Matthew 22:34-40

 THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR A

Commentary of Fr. Fernando Armellini

Greetings to all. 

Matthew relates Jesus's disputes with his adversaries in the last part of his Gospel. One senses a growing resentment towards him; relations became increasingly strained, and, in fact, shortly after that, they went so far as to condemn him to death. Two of these disputes we have already encountered in the past Sundays; remember that the chief priests who had stood before him in the temple had questioned him (with a stern face): "Who has allowed you to teach here? We are responsible for all that goes on in the Temple... Who authorized you?" And Jesus had answered them: "There is an authority that does not come from you. The Baptist, for example, from whom had he received the authority to preach? He had not asked it of you; he had received it directly from God; therefore, there is an authority superior to yours." Therefore, they were troubled. 

Last Sunday, we heard the second dispute when they approached him, trying to get him to take a stand concerning the payment of tribute to Caesar to accuse him before the Roman authority or to discredit him before the people. But there was also a third dispute that we did not see last Sunday. It was the one with the Sadducees. These descendants of the high priest, who held political and the highest religious office, had come to him to ridicule his belief in the resurrection by presenting him with the famous example of that woman who had had seven husbands... 

Today, we find Jesus involved in a fourth controversy, and this time, the attack on him will be in the theological field; the rabbis feel well prepared because they know the scriptures inside out. Why do they want to involve Jesus in a new controversy? The reason is that they consider him a heretic, one who subverts religious practice, who scandalizes the people, who do not practice the fasts, who do not perform the purifications, and who, moreover, associate with publicans, sinners, and women of doubtful life. But above all, who spreads what they consider the greatest heresy because he goes about telling people that the Lord God of Israel loves all, that he makes no distinction between good and bad while they teach that God rejects sinners, that he hates them, and turns away; Jesus affirms, on the other hand, that the Lord also loves them. That is why they feel the duty to discredit him before the people. Let us hear what question they ask him: 

“When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them [a scholar of the law] tested him by asking, ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’” 

To begin with, it is worthwhile to extend the mention to the dispute that Jesus had with the Sadducees about the resurrection in which he concluded, "covering their mouths," as the Gospel text describes it. 

The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. That is why Jesus quotes them in a text from Exodus in which God appears to Moses, saying to him: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob." And he asks them: "Does it seem possible to you that God presents himself as a God of people who are dead? If he presents himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it means that these patriarchs are alive." They did not know what to answer, and the Pharisees, their adversaries, were super pleased that Jesus "closed their mouths." 

The Sadducees and the Pharisees did not agree on practically anything; the Sadducees came from the aristocracy; they belonged to the priestly caste—unlike the Pharisees, who belonged to the middle classes—they used religion to enrich themselves. They only accepted the first five books (the Torah) from the Bible, refuting the remaining ones (they did not consider the books of the prophets, for example, because the prophets criticized certain religious customs that, precisely, were part of their practice; and they also did not believe in the resurrection. 

The Sadducees cared about being well off in this world. Since they had a lot of money, they only thought about this life; religion, in their conception, served to ask God for favors and be well off here. Let's be careful because a certain Sadducee mentality of using religion to obtain graces, get favors from God, and feel good here is also present in some Christians today. 

But, at last, we will see Pharisees and Sadducees allying because they have a common enemy. Last Sunday, we already saw two opposing groups, both religiously and politically—the Herodians and the Pharisees—oppose a common enemy. And now, we see how Pharisees and Sadducees come together for the same purpose. They could not stand each other, but they allied themselves, and they decided to choose among them the best rabbi they had: a νομικός (nomikós), a Doctor of the Law, a learned biblical scholar, to send him to Jesus and try to deceive him. They want to discredit him in front of all the people. 

I want to say a few words also about these Pharisees. Such as, in the Christian community, the Sadducee mentality is present, and so is the Pharisaic mentality. Jesus was always very concerned that this mentality would infiltrate among his disciples. Unlike the Sadducees, the Pharisees were highly esteemed by the people; they cared about their prestige and feared that Jesus, with his preaching, would alienate them from this popular sympathy they enjoyed. I believe, however, that the majority of the Pharisees acted in good faith because they acted convinced that they were in their right to defend the cause of God. They were conscientious observers of all the precepts of the law. In his Letter to the Philippians, Paul proudly declares: "As for the observance of the Torah, I was a blameless Pharisee, and as for zeal for God, I was a Church persecutor." And then, in the Epistle of Timothy, he will say: "First, I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, a violent one, but God showed me mercy because I acted in good faith, I was acting out of ignorance.” 

I think most of the Pharisees were like that. They felt like it was their duty to oppose Jesus, who challenged all their traditions. Let us be careful because today, the same bona fide error can be repeated; one can take sides against the Gospel because one wants to remain faithful to certain convictions, to certain traditions that the Gospel wanted to undermine, wanted to be set aside (the Gospel is like a double-edged sword that penetrates the innermost part of the heart and often demands radical changes). 

These Pharisees present themselves to Jesus together with the distinguished biblical scholar, a nomikós; they choose him because he should ask Jesus the question they have prepared: "Teacher, which is the great commandment of the Law?" Let us observe the question because it is very malicious. It is true that, in that context, there was a discussion about how many of the commandments were relevant and which were the most relevant. In Exodus and Deuteronomy, ten commandments are listed, but in Psalm 15, eleven are listed. The prophet Isaiah, on the other hand, in chapter 33, lists only six, and the rabbis had inferred in the Bible 610 with some rabbis arguing which were the most or the least important. Among them is Rabbi Hillel, who lived a generation before Jesus and made that distinction. 

On the other hand, Rabbi Shammai Jesus’s contemporary never wanted to hear about "light" commandments. One day, a pagan came to him and said: "I want to become a Jew," and asked him to summarize quickly the Torah. And, naturally, the pagan was beaten up because there were no "light" commandments. This is not the meaning of the question that the rabbi of this gospel asks Jesus. He does not question him to know which is the greatest commandment but the only great one. 

And the question is not innocent because they do not want to test whether Jesus is ready (they know that). They also know the great commandment well (even children know it). It is what God observes: the Sabbath. That is why this question is not benevolent. It is as if, during the night, I am driving at 120 km/h in a residential area, and the policeman who stops me asks me how fast I can go in a residential area. Of course, I know I must answer 50 km/h. And if I tell him: "At 50", he will say, "Why were you going 120?"

In the same way, the rabbi asked Jesus the question to attack him. If Jesus answered that the great commandment is the Sabbath, he would immediately say: Why do you not keep it? Jesus kept the Sabbath, but not as they observed it... Let us listen to his answer: 

“He said to him, ‘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.’” 

Jesus did not answer as they expected. And therefore, they were bewildered and could not continue with the accusation they had prepared. But what astonished them the most was that Jesus did not introduce the great commandment by saying that one had to obey orders, precepts, and the duty to be submissive to God. None of this. It was the pagan gods that demanded people to be submissive and obedient. Not the God of Jesus of Nazareth. The God of Jesus of Nazareth wants free people ("You shall love..."). Free to love. All who want to be happy must be involved in the unconditional love of God. This is the great commandment.

The verb "to love" (מְאוֹהָב, ohav in Hebrew) is repeated 248 times in the Old Testament. What may surprise us is that, in the oldest texts of the Bible, the verb "to love" is not attributed to God; to him alone is attributed strong passions: he is indignant, grieves, and commands. In the most ancient texts, we do not find the image of a tender and sweet God. What is the consequence of this image of God? If it is true, what can it be? Fear. The people of Israel one day turn to Moses and say: "You speak to us; we will listen to you; let not God speak to us; otherwise, we shall die." They were afraid after the spectacle they had witnessed at the foot of Mount Sinai. In the face of this severe God, what does a man do? He bows his head; he observes his commands with fear and trembling; he fears punishment. 

How do we also find this God who instills fear with his commands in the Bible? It is essential that, when reading the Bible, remember that it progressively presents us with God's revelation to Israel. In the Bible, we find the account of the history of love between God and his people, but Israel did not immediately discover the full beauty of the face of their God. It understood it little by little. It started from the conception of God, which all the other peoples of the Ancient Middle East also had; they thought that each people had its own god; then, at one point, they realized that God was one and that the Lord God of Israel was the God of the universe. 

Then God sent the prophets to enlighten his people, and the prophets shed new light on the face of the one God. They introduced the tender images of a God, who presents himself as the Bridegroom and invites people to a new relationship with him. No longer is the relationship of the employee who must obey his master's orders but that of the wife who loves freely and wants to make the Bridegroom happy. Spousal love does not obey precepts or commands; it is a joyful impulse, the willingness to do everything that can make the beloved happy. They also immediately introduced the familiar image of God: God who is father, God who is mother. In the 49th chapter of Isaiah, we find the wonderful maternal image of God when Jerusalem complains and says: "My Lord has forsaken me; the Lord has forgotten me." And God responds: "Does a woman forget the son of her womb and is not moved with pity for him? Even if the woman forgets her son, remember that I will never forget you.” 

The danger is to get stuck in the archaic images of God in the Bible and not open our hearts to the new light that the prophets progressively introduced. 

The Pharisees and Sadducees confronting Jesus are stuck, glued to archaic images. They have not opened their hearts to the prophets' message or assimilated the psalmists' spiritual sensitivity. Indeed, these Pharisees and Sadducees are unprepared to grasp this Jesus before them. They do not see in him the complete revelation of the beauty of the face of God. It would have been enough to look at him, but first, they should have let themselves be prepared by the Scriptures. 

Jesus loves these men, his opponents; he wants to free them from subjection and the fear of God and to be free from the fear of God, to be happy, partakers of the joy of those conscious of being unconditionally loved by the true God. So, what does Jesus do? He does not speak of obeying. The Gospels never say we have to obey. Jesus is obeyed by the wind, by evil spirits, by the waves of the sea, but never by people. Jesus never says that it is necessary to obey, not even to God. The Son of God does not obey; he resembles the Father in heaven. In the Gospels, there is no such term as 'obedience' (ὑπακοή, hutapoé); it does not exist. To obey God means to obey the identity of sons and daughters that he has given us, to recognize it, and to live according to that identity. 

Even when Jesus obeys his Father, he does not follow orders; he obeys his identity as Son. In his response, Jesus does not recall commands and duties to obedience; he remembers the profession of faith, which the pious Jew recites twice daily, in the morning and the evening, facing Jerusalem. There is also a third time in which the Jew makes this profession of faith, and it is before going to sleep. This profession of faith is the one found in Deuteronomy chapter 6, the famous Shema Israel שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֶחָד׃ Šəmaʿ Yīsrāʾēl YHWH ʾĕlōhēnū YHWH ʾeḥād. ("The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind."). 

What does it mean to love God with all our hearts? The heart, for us, is the center of emotions and also for the people of Israel; however, for them, the heart was also the center of all thoughts, of all choices, of all decisions. "With all the heart" means that there are no spaces left that do not belong to God. All decisions, all thoughts, and all choices are made in tune with him; there are no spaces reserved for others, for idols. The God of Israel is jealous. If you bind your heart a little to him and a little to other lovers, you will not be happy; you will not be fully realized as his son or daughter. We know lovers do not accept that the beloved person shares the heart with another. They want it all for themselves. We know that the husband, the wife, loves to be told: "I am all yours." That's the heart that God wants; if you are genuinely in love with God, then you are in love with God. 

And what does it mean to love him with all your soul? "Soul" (ψυχή, psyche, in Greek, and נֶ֫פֶשׁ, nefesh, in Hebrew) means the whole person. No gaps in life can be reserved to indulge our idols, our pride, our laziness, our vanity, no. The whole person surrenders to the one love. 

And with the entire mind. Who does the one who loves think about? Of the beloved. And everything he sees reminds him of the beloved. A melody reminds him of the special one; the flower reminds him of when together they made the first declaration of love... Everything reminds him of the beloved. Therefore, the true believer's interest is in the search for God. The thought is constantly directed to him, like the lover and the beloved, and, therefore, true faith and true adherence to God, says Jesus, must also involve the mind. 

This was not in the book of Deuteronomy. The profession of faith says: “With all your face,” which is translated as “with all your heart, soul, and strength.” Jesus adds, “with all the mind.” That is to say that adherence to God results from a meditated, conscious choice that is reasonable, like all true love; otherwise, they are infatuations that do not hold up—when one is only infatuated, a new lover arrives, and the first love is immediately forgotten—. 

That is the adherence to God that Jesus asks for. "With the whole mind" means to know how to give reasons for one's choice of faith, which must be very reasonable. True love comes from the discovery of the beauty of the loved one. Therefore, if you do not know Jesus through his Gospel, your adhesion to him will always be very poor; it will be reduced to the following an easy momentary infatuation that later, like all fragile loves that have no basis also in intelligence, will soon fail. So, let us remember that the one who does not dedicate time to studying the word of God means that he does not love with all his mind; he who cannot give reasons for his choice does not love with all his mind. 

Those present must have been surprised and bewildered by Jesus' answer; no doubt it was a moment of surprise and bewilderment. No sooner had they recovered than Jesus introduced a second love as great as the first. Let us listen: 

“The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” 

Jesus tried to make the Sadducees and Pharisees reflect on the profession they repeated daily. “You shalt love the Lord thy God,” Jesus said, does not refer to subjection, the obligation to obey commands, or the precepts for fear of punishment. This is a pagan way of dealing with the Lord. And he, as he wants to make them happy, tries, by all means, to introduce them to the new relationship with the Lord, a relationship that will give them joy because it makes them feel unconditionally loved. You will not be happy if you misbehave, but he still loves you. And when you feel loved freely, you, too, will learn to love freely. 

Jesus keeps talking about loving because we are made to love. God has programmed us to do so. To love does not mean looking for what we like; to love means looking around us to see who we can make happy. And that's why our gaze is directed upwards: We are called to make God happy with our love. We can make him happy by living harmoniously with his thoughts and feelings. The wife is happy in complete love and harmony with her husband. 

Moreover, our gaze is not only directed upward; we must not only make God happy. We are programmed to make the ones we see next to us happy, the brother who needs our service, our love. This is the reason why, at first, 'you shalt love,’ upward, Jesus immediately adds a second one: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus did not invent this second 'you shalt love'; he took it from the book of Leviticus, where God makes a poignant recommendation: “Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your own people. You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18). And my neighbor is meant Israel. 

I would translate the expression לֹֽא- תִקֹּ֤ם וְלֹֽא- תִטֹּר֙ אֶת- בְּנֵ֣י עַמֶּ֔ךָ וְאָֽהַבְתָּ֥ לְרֵעֲךָ֖ כָּמֹ֑וךָ אֲנִ֖י (lō-ṯiq-qōmwə-lō-ṯiṭ-ṭōr'eṯ-bə-nê'am-me-ḵā, wə-'ā-haḇ-tālə-rê-'ă-ḵākā-mō-w-ḵā) As "You shall love the one next to you" (kā-mō-w-ḵā), the one who is like you, because he is like you.” In chapter 58, the prophet Isaiah says, "He is your flesh." 

If we were to reflect on this truth that he whom we see beside us is like us, of our flesh, would we not think before we commit certain crimes? 

Nevertheless, this love ‘for those who belong to your people’ is only the first step. Love as Jesus understands it does not stop here; the gaze must go beyond this. Already, the Old Testament had gone a step further. The Lord had made it clear to his people that love should go beyond the borders of the Israelites. Deuteronomy has a poignant recommendation: "The Lord says: ‘Your God loves the stranger; he gives him bread and clothing.’ Therefore, love the stranger, and remember that you also were strangers in Egypt.’" But how does God feed and clothe the stranger? He tells us again in the book of Deuteronomy, always with a poignant provision, in chapter 24: "When you mow your field, and you forget a panel of ears of corn, you shall not pick it up again; it shall be for the stranger." This is very beautiful. The rabbis said: "Do you know how the Lord feeds the stranger? By making one of his people forget a few ears of corn." And, still, in chapter 24, he adds: "When thou gather in thy vineyard, you shalt not gather all the clusters of grapes again; what you have forgotten shall be for the stranger." Another passage shows where this second 'you shalt love' should go. 

But Jesus went even further. The measure of love for another is not "as yourself" but "Love one another as I have loved you." The love Jesus speaks of involves being willing to lay down one's life. Furthermore, on the lips of Jesus, the term 'neighbor' includes every person; all are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the one Father. And there is still one last step, the most difficult one, to accept this 'you shalt love' which we find on the lips of Jesus. It now has a much broader meaning than it used to mean in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy: it must also reach the enemy. When you look around you and your enemy needs you to be happy, you must make yourself available and even give your life for those who have harmed you: "Now I say to you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you." 

For what reason? Not to gain merit in heaven, but to be children of your heavenly Father. There is no greater reward than to hear from the heavenly Father: "You so love that I acknowledge you as your Father; you are truly my child because you love as I love, unconditionally." Without this love for our brother, even the love for God does not exist. The First Letter of John in chapter 4 says, "If one says: ‘I love God’ but does not love his brother, he is a liar. He who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he say that he loves God whom he does not see?’" This is the commandment we have received from him: He who loves God, let him love his brother also. 

Thus, we see how this 'you shalt love' is not a commandment from outside but from our nature as children of God. Our nature is programmed for love; it leads us to love. The seed of life we receive from the Father in heaven is manifested as we allow ourselves to be guided by our identity as children of God. And since every person has received this gift of the divine nature, it should come as no surprise that even those who have not known the Gospel can come to love even the enemy, for it is the nature of the son and daughter of God that dictates the commandment to love. 

However, we also observe that it is difficult to love one's brother when there is no reference to the love of God. He who has no faith behind him and has not become conscious of being involved in the unconditional love of the Father in heaven will find it much more difficult to love in certain situations, such as forgiving a spouse for a betrayal, to do good to someone who has wronged you very seriously, to put up with unpleasant people, and, above all, to detach your heart from your possessions to put them at the disposal of anyone in need... even if he is an enemy. If you do not know the gospel and do not keep constantly in touch with the message of Jesus of Nazareth, you will find all this much more difficult. 

Jesus says these two commandments 'depend' on the whole Law and the prophets. Here is an important Greek verb: κρέμαται (krématai), which translates as "depend." It conceptually alludes to a hook, a firm point that holds everything else together. In the same way, the whole biblical message of Jesus is connected to these two, 'you shall love' as a hook on which the entire word of the Lord rests. 

We observe no response from the Pharisees and Sadducees. However, from the following events, we will conclude that not even Jesus could detach them from their convictions. They continued to worship their god, that lawgiver-justice god, and it was precisely because of their love for it that they would come to condemn Jesus. 

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.