Ford Madox Brown
Matthew 22:34-46
Evidently, a scribe, one of the Pharisees, an authority on the religious Law and its stipulations, sought to trap Jesus by asking Him which of the Commandments was the greatest. This question was not an unusual one, especially from one trained to know, classify, and interpret the written and oral Law of Moses. It was not unusual for rabbis to discuss and debate such issues.
“Teacher,” he asked. In Matthew’s gospel, only those opposed or antagonistic toward Jesus called Him “teacher,” using the title sarcastically. “Teacher,” he asked, “which is the greatest commandment?” “Which is the most important?”
Jesus proposes two commandments. The first, or to use a more Hebraic term, the “heaviest” commandment, from the Shema, consists in loving God: “Hear, O Israel….you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”. The second commandment according to Jesus, quoting this time from Leviticus 19:18, is like it: “love your neighbor as you love yourself”. The command to love God and the command to love one’s neighbor are of equal importance.
The first commands us to love God, but how does one love God? Well, as the Spanish mystic, Teresa of Avila suggests, one loves God by loving one’s neighbor. Yet, if we’re honest with ourselves, we would have to agree with the late Carl Michaelson that “most of us would stand a pretty good chance of becoming saints if it were not for our neighbors”.
But for Jesus, salvation is not only a matter of getting things right with God, but getting them right with one another.
