The Greatest Commandment

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The Reading

Matthew 22:34-46

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’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. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,

‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet”’?

If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

The Sermon

This reading from Matthew starts out with the Pharisees trying to trip Jesus up again. The want him to name the most important commandment. After all there were over six hundred commandments they were expected to follow. Three hundred sixty five of them were what they should not do. Most of us today think only in terms of the ten commandments which seems relatively easy compared to back then.

When faced with picking one out of six hundred it would seem like a daunting task but Jesus was up for it. He said, “love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This comes out of the book of Deuteronomy and would not be one of the ten that all of us were to memorize from our catechism. But, he does not stop there. He gives the next commandment in line. It is love your neighbor as yourself.

Most of those six hundred plus commandments were pretty straightforward. You were either to do one thing or not do something. Jesus says only two things are required. Love your God and love your neighbor as yourself. WOW, I only have to do two things and I am straight with God.

If you think about it though, these two commandments can be difficult to keep. Loving is not so easy. Pure love requires much of us. Pure love requires us to expose ourselves, to give a piece of ourselves to someone else. Love of God requires that we surrender to God all that we are, heart, mind and soul. We must die to our self centered ways. These are not easy things to do.

And what about loving our neighbor as ourselves. I often hear the question, “What about people who don't love themselves?” That is a very insightful question and it begs the question, “Why do you not love yourself?” I believe many people, for whatever reason, do not love themselves because they feel as they have made so many mistakes in life that they are not worthy of being loved even by themselves.

Love can also be paired with forgiveness. Forgiveness is one of the steps in learning to love. Forgiving yourself for the mistakes you have made in life is an important first step in learning to love yourself. If it is true that God can forgive then we can forgive as well.

Another argument given against loving your neighbor as yourself is that some people do despicable acts that it is impossible to see past that and not just forgive but to bring yourself to love. We have all heard the phrase, 'love the sinner, hate the sin'. As much of a cliche as this seem there is truly a kernel of truth to it. We have to somehow find it in our hearts to look beyond the misdeeds of others and remember that there is a soul in each of us. For some it is a very troubled soul.

Remember, there are two main commandments and they both require love. It's all you need.