Outside love there is no salvation!
Year A – 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Matthew 22:34–40: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’
Last Sunday we witnessed a dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees, who had joined forces with the Herodians and tried to trap him over the question of paying tax to Caesar. This Sunday’s Gospel presents another controversy, once again with the Pharisees.
A) An innocent and relevant question?
Today’s controversy centres on a theological question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ The question is asked by a doctor of the Law, an expert in the Torah, a theologian, so to speak, who steps forward to test Jesus’ orthodoxy.
But where is the trap this time?
The question seems innocent and relevant. Indeed, seeking to regulate every aspect of life according to God’s will, rabbinic tradition had identified no fewer than 613 precepts in the Torah — the Pentateuch, that is, the first five books of the Bible — including the Ten Commandments.
According to a tradition recorded in the Talmud, these precepts were divided into 365 negative precepts, meaning prohibitions — things not to do — corresponding to the days of the solar year, and 248 positive precepts, meaning injunctions — things to do — corresponding to the parts of the human body as understood in ancient times. An evocative symbolism: every day of the year and every part of the body were called to observe God’s will! Within this dense network of precepts, however, people felt the need to discern what was essential.
The attempt to establish a hierarchy among the commandments was far from uncontroversial. Different approaches to interpretation existed within the Judaism of the time. The debate between the schools of two great teachers, Hillel and Shammai, was renowned. They lived around the turn of the first century BC and the first century AD.
Hillel’s school, generally more open and conciliatory, favoured a reading of the Law attentive to mercy and human relationships. This famous summary is attributed to Hillel: ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. This is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary’ (Babylonian Talmud). Shammai’s school, by contrast, was generally stricter in its interpretation and application of the precepts.
But if the question was relevant, where was the snare?
In Israel’s tradition, observance of the Sabbath held a central place because it recalled God’s own rest after the work of creation. Perhaps Jesus’ opponents expected him to name the Sabbath commandment as the most important. They could then have replied: ‘Why, then, do you and your disciples not observe the Sabbath?’ This was, indeed, one of the accusations they had already made against him (cf. Mt 12:1–14).
Jesus, however, takes them by surprise once again! He cites none of the Ten Commandments. He refuses to be caught up in a dispute about which rules take precedence, but goes to the heart of the Law, to its source and fulfilment: love!
Jesus recalls the Shema Yisrael, Israel’s great profession of faith (Deuteronomy 6:4–5), recited daily in the morning and evening, and repeated before going to sleep: ‘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 first commandment.’ He then places alongside it another passage from the Torah, taken from Leviticus (19:18): ‘The second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ The Teacher concludes with a solemn declaration: ‘On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.’ And that settles the matter!
Saint Augustine, who left us the famous exhortation, “Love, and do what you will”, offers us another insight of extraordinary depth: “Love of God is the first to be commanded, but love of one’s neighbour is the first to be put into practice.”
B) Some points for reflection
1. Love is the Law!
The First Letter of John offers one of the most profound commentaries on this Gospel: ‘This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother’ (1 Jn 4:21).
Remarkably, the whole letter unfolds like a spiral, constantly returning to the theme of love and exploring its demands and consequences ever more deeply: ‘We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers and sisters (…) This is how we have come to know love: he laid down his life for us, and we too ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters (…) Little children, let us love not in word or speech, but in deed and in truth’ (3:14–18).
Love for our brother or sister mirrors and tests the authenticity of our love for God. This is why Jesus will sum everything up in his new commandment: ‘Love one another as I have loved you’ (Jn 13:34; 15:12). Love, then, is neither a mere feeling nor one virtue among others. Love sums up the Christian life and is the key to our existence.
2. From god as master to God as Bridegroom
That God is love is by no means self-evident! Consequently, neither is the commandment to love. That ‘God is love’ is an astonishing revelation, not an obvious conclusion of human reasoning. It is a reality revealed by Scripture. The gradual journey towards the revelation of God as Love, and the transition from the rule of law to the rule of love, was a long process carried forward by the Prophets. Jesus brings it to fulfilment. And a Christian is someone who has believed in this astonishing revelation: ‘We have come to know and believe in the love God has for us. God is love’ (1 Jn 4:16).
Often, however, reality seems to contradict this revelation. Daily difficulties, the crosses and uncertainties of life, but above all the apparent triumph of evil, the suffering of the innocent and the spread of injustice, put our faith severely to the test.
Every day we are called to renew our faith in God who is Love!
On the day we truly believe in his love, Hosea’s prophecy will be fulfilled for us too: ‘On that day — declares the Lord — you will call me “My husband”, and no longer call me “My Baal, my master”’ (Hosea 2:18).
Meanwhile, we run the tragic risk of continuing to worship a ‘baal’, an idol, a false god to whom we sacrifice our energies and our very lives.
3. You shall love!
Pagan gods were often imagined as deities to be appeased through sacrifice and submission, under the rule of fear. The God revealed by Jesus Christ, however, desires free children, capable of responding to his love with love.
The verb to love — ahav in Hebrew — occurs 248 times in the Old Testament, according to the Italian biblical scholar Fernando Armellini. Regardless of the precise count, this figure attracts my attention because of its symbolic value: according to rabbinic tradition, 248 is the number of positive precepts, that is, things to do. It is almost as though this suggests that, ultimately, the only thing we are truly called to do is to love. And to do so always, every day of the year — all 365 of them, corresponding, again according to rabbinic tradition, to the negative precepts or prohibitions — and with every fibre of our being.
For reflection during the week
Read the First Letter of Saint John slowly, allowing ourselves to be drawn into its dizzying spiral of love.
Fr Manuel João Pereira Correia, MCCJ
Fr. Manuel João, comboni missionary
Sunday Reflection
from the womb of my whale, ALS
Our cross is the pulpit of the Word
