22 Pentecost: Which Commandment is the Greatest?

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
The question comes to Jesus during Holy week.
Right before his arrest and crucifixion.
It’s the last of the interrogations by the religious authorities in Matthew’s Gospel.
And it’s certainly a big one.
Perhaps THE biggest one.
Because here: Jesus gives us the overarching principle that will guide our lives.

Jesus’ response was both typical and not.
He begins his response in a rather predictable way: “‘You shall love the Lord your
God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
This is the greatest and first commandment.”
Here: Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6.

But that’s not all: because Jesus adds a bit more.
The Pharisees ask Jesus for the greatest commandment.
He gives it.

But then he gives the second greatest:
Which is not really a separate commandment:
But perhaps an explanation of how we can fully live into the first.
To love your neighbor as yourself.

This is a paraphrase of Leviticus 19 which says:
“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.”

Jesus then tells the Pharisees that all the “law and the prophets” The two major
bodies of text that make up the Hebrew Scriptures: Are dependent upon these
two commandments.

The Pharisees would have known all this: not just the paraphrased portion that
Jesus quoted:
But they would have known the entire passage by heart.

Now, we’ve talked millions of times about how our lives are meant to be lived out
in community.
That life is difficult.

Even the Christian life is difficult:
And we need each other to live it.
And we also know that Living in community is hard work.

Disagreements are bound to happen,
Other people will annoy you and you will annoy other people.
Our tendency: when we have disagreements: is to “cut and run”
To leave the community or relationship and find another one.

Funny enough: when we leave without resolving our issues,
When we go somewhere else:
We invariably find the same problems, the same disagreements, with others in
the new community.
When we leave out of anger:
Out of unresolved issues: History often repeats itself:
Behavior replicates itself and there is no reconciliation or opportunity for spiritual
growth.

We can act pious and holy all we want,
but unless we do the hard work of forgiveness and reconciliation:

Our faith is kind of a sham.

Nobody said it would be easy.

It’s easy to say we love our neighbors in the abstract –
But it’s much harder to put it into practice.

In fact, Jesus’ command to love our enemies sometimes seems easier.
We tend to push enemies away and keep them out of our lives.
It’s easy to love in the abstract, at arm’s length.
But maybe that’s not love at all.
Because Love, is about relationships.

It’s hard to love up close when things get messy:
loving our next-door neighbor, whose dog barks incessantly and who won’t do
anything about it;
or members of our congregation who don’t see things our way or just bug us;
or community leaders who don’t listen to our concerns;
or the priest who just doesn’t get it.

In each case, what makes it hard is the pride of our own egos:
The pride that seeks the self rather than the good of the other.
But letting go of the ego is the way of the cross:
The way of Christ.

As Christians: we uphold living in community--
Which means loving God and neighbor--
And by extension letting go of the need for fighting, vengeance and grudges.
It is a way of spiritual transformation that calls us into becoming more Christ-
like— and Into becoming spiritual adults.

Sister Joan Chittister, an author and nun writes:
“Adulthood is not a matter of becoming completely independent of the people
who lay claim to our lives. Adulthood is a matter of being completely open to the
insights that come to us from our superiors and our spouses, our children and our
friends, so that we can become more than we can even begin to imagine for
ourselves.”

This is the transforming power of God –

and it comes to us through our neighbors who are up close and in our face.
It comes to us by being in real relationship with one another.

Life in community is hard work.
And Jesus’ two commandments show us that we cannot love God and harbor
hatred for the people that God loves.
Loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, only comes with humility:
The humility to love the very people that God loves too.
Even those who seem to us to be unlovable.
Because, after all: none of us are fully loveable ALL the time.

And this is where we see the Grace of God.
The TRANSFORMING Grace of God.
When we are at our worst and most unloveable, God still comes to us.
That radical, unmerited love has the power to move our hearts to love our
neighbors:
Even the ones hardest to love.

Which is no easy work.
But we undertake it.

Quite imperfectly to be sure,
Because in doing so we experience grace, mercy, and healing in Action:
Not abstraction.
Laying down our egos, our long held grudges and resentments,
And seeking the way of love is where we find the fullness of life in Christ and one
another.

Let’s take a moment of silence together now,
To pray for those that are hard for us to love.
Try to think of those people, that make Jesus’ commandment to love your
neighbor challenging.
Let’s pray to have our hearts opened,
Healed,
Reconciled,
And ready to love those who seem unlovable.

Let’s pray for ourselves: that we might find the strength to love our Lord with our
whole heart, soul, an minds, and to love our neighbors (ALL our neighbors) as
ourselves.
Amen.

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