Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?

But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him, " 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?" They said to Him, "The Son of David." He said to them, "How then does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying:

'The LORD said to my Lord,

"Sit at My right hand,

Till I make Your enemies Your footstool" ' ?

"If David then calls Him 'Lord,' how is He his Son?" And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.

- Matthew 22:34-46

In yesterday's reading, Jesus was asked a question by a group of Sadducees. "Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother." They posed a question of seven brothers having married the same woman, each without offspring. They asked, "Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? " Jesus told them they were mistaken -- they neither understood the Scriptures nor the power of God. He said, "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."

But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him, " 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Behind the scenes, at work to test Jesus, is the party of the Pharisees. They have already sent their disciples to test Him. Here, they speak for themselves. The Pharisees were lay experts in Scripture and the Law. They reckoned 613 commandments from the Scriptures. My study bible says they "argued interminably about which one was central." So, the question is an important one within their own tradition and discipline. Jesus' response is a combination of passages from Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Jesus gives us the great central formula of faith here: God, as mediator of all things and reconciler of all things, teaches us right-relatedness to one another through faith and love. With the love of God central in our hearts, we expand that love, God's peace, to our neighbor. In fact, not only can the Law and the Prophets be framed around these commandments as Jesus teaches, but certainly we can read their centrality into all of Jesus' teachings as well -- throughout the gospel of Matthew. Most certainly they are embodied in the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount, and so much of Jesus' teaching in this gospel.

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?" They said to Him, "The Son of David." As with His previous questioners -- first the group consisting of the disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodians, and next with the Sadducees -- Jesus turns the tables and asks a question of His own. The Christ is the Anointed One, the Messiah. The "Son of David" implies an earthly understanding of lineage, of kingship. He is testing their understanding of Scripture, as they consider themselves experts in its interpretation and knowledge.

He said to them, "How then does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying: 'The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool" ' ? If David then calls Him 'Lord,' how is He his Son?" And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore. As with the Sadducees in yesterday's reading, Jesus exposes, in fact, their lack of understanding and even knowledge of the Scriptures. In the context of the meticulous scholarship that should mark their tradition, they fail to discern the intent of Scripture here. Once again, we turn to questions of authority. In this, we can see the central struggle of the whole spiritual history of Israel -- and the crux of faith at Jesus' time under Roman rule. Who will save the nation and the people and the faith? All of these questions are bound in this example Jesus gives from Scripture. Moreover, my study bible explains the passage as follow: "David, as king of Israel, would not address anyone as 'my Lord' except God Himself. Therefore, this psalm verse describes God talking to God -- the Father to the Son -- which contradicts the Pharisees' view of God as one Person, and introduces the doctrine of the Holy Trinity." Two questions are implied here: How can "my Lord" be David's son? If not David's, then Whose Son? Little wonder no one dared question Him again. The quotation is from Psalm 110:1. Let us make note of Jesus words; He is careful to express the inspired nature of the Psalm: this is the work of David "in the Spirit."

So, we are invited once more into mystery, as Jesus reads for us something into Scripture that was there all along, and perhaps unseen -- at least by this particular group of Pharisees. And thus we can be invited in by Jesus, who expresses the spiritual history of Israel in Himself, and unpacks meaning after meaning, fulfilling, broadening, opening up new understanding, and completing for us the concepts that are central to His ministry. Among them, the greatest of the commandments: love of God and love of neighbor, the two go hand in hand. A love of God teaches us right-relatedness to neighbor. This is the formula for Jesus' Way of faith. And in Him the Scriptures are expanded and manifest, because His authority comes from the same source as the Scripture. Let us consider what Jesus is offering to us here. It's not just "all the answers," but rather like His parables. He opens up for us (and the Pharisees) mysteries that we're not a part of, so that we are invited in, and may encounter them more deeply in faith. Jesus invites us in, to life in the Spirit, in a depth of love and relatedness to God "with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" -- and that invites us in to true relatedness with neighbor. This invitation is not an automatic, one-time-only formula, but rather the invitation to follow in His Way, to grow in faith and its experience. He is the Good Shepherd, and invites us in through the narrow gate, to grow in this life of faith. "Follow Me" is the way He calls us. And He will give us a new commandment to add to the first two: "Love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another."