Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
My dear parishioners,
God is Good!!! All the time!!! And all the time!!! God is Good!!!
At Sinai, the tribes of Israel become covenant partners with God. As with any such agreement, there are expectations demanded of both parties. Already the chosen people have seen for themselves how committed God is to the covenant; God has delivered them from oppression in Egypt and protected them all along the way to Sinai. Now it is time for God, through the agency of his servant Moses, to explain what kind of commitment is expected of the people of Israel. The precise details of this code of conduct make it perfectly clear what they must do to remain a faithful partner in this covenant. They need not fear that their bond with God can be broken by some inadvertent offense.
Today’s Gospel is based on a story found in Mark 12:2–34. In Mark the exchange between Jesus and a scribe is positive. In Matthew the tone has been neg[1]atively modified; the exchange is between a Pharisee who was a scholar of the law (scribe) and Jesus. Here the motive is to test Jesus. Behind this whole story is the growing animosity between Matthew and the leaders of the Pharisees. It will reach a breaking point in Matthew chapter 23.
The test. Jesus has just finished putting the Sadducees in their place with the issue regarding the resurrection (22:23–33). A scribe takes this opportunity to test Jesus with a question about which commandment of the law is the greatest. In and of itself, this would not have been a bad inquiry. The rabbis often discussed among themselves this very question. However, their motive was to gain a deeper understanding of the Torah—not to test one another.
The first commandment. Jesus answers the scholar of the law as would almost every faithful Jew. He quotes the famous text from Deuteronomy 6:4–9. That text begins: “Hear O Israel. The Lord is our God the Lord alone.” More detail is supplied as Jesus continues, “You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Below the surface here is an emphasis on mercy and human relations before worship and attention to God. This might have been the reason the Pharisee attempted to test Jesus. Many rabbis would agree that all the commandments were equally great and needed to be kept with equal vigor. Still, the question about the greatest continued to be discussed.
The second commandment. The Pharisee asked only about the greatest commandment. Jesus addresses that question but then continues on to present a second commandment, which he claims is like the first. This second commandment comes from Leviticus 19:29: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus then proclaims that these two commandments summarize the whole law and the prophets. The phrase “law and prophets” refers to the fulness of divine revelation. We are reminded what Jesus proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount: “Whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (5:17). Excerpts from “Sunday Homily Helps”, is used by permission of Franciscan Media. www.FranciscanMedia.org
Sincerely in Christ,
Fr. Aloysius