WHAT IS ‘GREAT’ ABOUT THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS?

Reflections for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Exodus 22:20-26; 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10; Matthew 22:34-40

"Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?", a scholar of the law asks Jesus. Why this obsession with the greatest law? The Pharisees and the teachers of the law prided themselves on their meticulous observance of the law and obliged the community to do the same. Traditionally, they counted 613 mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah made up of 365 negative commandments and 248 positive commandments and divided into three categories: mishpatim (self-evident rules); edot (commemoration of sacred days); and chukim (rules that are not evident but deemed as divinely revealed). Further, rabbinical teachings created many more interpretative rules, precedence and declarations about how those commandments, and laws, are to be applied. These laws were not just religiously significant, but the Jewish leadership misused them as tools of political and social power to exercise their moral, social, and religious authority over the members of their community.

Burdened by the heavy yoke of tradition, it was common for Jesus’ contemporaries to ask their rabbis to prioritize the many laws into a list of the greatest or the most important commandments that they could remember and follow. This sincere concern is, however, misused by the Pharisees to trap Jesus. This scholar of the law poses this question to Jesus not with the intention of searching for an honest answer, but with the rather unholy scheme to ‘test’ and trap him. The task of picking or prioritizing a few laws over the rest was not just a difficult ask but also an awkward one, for all the 613 laws were deemed equally sacred, binding, and the word of God. What is at display here is another instance of the laws being misused as a tool for power. The question about the ‘greatest’ commandment is no more about priority but a disguise of the Pharisees’ hermeneutic of power.

The response of Jesus to this question is interesting. Faced with people seeking to trap him, he responds with love. He cites (with editions) the two famous ‘love’ commandments from the Old Testament: 1. Love for God: While Deuteronomy 6:5 states, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”, Jesus slightly alters the third, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”. 2. Love for one’s neighbour: While Leviticus 19:18 says, “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord”, Jesus summarises, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself”.

So, if Jesus is only quoting already well-known Old Testament laws, what is so ‘great’ (today’s Gospel) or new (John 13:34) about them? The greatness of the great commandments lies in three subtle and yet radical shifts that Jesus achieves in his summary:

1. Power to love: Jesus rejects the Pharisees’ abuse of the law for power and helps us refocus on the heart of the commandments, which is love. Jesus defies the hermeneutics of power in favour of his hermeneutic of love. The greatness of the commandments is no more about the power of do’s and don’ts, not about the authority of those who frame, enact, and interpret rules and laws, not about the moral implications of following or not following them, but about love and love alone.

2. Love for God to love for our neighbour: The ‘greatness’ of the great commandments also lies in the relation that Jesus establishes between the two already well-known commandments. He says, “This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it”. The commandment to love our neighbour is ‘like’ the commandment to love God. For our love for our neighbour includes, involves, and flows from our love for God. The greatness of Jesus’ response is the importance that he accords to the two dimensions of our love (divine and human) and the intimate connection that he draws between them.

3. Law to love: Jesus declares, “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments”. Loving God and loving our neighbour become the two foundational principles that can help us interpret and understand the two pillars of Jewish scriptures (law and the prophets). In other words, loving one’s neighbour becomes the visible manifestation, tangible demonstration, and practical expression of what the entirety of God’s revelation (law and prophets) means and denotes. Nothing reveals God’s love more perfectly and visibly than our love for each other. The first reading reflects this truth when it invites us to love the aliens, widows, orphans, the poor, and the needy.

Let us strive for greatness in our observance of the commandment of love: to convert from the paradigm of power to the hermeneutics of love, to love God ‘like’ we love God, and to find the fulfilment of God’s revelation in the way we love each other.

We have a model in Saint Teresa of Child Jesus who writes,

To live of love, 'tis by Thy life to live,

O glorious King, my chosen, sole Delight!

Hid in the Host, how often Thou dost give

Thyself to those who seek Thy radiant light.

Then hid shall be my life, unmarked, unknown,

That I may have Thee heart to heart with me;

For loving souls desire to be alone,

With love, and Thee!