Reflection for 25th October 2026
Greatest commandment
Matthew 22:34-46
Jewish faith is not terribly sentimental or pietistic. It tends to be down to earth. So much so there is barely any concept of an after life in biblical Judaism. The rabbis insist that the core, the guts, of the faith had to be able to declared succinctly; actually one rabbi went so far as to declare that it should be able to be done in no longer time than a person is able to stand on one foot. I don’t know how long that would give you to, as the epistle says, “give account of the hope that is in you.”
But that is what is happening in today’s gospel. Jesus is again embroiled in controversy, being tested and challenged. That was not entirely surprising, it was the way rabbis taught, a vigorous clashing of minds, interpretations. Conflict is what produced most of the New Testament; the letters and gospels were written because there was a background of challenge, dispute, the need for clarification.
Jesus is here being asked to make his tradition and scripture live for him and his hearers. Handle it, use it, apply it, befriend it. He is being asked to go to the heart of the faith. Cut through all the trappings and embellishments. What is it about. The question comes down to a very similar one we are often asked to face…How do you interpret the scriptures? It is there lurking in every single discussion or debate within the church. If it is not the opening question it will make its appearance at some stage.
And Jesus does not shirk the issue but gives a direct and clear answer. He does not fudge and he does not give the rather generalised answer that may have been expected. “All commandments are from God and so all are to be treated equally –so answer is – all are equally important”.
At the time of Jesus scholars had calculated there were six hundred and thirteen laws to be obeyed by faithful Torah observant Jews. Of those six hundred thirteen laws, two hundred forty-eight were positive commands—Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, or Honour your father and your mother, for example. Three hundred sixty-five were negative prohibitions (one for each day of the year so you have something you should not do to ponder each day!—you shall not kill, or you shall not steal, to quote two obvious examples. And then there were multiple interpretations of many of the laws, so that the matter of obeying or keeping “the law” was complex, to say the least.
Jesus answer is based on the part of the Hebrew scriptures known as the Shema, from the first word in the Hebrew text – Hear O Israel –
Interesting to note the first thing Israel is commanded to do is hear – shut up long enough to listen! “Hear O Israel the Lord your God is one God”. And if you do hear and hear with your spiritual ears attuned what you will actually hear is something prior to the first and most important commandment to love God. Oh yes, although it is the first commandment it is not the first thing we say or hear. No the first thing is You are loved by God.
Having established that we are now ready to hear the first commandment. You are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and might. What a beautiful thing. How exquisite that the first commandment is one to love the power that fires the universe, to fall in love with the Eternal. That that should be revealed as the secret towards which all people and all cultures reach. There are other times and places when we are implored, commanded, urged, beseeched to obey God, to worship God, to serve God, but here Jesus is quite unequivocal our first calling is to love God. Our relationship with the Creator of the universe is to be passionate one. It raises the distinct possibility that you can totally be convinced of the existence of God, but not love God. But as Jesus tells the story we are to learn to love God, and as we grow into that relationship it will complete the circle of love that has first found us. Any love we return to God is simply reflecting back what has first been put into our heart by God.
So Jesus has not invented something new; it is there in the scriptures; been there all along. Nothing new. The point being we do not need new teaching, we do not need to be told something we do not know. Love God. Just do it become it, let it soak into your bones and spirit and let that love take you into God.
There is a story that St John, when an old, blind and frail man used to be carried to the front of the church to deliver his sermon. There came a point when people began to be frustrated with him. About a month earlier he had delivered one of his shortest ever sermons, Love God, that is all. Just love God, and if you manage that, love your neighbour. Ooohh, deep they muttered, and the next week the same message, Love the Lord your God. Oh, bit the same as what we heard last week a few were heard to mutter upon leaving the church. And the third week, a simple message of love God, and your neighbour. By now a few of the leaders were appointed to have a word with the learned and revered apostle. Umm, a few of the brothers and sisters are starting to get a little restless that you are repeating yourself. Couldn’t we have something new? And John, gestured for them to come close to him, to lift his head so he could whisper, “Why do you seek something new and different before you have completed the calling that is already before you?”
For many of us the first of the two commandments cited by Jesus is harder to understand. What does it mean to love God with heart, mind, soul, and strength? The second commandment, the one about loving neighbour as self, is not easy to obey, but its meaning is rather clear—especially when we read it in Luke’s Gospel. There it is followed by the question “Who is my neighbour?” And we have the parable of the Good Samaritan to focus our thinking. To love neighbour is to care for woundedness wherever we find it and to reach beyond the narrow boundaries of the familiar and comfortable. Doing that is anything but easy, but understanding it is not all that difficult.
Jesus is trying to blur the boundary between Self and Other. Jesus is trying in the second Greatest Commandment to form an identity relationship between Self and Other, to see our lives as intertwined. That calls for what we call, “empathy”, the ability to stand in another person’s shoes and ask a simple question: “If this were me, what would I want?” Basically, “love your neighbor as you love yourself” is just another version of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Thomas Aquinas defined love as to will the good of the other. Not to feel warmly toward the other. Not to tolerate the other. To actively, structurally, sacrificially orient your will toward the flourishing of another person. It is a definition that cuts through every sentimental misreading of the commandment. Love is not a feeling that comes and goes. It is a choice, made again and again, in the direction of someone else’s good.
But Aquinas understood something else as well. The will cannot orient itself toward the other if the self is still crowding the center. You cannot will the good of someone you have quietly decided is beneath you. You cannot love, in the Thomistic sense, without first making interior room for the other person to matter as much as you do. That interior making-room has a name. It is called humility.
Sometimes we hear that you must first love yourself before you can love the other. That may or may not be case but it can be downright dangerous if we think we must spend a life time attending to our own self esteem by attending self help classes, ensuring our personal boundaries are intact, chanting positive self love mantras. Look there will be individuals who have been so abused while young, or those suffering from a major depression that enhancing self-esteem should be a therapeutic focus. But for most of us, I don’t think we need to spend a lot of time working on self-esteem but on self-forgetfulness.
I don’t believe Jesus is saying anything at all about self-esteem in the second Greatest Commandment. We turn Jesus message into, “The first thing you need to do is work on loving yourself. And when you’ve got that down then you can turn to loving others.” There are a lot of Christians spending their whole lives just working away on the first part of that equation.
In Christian terms loving yourself means forgetting yourself. Forgetting yourself because you don’t have to work at winning your status, esteem, your acceptance. That is a gift to you for the Eternal One. Now you can love others because you can have empathy, regard, love for them knowing it is not coming out of your account. Knowing there is not less empathy regard and love for you if your neighbour shares in it.
Now I could do a lot worse that say to you sit in silence for the rest of the time of this sermon and just let that sentence around your heart and spirit and will and mind. Love God…. love God with all you are worth, with all you have. Have you yet learnt to love God?