Prayer:
If someone was to ask you what your greatest love is, what would be your reply?
Your spouse? Your family? Your dog? Your favourite sport? Your favourite activity? How many of you would honestly say without hesitation to someone who asked you that question – my greatest love is God! And then if they were to ask your second greatest love, would it be your neighbour? meaning– all peoples!
Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is, and his reply was to:
“love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind… and the second is like it, love your neighbour as yourself.”
As Christ followers, seeking to obey his teachings, then Jesus’ answer to what is the greatest command, loving God and neighbour, should be our highest priority. Our greatest, all-encompassing love should be God and from that should flow an all-encompassing love for people. Simple, yes? Love God and love others. Not so easy to always live out, but it should be our greatest desire to do so.
Let’s look at today’s passage and its context.
Over the last few weeks, we have been listening in to Jesus’ conversations and replies to the religious leaders, the chief priests, elders, Pharisees and last week there was one from the Sadducees also. These questions and replies have sprung from the religious leaders’ initial question to Jesus as to where his authority came from as he rode into Jerusalem, being hailed as the Son of David, and then as he turned over the tables at the temple.
The religious leaders did not like the parables Jesus told as they pointedly accused them of rejecting God’s son. They then try to trap him with some questions about taxes and the resurrection, which Erna preached on brilliantly last week. Jesus’ answers have been spot on and very clever, leaving the religious leaders and the crowds amazed and astonished at his teaching.
Today’s passage follows immediately on from Jesus’s answer to the Sadducees question on the resurrection and we read, hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. The Pharisees and the Sadducees did not see eye to eye on certain things like belief in the resurrection.
The Pharisees are most likely quietly pleased at Jesus’ response to the Sadducees, however it doesn’t change their mind about Jesus who they are still wanting to discredit and silence. So, they put their heads together and come up with another question they can ask him, to see if they can trip him up. They want to check his orthodoxy in relation to matters of the law, God’s commands. So far, they hadn’t been too impressed with Jesus and his disciples accusing them of breaking God’s law, like picking grain or healing on the Sabbath!
What will Jesus’ answer be to this question on the greatest commandment?? There are 613 commandments in the Old Testament, with no clear standard for judging which is the greatest, but this is a question Rabbi’s would spend much time debating.
Jesus’s answer of course is perfect and very orthodox.
His answer comes from Deuteronomy chapter 6, v 5.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
This command is what the Jews call the Shema, this is what Jewish children are taught to memorise and some Jewish people still wear them in little boxes on their foreheads. They are recited in daily Jewish worship. The Pharisees could not argue with the priority of this command.
Jesus could have left it there, but he goes on to define the second greatest commandment; you shall love your neighbour as yourself. This command comes directly from Leviticus 19, verse 18;
“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.”
Jesus declares that all the law and the prophets hang on these two laws.
The Pharisees can’t argue with that.
The Pharisees know the law well, but Jesus has continuously been calling them hypocrites. They can spout the law and accuse others of not following it legally -like Jesus healing on the sabbath. But they do not live it out themselves.
What about us? Do we love the Lord with all our heart, soul and mind, and love our neighbours as ourselves?
We are to love God with all that we have and all that we are, the core of our being. Loving God is our supreme obligation, even before our love for our spouse or children, or pets, especially our favourite footy team or car or any of our possessions, or our work, or our leisure activities.
What does it mean to love with all our ‘heart’? We can look to our heart to see where our affections lie. In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus says that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The heart loves what it treasures. Do we treasure God foremost? Is he the one we love the most? Is God on our hearts and minds?
Love is not just about emotion. It is choosing to love God with our thoughts, even when we can’t feel his love or we don’t feel loving toward him. We need to do this with our loved ones at times too don’t we, we must choose to love them. Just like God chose to love us and continues to love us even when we don’t deserve it. God, however, is always worthy of our love and we should worship him with our hearts and minds – turning our thoughts to him always.
And our souls? Soul is a difficult concept. I think simply it includes our whole being, like the essence of who we are. Everything about us is to worship God.
We are to love God with our passions, hungers, thoughts. We are to love him with how we talk, what we do with our hands, how we use our talents, how we behave. Our entire being is to display that we love God.
Our love for God, should automatically lead to love for our neighbour. As God loves, so should we. His love should overflow from us and through us.
Jesus is not talking about a passive love, but an active love.
Who is our neighbour you might ask? Jesus is not just referring to the people who literally live either side of you in your street!
In Luke chapter 10 when a teacher of the law asks Jesus ‘who is my neighbour’? in relation to the law…Jesus replies with the story of the good Samaritan. A story I’m sure you know well. We are to love and have mercy on all, not walk by on the other side of the street. In Matthew 5 he says we are to love our enemies, and later in Matthew 25, Jesus talks about loving the least of these – the poor, those in prison, the stranger, the hungry.
It can sometimes seem a bit overwhelming to think about how we can love all our neighbours, especially as we look around our world today where there are so many in need. Both on our own doorstep and in war torn countries and those left homeless and grieving after catastrophic disasters like earthquakes and floods.
We can have an attitude of love for all, how we think about them. We can pray for all. We can give where we can and support those aid agencies on the ground. This is why we regularly advertise ways to give through Anglican Relief and Development Fund, today you will see a note in the bulletin to give to AID, an arm of ABM to bring relief to the hospital that was bombed in Gaza. We regularly give to Anglicare and Hobart City Mission. We can choose to love those in need with our generous giving.
And we love those we see day to day, with a smile for the homeless person as well as any person we pass in the street, we give a word of encouragement, a visit to someone in hospital or isolated at home. We cook a meal; we write a card. We love as God loves us, unconditionally. We forgive, we offer friendship. There are so many ways to show love. Be creative. Have a think for a moment, and then go home today and write down how you are going to love someone this week – it might be giving to an overseas aid agency, it might be calling someone on the phone and checking in on them, it might be adding someone to your prayer list. Love God and love others.
Jesus has answered the Pharisees questions more than adequately, they can not fault his answer. We hear no response from them.
So finally, Jesus turns the tables and asks them a question. How will they fare?
“What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”
“The son of David”, they reply.
This is a standard, expected Jewish response. Their expectation of a Messiah, the one they were waiting and hoping for was that a descendant of King David would one day arise, gather the people in revolt, throw off the Roman yoke and restore the Kingdom of Israel. They saw the Messiah as primarily a political deliverer.
So, Jesus throws them another question, and quotes from psalm 110.
He said to them,
“How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him Lord”? For he says,
“The Lord said to my Lord; “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”
If then David calls him ‘Lord’, how can he be his son?”
The Messiah does come from David’s line (as Jesus does!), but Jesus points out that the Messiah is so much more than what they were expecting and hoping for. Jesus is getting them to think outside their assumptions and inherited prejudices, he wants them to open their closed minds.
If the son of David also calls him Lord, how does this work? The Messiah is in fact both! Jesus is trying to open their eyes to look beyond their futile hope for an earthly political deliverer. The earthly Kings had always eventually failed in the past. Even those like the great King David don’t last forever. This time God was sending a King who was both a human descendant of David, and from God, conceived by the Holy Spirit. One who was going to deliver them in an entirely unexpected way.
Jesus is still answering their initial question on whose authority he was acting under…His authority comes from God himself. Jesus is the Messiah, but they can’t or perhaps choose not to see it. They refuse to acknowledge and believe even though the testimony of Jesus’ works and words are so powerful.
Like the Sadducees previously, the Pharisees are now silenced.
“No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him anymore questions.”
Instead, what did they do? They went away to plot Jesus’ death in the hope to silence him forever.
The Pharisees blinded their eyes to the truth and willfully turned away from the one who came to deliver them from death for all time.
There are so many out in our world, among our literal neighbours, our families and friends who are also blind to the wonderful truth. Some having chosen to turn away, many others ignorant, those who haven’t had the opportunity to hear the good news Jesus brings. At the ministry leaders conference last week, we were looking at some of the National Church Life Survey figures, and did you know that 49% of people believe that Jesus lived, but many like those Pharisees, don’t believe that he was also the Son of God. We have an opening to talk and listen to them about their understanding of Jesus, and then share our faith in him.
To tell them about God’s great love and grace and mercy is one way we can be loving them!
We show our love for God and others in actions and words. And praying that their eyes would be open and their hearts turn and receive God’s love. We can pray this for our nearest and dearest, but also for those suffering in war and disaster, that they would reach out, seek God and find that he is near and longs to fill them with his love and comfort in the midst of their distress, that he can offer hope and peace that the world cannot give.
So, as we finish this section of Matthew having looked at 3 of Jesus’ parables and responses to the religious leaders about who he is, let us also be astonished and amazed at his teaching, as they were. But let us also respond to act on his teaching. Do we accept Jesus as Lord, do we love God with our whole being and love others with our thoughts and prayers, words and actions?
Let’s pray:
Jesus help us listen and follow your teaching. Open our eyes to see who you are, that we might love you fully, worshipping you with our whole lives and loving others unconditionally and with kindness as you love us. Give us faith and courage to share the good news message that you are the Messiah, come to deliver all people that they may receive your amazing grace whatever their circumstances and live with hope today and for all eternity. In the name of Jesus, the son of David, the son of God. Amen.