25th October 2020. 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time Mt 22, 34-40
The disagreements between Jesus and the Pharisees continue. The Pharisees are trying to find a way to accuse him of whatever and are looking for a way to make him fall. Today they are going to tempt him with the commandments. The teachers of the law, the scribes and the Pharisees had turned the Law of Moses, the 10 Commandments, into a tangle of precepts, rules and laws. More than 600. The smallest aspects of daily life were regulated by some mandate: how often to wash their hands, what steps to take on the Sabbath, what to eat or not to eat… That is why they ask Jesus, faced with such an accumulation of mandates: what is the main commandment of the Law? Jesus answers with what they themselves should know: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and foremost commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. In these two commandments are upheld all the Law and the Prophets”.
It may seem surprising to us that Jesus puts love of neighbour on the same level as love of God: the second is like the first. Jesus is very clear that God cannot be loved only in theory, only with the heart or the mind. You love God in your neighbour, and to the extent that you love them, you are loving God. You can only fulfil the first commandment by fulfilling the second.
There is no greater love than to give one’s life for others. Thus Jesus fulfilled the will of the Father. So great was his love of God. Let us begin with those closest to us, those who share our daily lives with us, and from there let that love grow and spread to all.
Juan Ramon Gomez Pascual, cmf
