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greatest commandment, love, love God, love your neighbor as yourself, Matthew, The Sophia Center for Spirituality
There is never a question for me when the reading from the gospel of Matthew, chapter 22, verses 34-40 shows up in the daily lectionary. The answer to the question that Jesus had been asked by a scholar of the law to test him is all we need to know to order our lives and relationships. At least that’s how it seems to me.
Question: Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?
Answer: 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 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.
Most of us can recite it from memory but do we remember it as we go about our day?
From the mouth of Moses to the gospel of Mark the Scriptures repeat the same message about how we are to live. We hear it today, not in a long diatribe but rather a brief directive about love. When asked what is the first and greatest commandment, we can all likely reply – at least with the short form of “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” The deep impact of what that effort calls out from us, however, is in the almost staccato list of capacities that follows. We are to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength. In other words: Give it all you’ve got!
One of the interesting facets for me of this blogging activity is the ability to track not only numbers of “hits” but also where readers come from. The numbers range usually somewhere between 20 and 40 readers in a day and generally the majority are residents of the United States. Last fall there was a period where – for a few weeks – numbers were consistently between 60 and 80 each day before they settled again into the 40 – 50 range. It all seems random to me but interesting nonetheless.
Today’s gospel (MK 1:29-39) finds Jesus very busy. The text recounts his ministry in this manner: he goes to synagogue (likely to preach) with some of his disciples, then to the house of Simon Peter whose mother-in-law lies ill. He heals her, eats a meal, maybe has a little respite and then spends what appears to be a very long time healing all those who came to him with various maladies. Hoping for a little time to himself and God, he gets up before dawn the next day and goes to a deserted place to pray where, hopefully he got a brief chance to recharge. Nevertheless, he was interrupted by his friends who found him and said, “Everyone is looking for you.” His response sounds immediate and affirmative. “Let us go on to nearby villages,” he said, “that I may preach there also. For this purpose have I come.”
Our first real frost today has its effect on arthritic limbs even for those of us who feel it only in tiny places (one finger perhaps). It seems an appropriate metaphor for our state of heart after seeing the 26 faces of those killed in church on Sunday in a small town in Texas, victims from 17 months to 77 years old. “Frozen with shock,” disbelief and overwhelming sadness at this latest outrageous act, I read again today from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Whatever other commandments there may be are summed up, Paul says, in this saying, namely, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law. (ROM 13:10)
My first thought after reading the lectionary texts for today was that the fifth chapter of Matthew’s gospel is worth a whole life of reflection. It isn’t only the part that we know as the Beatitudes that teaches us how to live; the whole chapter is full of deeply meaningful concepts. It is clear from this preaching of Jesus that he did, indeed, come not to destroy the Mosaic Law but to fulfill it. When we read, “You have heard it said…” it’s clear that Jesus is specifying what was right action in earlier times and that he was urging his listeners to more, to go beyond what was an earlier norm to a deeper way of living. The example is clear today.
Today’s gospel (MK 12: 28-34) is always a reminder to me of the rootedness of Christianity, that our heritage is the same ancestry as that of Jesus, stretching back thousands of years. I am always moved when I think of Jesus growing up reading/chanting the same psalms that I do and there is something perhaps even more visceral about his answer today to the scribe who asked him to name the first of all commandments. I envision Jesus standing up straight, sun as back-lighting, raising his voice to respond: Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ehad. (Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.) I read a commentary recently that said, “The Shema does not have to be recited in Hebrew. It may be recited in any language the worshipper understands but the miracle of the Hebrew letters makes the prayer much more powerful in Hebrew even if you don’t understand the words.” I have found that to be true (as I’m sure some Christians find with some Latin hymns from our youth or others find in Sanskrit chants). I first learned a chant of the Shema some years ago in a Wisdom School session and continue to find in it a feeling of strength and identity that transcends the boundaries of religion. The meaning of the words is imprinted in me in a place deeper than my mind and calls me to an expansiveness that can only come from the heart.
