Proper 25 | Loving God and our neighbors

Lectionary Readings for Proper 25a | Psalm 1; Exodus 22: 21-27; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46

|Collect|

Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us the gifts of

faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain what you

promise, make us love what you command; through Jesus

Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy

Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

GOSPEL READING

Matthew 22:34-46

³⁴When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, ³⁵and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” ³⁷He said to him,“’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

⁴¹Now 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.” ⁴³He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, ⁴⁴‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’?⁴⁵If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” ⁴⁶No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

Our first question is always…. ‘what did this mean then?‘

First, Jesus quotes the quiensential creed of faith in Judaism, The Shema. He wasn’t stating a new rule as much as summarizing all of the commandments & laws (oral and written).

Secondly, the question from the Pharisees was not necessarily a trick question, but one that was common to ask Rabbis in that time. In the Babylonian Talmud, there are several recorded passages that ask, ‘which commandment is the greatest?’ I love reading the answers from the various sources.

Hillel’s ‘Silver Rule’ especially caught my attention:

Once there was a gentile who came before Shammai, and said to him: “Convert me on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot. Shammai pushed him aside with the measuring stick he was holding. The same fellow came before Hillel, and Hillel converted him, saying: That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it.”

Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a

Our next question goes to both what he meant and how does it apply to us…

Practically, Jesus had already laid out what it meant to love our neighbor with the parable of the Good Samaritan & the parable of the Sheep and Goats. Our love of neighbor was no longer to based on national or religious identity, but on the common thread of humanity. Our love of neighbor wasn’t also to be limited to formal programs of charity but to helping the helpless, feeding the hungry, visiting the imprisoned & clothing the naked where we are now.

For kids, this may be hanging out with the outcast, giving away toys or even giving up their time to people who need human contact like the elderly or shut-ins. Loving is a bigger verb than just you or I can handle. Loving means giving up all that is within us to love God and to love our neighbors. We need to make sure to show that loving God and loving our neighbor CANNOT be separated, if you don’t love one, it’s hard if not impossible to love the other correctly. For those following the lectionary, connect the story of the angry King and the wedding guest who declined the invitation or who weren’t prepared to the idea that following the greatest commandment prepares us to be in persona Christi (‘as the person of Christ’) to our family, friends, neighbors and enemies.