LENT 2016 – GOING TO JERUSALEM

Wednesday, February 24

The Greatest Commandment - Matthew 22: 34 - 40

            What would you ask Jesus if you met him face to face?

            I suspect most of us would make inquiries about some family issue, asking for his aid or intervention. Perhaps, you might ask his advice on some personal issue, getting his take on a decision you are facing or about how to solve a problem that you are having. Maybe it would be about some relationship advice or marriage counseling or a health worry.

Or you might go with the big questions; might ask him about why there is suffering, pain, death? Is there life after death? What will heaven look like?

Some might be curious about his views on current affairs in the world – politics, the economy, poverty, homelessness, the problems in Syria, climate change, and so on.

Some keeners might ask him about the future of the Church or what he thought about how the Church is doing.

Each of us would have our own individual, unique conversation with him, that might last for hours. But I am not sure we would ask the question that the Pharisees put to Jesus.

After the Sadducees had no luck in trapping Jesus in some heresy or another, the Pharisees come onto the stage and give it a go. They ask a technical, religious question, testing Jesus’ purity as a Jew. “Teacher, which commandment in the Law [i.e. Torah] is the greatest?”

Now, any child in Sabbath School is going to know the answer to this. I am not sure what the Pharisees were thinking, as to what else Jesus might answer. So he answers with the very ancient, very traditional and the very standard statement known as the Shema: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind.” There is nothing very radical here. Jesus makes no attempt to revise it or change it to twist it into theological knots. It would be the safe and satisfactory response.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil it,” (Matthew 5:17).

As it is, it is a powerful and complete “creed”, one that binds together the gracious, loving, covenantal relationship between God and his people. Indeed, everything hinges on this commandment, in conjunction with the second one which Jesus also emphasizes, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” The one goes with the other just as homemade strawberry jam goes on warm, fresh-baked bread.

Love God totally; love your neighbour totally. So profound; yet so plain. So simple in words; yet so complicated in practice. So forthright and demanding in its expectations; yet so broad and deep. So deeply all-encompassing; yet so personal and life-embracing. Love God completely; love your neighbour as much and as completely as you love God and yourself.

Every time that we engage in any conversation with Jesus this is where he may want to begin. How are you loving God? How are you loving yourself? How are you loving your neighbour?  

“So, let’s talk!”