30th Sunday in O.T.; October 29, 2023

EX 22:20-26 Ps 18 1 Thes 1:5c-10 Mt 22:34-40

Deacon Jim McFadden

Today’s Gospel reading reminds us in no uncertain terms that the whole of the Divine Law can be summed up in our love for God and neighbor. Matthew offers an account in which the Pharisees colluded to put Jesus to the test: of all the laws in the Torah, which of those is the greatest?   It’s an insidious question because more than 600 precepts are mentioned in the Law of Moses.  How should the great commandment be distinguished from all of these?  What criterion would one  use?  But despite the murkiness of the question, Jesus responds without hesitation.   Quoting from the Book of Deuteronomy, Jesus referenced the Shema, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Dt 6:4). Jesus could have stopped there–I mean, who could argue with that? Yet, he adds something extraordinary that may not be readily apparent. He says, “And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:39). In this case Jesus did not invent the second commandment, but pulled it from the Book of Leviticus (19:18b). What’s so novel about this is that Jesus places these two commandments together– love for God and love of neighbor–revealing that they are in fact inseparable and complimentary.  I think what Jesus wants to teach us is that without love of God and neighbor there is no true fidelity to this Covenant with God.    Simply put, you cannot love God without loving your neighbor and you really can’t love your neighbor without loving God. 

 Prior to his retirement, Pope Benedict XVI wrote an encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (God is Love), which offered a beautiful commentary on this topic. Benedict was saying in effect that the visible sign that a Christian is in love with God is the concrete love he shows for his brothers and sisters.  The Great Commandment to love God and neighbor is not at the top of the 613 commandments, but at the very center, because it is from the heart that is grounded in love that everything must go and to which everything must return and refer. Think about it: we are made in the image of God Who is Love; therefore, we are most human when we are in love and sharing that love with others.  If we don’t have love, then the rest of our religion serves no purpose. 

            This is confirmed by our first reading from the Book of Exodus, the so-called ‘Covenant Code’, where it is said that one cannot adhere to the Covenant with the Lord and mistreat those who enjoy his protection.   The author specifically speaks of aliens, foreigners, orphans, and widows in the land. What this meant is that these people were very vulnerable and had a difficult time surviving, let alone flourishing;   most cultures of ancient times and, indeed, even today, foreigners were simply objects of contempt, often regarded being inferior.

Now, coming at the heart of the Old Testament, we have the astounding and revolutionary teaching to take care of the aliens, foreigners, and strangers, as well as orphans and widows.  People of God, when we stand before the misery of these people, we’re called to assist them materially and spiritually, so that none of them, left to themselves, would feel lost, feeling abandoned.

More to it,  we should have compassion for them. What is compassion? It is a fellow-feeling, to suffer with. We hear in Exodus that you were once aliens in the land of Egypt. Enter now into that space in which you were once a foreigner and stranger; you were once vulnerable. When you go to that space, you will stir up feelings of compassion for widows, orphans, and aliens–there is the biblical call.

            What Jesus is proposing in the Gospel is drawn from his Jewish roots, which corresponds to our heart’s most authentic desire.  Why?  Put simply, we are hired-wired to live this way.  Indeed, we were created to love and to be loved.  God, whose very nature is Love, created us to be participants in his life, to be loved by him and to love him, and with him, to love all other people, especially the most vulnerable. 

            Jesus is speaking to us today in the Fall of 2023.  This is what he wants for mankind.  And to accomplish his dream we radically need his grace; we need to receive within us the capacity to love others which comes from God himself.  That’s why I think Jesus offers himself in the Eucharist for this very reason.  In the Eucharist we receive Jesus in the utmost expression of his Love—we receive his Body and Blood, his Soul and Divinity—when he offers himself to the Father for our salvation: the consummate act of Love.

            May the Blessed Virgin Mary help us to welcome into our life the “great commandment” of love of God and neighbor.  Love was the measure of Mary’s faith.  Through her intercession may we strive to commit ourselves to it and put into practice serving the weak and the vulnerable   Amen.