is that God wills for our lives, it is love’. Love is the centre of the Jewish Law. It is also, of course, the centre of Jesus’ message. If these two commandments to love are the most important of all the commandments in the Jewish Law, Jesus insists that one of these commandments to love is more important than the other. The first and most important of the two is to love God with all our heart, all our soul and all our mind. In that first commandment, we are being asked to give God first place in our lives. God alone is to be loved with all our being. This involves acknowledging our dependence on God, recognizing how much we receive from God and then offering all that back to God in love. Jesus implies that this love of God is the inspiration and foundation for our love of others, a love that has something of the quality of God’s own love for humanity.

And/Or

(ii)Friday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

The motivation underpinning the question that the Pharisees ask Jesus in this morning’s gospel reading left a lot to be desired. Yet, even though the motive for asking the question was suspect, the question itself was a very good one. There were considered to be over600 commandments in the Jewish Law at the time of Jesus. Devout people asked the question, ‘Was there any one commandment that should stand above all the others?’ In answer to the question of the Pharisees Jesus gave more than he was asked for. He not only gave the most important commandment but what he considered to be the two most important commandments. What is common to both commandments is the word ‘love’. God is to be the primary object of our love; God alone is to be loved with all our being, all our heart, soul and mind. Jesus seems to have been unique in linking this primary commandment with another commandment which was found in a different place in the Scriptures to that first commandment, the love of the neighbour. Jesus seems to be saying that those who truly love God with all their being will be caught up into God’s love of others, will love others in the way God loves them. Jesus is the one human being who fully embodies the two fold love. His love for God was so total, his loving communion with God was so complete, that he became the perfect expression of God’s love for others. In these days when so much suffering can be inflicted on others in the name of God, it is good to be reminded of these two inseparable commandments. They are the essence of our baptismal calling.

And/Or

(iii) Friday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

At the time of Jesus there were considered to be 613 commandments in the Jewish Law. In theory all the commandments were to be observed with equal diligence but, in practice, it was recognized that some commandments were more important than others. According to today’s gospel reading, the question that the Pharisees put to Jesus, ‘Which is the greatest commandment of the Law?’ was intended to put Jesus to the test. It was asked in the hope that Jesus would make some damaging statement. However, Jesus’ reply could hardly be faulted. He gave not just the greatest commandment but what he considered to be the first and the second commandment. He brought together two commandments which had not rarely been brought together in this way before. He declared that the heart of all 613 commandments was the commandment to love. Our love is to be directed in the first place to God; it is only God who is to be loved with all our being, all our heart, soul and mind. No one else is worthy of such all embracing love. Yet, Jesus declares that such total love of God is inseparable from the love of our neighbour who is to be loved as we love ourselves. Our love of neighbour and of ourselves is to be a reflection of God’s love of our neighbour and of ourselves. In loving God with all our being we are caught up into God’s love of us all. In going towards God in love, we go from God in love towards others and ourselves. Jesus declares that everything in the Scriptures, in the Law and the Prophets, hangs on those two great and inseparable commandments.

And/Or

(iv) Friday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

In the gospels several people ask Jesus questions. Sometimes the questions reveal an openness to Jesus, a desire to learn from him. At other times the questions are more confrontational. The question put to Jesus in this morning’s gospel reading from Matthew is more like this latter type. We are told that a scribe asked Jesus a question to test him. The question, ‘Which is the greatest commandment in the law?’ was meant to trip Jesus up. The scribe may have hoped that Jesus would give an answer that would show him up in a bad light. In his answer Jesus gave more than he was asked for. He not only gave the greatest commandment but the second greatest commandment as well. The first commandment is a quotation from the Book of Deuteronomy. God is to be loved with one’s whole being, heart, mind and soul. No creature, not matter how noble, is to be loved in this way. The second greatest commandment, to love our neighbour as ourselves, is a quotation from the book of Leviticus. Yes, God must come first, but there is no true love of God without love of neighbour. We cannot claim to be honouring God if we dishonour another human being in any way, no matter how different he or she might be from us. Jesus brings together these two commandments from different parts of the Bible, in a way no one else had done before him. He shows us very clearly that the way to God always passes through other people. Elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel Jesus identifies himself with our neighbour, especially the vulnerable and broken neighbour. To that extent the way to God always passes through Jesus.

And/Or

(v) Friday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

People can ask questions for different reasons. In this morning’s gospel reading we are told that the Pharisees ask Jesus a question to disconcert him. In other words, their question was not really a genuine question; it was a kind of a trick question intended to put Jesus on the spot. Yet Jesus appears to have treated the question, ‘Which is the greatest commandment of the Law?’ as a serious question because he gave it a very considered reply. He didn’t exactly answer the question he was asked. He was asked for the greatest commandment of the Law, but he gave the greatest and the second greatest commandment of the Law, implying that both were inseparable. The commandment ot love God with all one’s heart, soul and mind and the commandment to love the neighbour as oneself belong together in the mind of Jesus. They belong together but they are not on the same level, one is more important that the other, one is first and the other is second. The love of God with all our being is prior to and somehow undergirds our love of neighbour. Jesus seems to be saying that we cannot really love our neighbour fully unless we give first place to God in our lives. Yet, our failure to love our neighbour is a sign that God is nor our first and most complete love.

And/Or

(vi) Friday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

The first reading this morning from the Book of Ruth is sometimes chosen as the first reading at a Wedding Mass. The commitment that Ruth, from Moab, makes to her Jewish mother-in-law, Naoimi, expresses a love that is faithful and reliable, ‘wherever you go, I will go, wherever you live, I will live. Your people shall be my people and your God, my God’. As a couple stand on the threshold of marriage, they easily identify with these strong sentiments. Ruth’s commitment to her mother-in-law is an example of human love at its best. In the gospel reading a Pharisee puts a question to Jesus to disconcert him, ‘Which is the greatest commandment of the law?’ Jesus has no hesitation in replying that the greatest commandment in the Law is the commandment to love. Indeed, Jesus asserts, that not only the greatest but the second greatest commandment is the commandment to love. God has the first and greatest claim on our love; only God is to be loved with all our feelings, all our will, all our mind, our whole self. God alone is worthy of this total love, because God’s love has brought us into existence and sustains us in existence. Yet, Jesus is clear that such love of God, if it is really genuine, will overflow into the love of our neighbour, the kind of love that Ruth shows Naomi. If we truly love God we will be caught up into God’s love for all of humanity, including our enemies. In Jesus’ eyes, those who proclaim their loving devotion to God while damaging other human beings in any way are the worst form of hypocrites. Jesus gave himself completely in love to God and, as a result, he gave himself fully in love to others. We need his Spirit in our hearts, the Holy Spirit, if we are to love in this same twofold way.

And/Or

(vii) Friday, Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

The question that is put to Jesus in this morning’s gospel reading - ‘Which is the greatest commandment of the Law?’ – was with a view to disconcerting him. Jesus was being put to the test. Yet, in spite of the questionable motivation behind the question, Jesus took the question seriously and gave his questioners and all of us an answer that is worth pondering. Although he was asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus’ answer put two commandments side by side. The first commandment was the core of the prayer recited by observant Jews several times a day, called the Shema. The Hebrew word Shema means ‘Hear’. The prayer is called after its first word, ‘Hear O Israel the Lord you God is one...’. In a similar way, the prayer that we might pray several times a day as Christians, the Lord’s Prayer, is often referred to by its first two words, ‘Our Father’. The combining of this commandment with the commandment to love our neighbour seems distinctive to Jesus. For Jesus to love God with all one’s heart and soul and mind is inseparable from the love of neighbour in the way that God loves them. Elsewhere Jesus defines ‘neighbour’ in a very inclusive way as embracing all of humanity, including even our enemy. Jesus declares that the whole Law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. Love is the key to interpreting all the requirements of the Law and the prophets. Jesus shows us by his life and death what loving God with all our being and loving the neighbour as ourselves looks like. He not only shows us what such love looks like, he also pours the Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we may be empowered to love in the way that he does.

Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland.

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