When the Pharisee in this passage, who is described as a ‘scholar of the law’ asked Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”, we can believe that his reason for asking it was not out of a desire to learn something, but to “test” Jesus. At this time in Jesus’ ministry, the Scribes and the Pharisees were trying to find ways to trip him up. They wanted to be rid of him and his challenge to their own authority. As a scholar of the law, this Pharisee would have been an expert in all of the 613 commandments (Mitzvot), recognized by Jews in the Torah. These included the Ten Commandments and other laws concerning moral, social, food, purity, and sacrificial matters.
Jesus, of course, knew their intent, and he gave the Pharisee an answer that they did not expect and that they could not argue against because Jesus’ words contained the authority and the fullness of truth, the whole of the truth, and nothing but the truth, so to speak. “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” (Mt. 22: 36-40). This seemingly simple utterance silenced the Pharisees. We can imagine their embarrassment at these words and the weight of truth they bore. He had shown them up in public once again. How could they argue against this simple, clear declaration? They understood immediately that Jesus’ response defines, unequivocally, the whole of the law and all of the prophets.
You may have recognized in Jesus’ response a direct correlation to the Ten Commandments. The first commandment, as he says, is to love the Lord, your God, with all of your being. This commandment encompasses the first three commandments of the Decalogue that reveal to us how we are to love God before all else. For if we love God alone, above all else, and we will not put other gods before him in the form of things, ideas, images, or persons of any kind, we will keep his name hallowed in our all of our thoughts and our words, and we will honor him by keeping the sabbath sacred as a time of rest, worship, and thanksgiving.
It follows naturally, then, that the remaining seven of the commandments relate to how we are to love our neighbor. We do this by committing ourselves to love and honor our parents in word and deed (4th Commandment); by counting life as sacred, holy, worthy of being protected and promoted and defended in all times and in all ways, from conception to natural death (5th Comm.); by holding the integrity of our bodies and those of others as sacred, and that they should always be used and treated with infinite dignity, honor, and respect (6th Comm). When we love others as ourselves, we would always respect their property, being as careful about their things as we are about our own (7th Comm.). We would honor their personal dignity and their reputation by always knowing and speaking truth to them and about them, just as we would want them to speak about us (8th Comm.). If we truly love our neighbors, we would be pure in heart in all of our relations with them, always honoring and promoting their own married and family relationships with our words and our deeds and never despoiling or ‘coveting’ them with our sexual thoughts, words, or deeds (9th Comm.). And finally, the 10th Commandment unfolds and completes the 9th, that is, because we hold our treasure not in material things but in things above, we would never covet our neighbor’s goods.
You have heard the term, “I’m all in!” in relation to one’s commitment to something to be done in some area of one’s life. We might ask ourselves here, “Am I all in with my love for God and my neighbor? Do I put my whole self into my love for God, that is, my mind, my soul, and all of my strength? Does my wholehearted love for God then translate directly into my love for my neighbor in all that I do in my daily life? If we are honest with ourselves, we most likely would have to say, “No, I am not putting my all into this.” This, though, is not a reason for despair, but for hope, for it implies that though I have failed momentarily, there is nothing but opportunity ahead of me to keep trying and trusting in God’s mercy and his grace to help me along the way. God knows our hearts. He knows our deepest hopes and desires. He will not abandon us in our sincere efforts to love him more and more and, in turn, to love all of our neighbors as we wish to be loved ourselves. After all, Jesus tells us, it is in these two commandments that the whole of the law and the prophets, and our own journey to holiness, depend. It is in our wholehearted, willing, and joyful submission and obedience to these two commandments alone that all of our human desires for justice, peace, love, and mercy can be fulfilled in this world.
Lord, teach us your paths, guide us in your truth, give us the grace of faith, hope, and the courage to love you above all else and our neighbors as ourselves. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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