Proper 25A – Sunday, October 23, 2011
Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18 --- 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 --- Matthew 22:34-46
Matthew situates today's gospel passage at the beginning of Jesus' last week. Only yesterday, Jesus made a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, seated on a donkey, treading palms and coats thrown on the ground.
In only four days, Jesus will die the infamous death of a crucified. At this stage, the spring is still being wound up that will burst into tragedy before the Passover even begins.
It is Monday. Jesus is teaching. And several religious factions seek to challenge him into dishonor. He will win every challenge. And we can imagine that this only heightened his opponents' desire to do away with him.
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Last Sunday's Gospel reminded us of the Pharisees' challenge to Jesus about paying taxes to the Empire. The lection of today alludes to a second challenge; this time, from the Sadducees, and about the resurrection of the dead.
Today's third challenge seems mild in comparison. Maybe it is even a genuine question, not a trap. Maybe a Pharisaic opponent was so allured by Jesus' masterful response to the two earlier challenges that he just had to ask a most important question to Jesus. Maybe.
The Greek text of that question could be rendered into "Teacher, what sort of commandment is of great import?" This would have been a critical question for a Pharisee.
They were religious practitioners who tried to obey every commandment in the Torah. That’s no less than 613 commandments (248 positive injunctions and 365 prohibitions, to be exact). Many would have entered into discussions as to which commandments were the heaviest and which were lighter.
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Jesus answers this last challenge succinctly and with authority. He quotes scripture. He puts a hierarchy in his answer.
"`You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'The first part of Jesus' answer is a quote from Deuteronomy (6:5). It is said by our Jewish brethren as part of their most cherished prayer, the Shema.
This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
The second part of Jesus' answer is a quote from Leviticus (19:18). We read that passage this morning.
I shall come back to these commandments, if only too briefly -- for all of our religion should flow from their combination.
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The second pericope in today's gospel reading seems puzzling to modern readers. This part about David and Messiah. I believe that it is an integral part of Jesus' response to the three challenges that Matthew has described in this chapter of the gospel.
These challenges all attempt to strip Jesus of any authority to teach. Their sequence shows all the worry that Jesus' opponents feel. They don't want anyone to get any ideas that this young rabbi might be the Anointed One of God, the Messiah. He doesn't fit their bill, therefore he can't be genuine in their minds.
But in Jesus' rhetorical question to his challengers, he introduces the idea that a Davidic ancestry is irrelevant in identifying the Messiah. Once more with scripture at the ready (this time Psalm 100:1 allegedly composed by David himself), Jesus undermines the Messianic expectations of his challengers.
Jesus continues to drive home to them that the Messiah is so much more and so different than the Messiah they have neatly boxed for their political and religious convenience.
So, Jesus crushes verbally three onslaughts from his opponents and, having demonstrated his natural authority, he crushes their preconceptions of the Messiah.
How many of his hearers did have a conversion experience that day and understood Him to be Messiah? Not enough to stop the dynamic that would put him on a cross by week's end.
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Now back to the two commandments that the Messiah teaches us are of greatest import. In these two commandments, Jesus gives us a summary of his mission and ministry. The two commandments interpret one another and the two need to stand together.
In a more hebraic rendering from the Greek text, they read:
"`You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your intelligence.'The aim of our life is orient all of our being and all of our existence towards God. In so doing, we are to love as God loves.
This is the greatest and first of the mitzvoth. And a second is like it:
You shall love your companion as yourself.'
On these two orders hang all of Torah and the inspired ones."
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And what does God love? God loves all of creation, with no exception. We are to love all that God loves.
Now, all is all. We are not allowed to exclude anything or anyone, not even our enemies. As Matthew reports Jesus saying earlier in his gospel: "God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."
We are even to love God's sun and God's rain. We are to keep no part of creation out of our love and concern. It all hangs together in the loving hands of the Creator, we are not to consider any of it as disposable or beyond our care.
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We are to love as God loves - without discrimination. We are to love what God loves - everything. Because God is the source of all Being and God loves all of God's creatures.
By the way, love of self is included in all this but it is not emphasized; rather it is assumed it should be there. Self-hate is not like God’s Love. Self-absorption is not like God’s Love. But I am deeply lovable and loved and so are you.
So, we are to love like God; we are to love everything, everyone and indiscriminately. This is a big God. This is a big Love. We are going to need to keep stretching. But it is better than to stick around within the box where we'd like to keep a God more to our proportions, one who loves as I love, one who loves what I love.
As W. Paul Young, author of "The Shack" once wrote: " The only reason that God is ever in a box is because God wants to be where you are."
Step out of your box, Love the God who awaits you there and let your Love expand divinely.
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