Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost |
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Scripture |
Matthew 22:34-46 34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” 41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: 42“What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, 44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord, 45 If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” 46 No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
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Devotional |
Jesus is still in the temple after the leaders are determined to show all that he is a teacher with no authority. Jesus has silenced the Pharisees and Herodians who tried to flattery to force him to side for or against Caesar. Now he has silenced the Saducees, the Pharisees led by a lawyer questions him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your might.” The command to love God is a command that reflects God’s love for Israel . This is the type of love reflected in the daily care of God’s people. The people knew what it means to love God. Jesus continues by quoting Leviticus 19:18b: “but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Ón these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” We are to treat our neighbors fairly and respectfully as outlined in Leviticus 19:17. “To love our neighbor as ourselves does not mean that we get to decide what such love means; rather to love well is constituted by practices such as outlined in Matthew 18:15-20, which provides an alternative to mistrust and vengeance.” 1 Jesus outlines a new attitude and process to follow in loving our neighbor. To learn how to love our neighbor, we must first learn to love ourselves as God loves us. “The challenge that Jesus presents by joining these commandments is to learn that one is loved by God so that one is thus able to love God and others. Such love requires a life time of training in which we are given the opportunity to have our self-centeredness discovered and overwhelmed.” 2 The trick question has turned into a totally new process of loving God and our neighbor while learning about ourselves. Do you agree that loving ourselves takes a lifetime of training? Are we willing to discover our self-centeredness? What about being overwhelmed? This greatest commandment becomes more challenging after we see it in a new light. 1 Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew, Grand Rapids : Brazos press, 2006. p. 19 |