Jesus’ response to which commandment of the law is greatest is probably one of the best-known and most-discussed passage in all of Scripture. We hear it at every Communion service ……
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The passage (Matthew 22:24-46) gives us yet another example of the continuous cultural game of challenge and riposte between Jesus and the Pharisees – an attempt to trick Him - that we see in the New Testament.
It is one of what are called the “controversy stories” which give us a picture of the sort of objections to Jesus’ teaching which were raised by the Jewish authorities that all led up to his trial and Passion.
Having responded to the lawyer’s challenge about the greatest commandment – and I will come back to this in a minute - Jesus then challenges and baffles the Pharisees with the question “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?”
If the Messiah was, as the Pharisees believed, a man who was to rule only the people of his own time, how could he be called Lord by those who had died before he was born? How could the Messiah be David’s son and also his Lord? The Pharisees had no answer.
But we know that the identity of the Messiah is manifold.
He is both human and divine:
he became incarnate so he could experience just as we experience –
but he is also divine.
He was, and is, the Son of God,
the Word made flesh,
the Son of David,
the Son of Man,
and David’s Lord
– all in one person.
And importantly – and to make the link with the Two Great Commandments, let us recall the words of John (right):
God gave his beloved son, who died the most horrible death, in order to give us all the hope and promise of salvation. As we all know to lose a child is probably one of the most painful things to happen to any parent – and God so loved what he had created that he did just that.
Which brings us straight back to the two great commandments.
The lawyer asks: Which commandment in the law is the greatest?
And tellingly Jesus doesn’t respond by choosing any of the Ten Commandments, but instead gives us the two Great Commandments:
- to love God and love our neighbours.
These, Jesus was saying, go to the very heart of the matter.
What God wants of us is that we should love; all the other rules in the Old Testament are simply attempts to work out what love means in practice and its application.
So if these two Commandments are the “heart of the matter” what does that mean for us? It also begs the question “what is the nature of love”?
Some of you may remember Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous poem which begins “How do I love thee, let me count the ways”. And the sonnet continues:
“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.”
I think it is a sonnet well worth re-reading and pondering on.
Jesus has promised to us that if we love him – and show our love for him is real by keeping his word – his commandments - that both He and the Father will come to us and live in us and love us. It is the promise of a wonderful reciprocal and whole relationship – and we come to that relationship by building a relationship with our neighbour.
So the juxtaposition of the two commandments clarifies in many ways what it means to love God: we can express our love for God by loving our neighbour.
In Luke’s account of the same event, the Pharisees respond by asking, “Who is my neighbour”. Matthew however leaves it more to us, not only about who our neighbour is, but what constitutes loving that person.
I think these are questions that each one of us has to ask ourselves:
Who are our neighbours and how do we love – and demonstrate that love – for them?
Last Sunday was the Feast of St Luke – the patron saint of physicians and all those in the medical profession – and in the current Covid crisis it was entirely appropriate that we used the opportunity to give thanks for them and all those people who support them in any way.
But I also suggested that each of us has our own healing and loving role to play with our neighbours and particularly with those in our own community who are suffering loneliness, fear and anxiety during the continuing pandemic.
We need to be with people, seeking to bring them love, compassion and healing both spiritually and physically, through the message that God is there for them, loves them and cares for each and every one of them.
Through this we will grow our love for God and deepen our relationship with Him.
Last week I read an obituary in The Times which encapsulates this:
“no flowers but please do an act of kindness to your neighbour today”.
The words at the end of our other reading (1 Thessalonians 2 ) spell it all out so beautifully; Paul, a real pioneer, wrote:
“But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us”.
So let us pray that with God’s help, we may truly open up our homes and our lives to Him through our love for our neighbours – that we may thus come to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, and with all our souls and with all our minds.
AMEN
Preached Sunday 25th October 2020