Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read Matthew 22:34–40
Chapter 22 of Matthew’s Gospel should be called the “mic drop chapter.” The Pharisees and Sadducees take turns quizzing Jesus, hoping to catch Him saying something heretical so they can undermine His authority.
Spoiler: it doesn’t work.
Right before this Sunday’s gospel passage comes a ridiculous question from the Sadducees, who ask Jesus whose wife a woman will be in the resurrection if she married the eldest of seven brothers and, as each one died, she married the next. This premise was meant to mock the idea of life after death, which the Sadducees disbelieved (Matthew 22:23–28). Because, I mean, who would be married to someone who has six brothers?!
Once Jesus untangles the puzzle of the seven brothers and highlights how the Sadducees don’t understand the Scriptures or the power of God, they are left speechless. And so the Pharisees take up the mantle, bringing us to this Sunday’s gospel.
One of the Pharisees, a lawyer, asks Jesus, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Matthew 22:35). He’s looking to narrow hundreds of commandments down to the one that matters most, and I can’t help wondering if the real question underneath is: What can I get away with? Neither group asks out of open curiosity or out of a willingness to hear. Their questioning comes from hearts that have already made up their minds.
The lawyer asks for one commandment, and Jesus gives him two: “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 the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39).
It’s as though Jesus is saying: How can you truly love God if you don’t also love your neighbor? And how can you love your neighbor without truly loving God?
In our fallen humanity, we may naturally love our neighbor, but without God’s grace, we are tempted to stop when it gets difficult:
Without the love of God, our love for neighbor too often stops at convenience. We find Truth loses its capital letter. After all, if someone’s choices make them happy, who are we to judge? But real love doesn’t mean agreeing with everyone, and it doesn’t mean walking away from them either. When we love God with our whole being, we can’t help but seek Him in everyone we encounter and love Him back through them.
This is why these two commandments are married: you can’t have one without the other.
There’s something else in this passage that strikes me: Jesus commands us to love. The sum of the laws, the prophets, and all of God’s teaching to the people of Israel to date hinges upon the commandment to love. How different this is from our culture today. Our faith doesn’t depend on how we feel, but on the choices we make. When we choose Christ, we are telling our feelings what is true, and in time, they often follow.
Jesus isn’t asking us to love God when we like what He has to say. He isn’t asking us to love Him when we get something out of it.
Jesus is asking us to love in full measure. He is asking for all of us.
Just as He will soon pour out His life as an offering to the Father on our behalf, so He asks us to give ourselves to Him without reserve.
Jesus commands us to love with all our heart: to give Him our first and best time in prayer, to love Him more than we love anyone or anything else.
He commands us to love with all our soul: to give Him our whole selves, even our sufferings and disappointments, to allow ourselves to be passionately pursued by our Creator.
And Jesus commands us to love with all our mind: to frame every thought with a heavenly perspective, aimed at loving Him, to find Him in the Scriptures, and to listen to His still, small voice.
Loving God with our minds isn’t about being book smart. Yes, of course we need to know the tenets of the faith, immerse ourselves in the Scriptures, and read the lives of the saints and the Church fathers! Some of the greatest saints were the simplest, even our Walking with Purpose patron saint, Therese of Lisieux. Knowing about God is no substitute for knowing God, for being in relationship with Him.
Loving God with our whole selves, coupled with loving our neighbors, sums up “the whole law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40). As always, Jesus' teaching is so simple, but so challenging to live out.
God knows this, and so He gives us the sacraments, a living connection to the Living Bread and His forgiveness always on offer. He gives us the saints as real-life examples of men and women who sinned, struggled, and suffered like us, but who also responded to the call of grace and were sanctified, truly becoming themselves by loving God and their neighbor with heroic virtue. And God gives us the gift of His mother, who intercedes, nurtures, and encourages us when we are discouraged by our littleness.
So when we are tempted, like those in Jesus’ day, to reduce our faith to a list of demands, let’s listen to the voice of Christ who breaks open His Word and exposes His heart which yearns for relationship, not just rules. Let’s respond to this invitation to love Jesus with our whole selves and to see our neighbor as an opportunity to be Christ’s hands and feet here on earth.
With you on the journey,
Tierney
Food for thought or journaling …
Where in your life do you feel God asking for you to surrender more fully your heart, mind, and soul to Him?
Lord Jesus, I renew my commitment to You to love You with my whole self. Help me to see You in all those who cross my path so that I can love You through them. Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything. Amen.
P.S. When we’re discouraged by our littleness, Mary is there to encourage us. To walk more closely with her this Advent, pray with House of Gold: A Journey into Advent, our Marian Advent devotional.
