Twenty-second Sunday of Pentecost, Proper 25, 29 October 2023: Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46
The Pharisees ought to have known better by this point in Jesus’ ministry. If you ask Jesus questions, you will not come out of it well. In today’s gospel, they ask what is the greatest commandment. Jesus answers with complete orthodoxy.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 6:5, the start of the sermon of Moses before the Israelites enter the land they are to be given. Moses tells the Israelites to “Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.“(Deut 6:7-9) In other words, Moses had told the people of Israel that this was their central obligation. To this day, Jews put a mezuzah on their doors, and rolled inside is a scroll with the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 6:6-9, 11.
But Jesus adds another commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. This is taken from another version of commandments given by Moses, and the full text of the verse is interesting: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord“. (Lev 19:18)
Jesus continues, telling the Pharisees that “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Again, this was not a controversial statement. Many discussions of the Ten Commandments refer to the two tables, with the first set of commandments being our duties to God, and the second set our duties to our neighbor. You can certainly fit all of the ten commandments under these two.
These two commandments are thus central to Jews and to Christians. But we all know that both of these are simultaneously simple and hard. Jesus’ answer invites more questions. What does it mean to love God with all our heart? what does it mean for our human loves? And how should we love ourselves? Because only if we know how to love ourselves do we know how to love our neighbors.
I confess that this week, as we watch the terrible violence in Israel and especially Gaza, I was particularly struck by the full text of the verse Jesus references for the second part of his statement. “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people.” We are singularly bad at this as individuals and as societies. I suspect that I’m not the only one who remembers vividly the ways I think someone or other has hurt me. I hold grudges. And we do it as nations. We hold grudges, and we seek vengeance.
There is nothing simple about loving our neighbors, even without thinking we should not hold grudges. Yet we often feel helpless in the face of violence and vengeance. The violence is Gaza is grounded in a long history of both antisemitic violence and violence against Palestinians. In the Episcopal Church’s office of Government Relations email calling for a ceasefire, they suggest both reaching out to those with political power, and prayer. Here is what Bishop Curry said this week:
Prayer matters and makes a difference. We must pray. So, pray for wisdom and moral courage for world leaders so that violence does not beget more violence—because violence doesn’t work, and violence will not bring about a just and sustainable and enduring peace.
We can all pray. So let us pray, that we and those throughout the world may learn to love God, and love our neighbors.