DAILY GRACE
August 21, 2020, Friday of the 20th Week of Ordinary Time
Scripture: Matthew 22:34-40
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Meditation:
“‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The Pharisees have come to Jesus with a question, hoping to trip him up. Their question is not spontaneous, but is meant to pose a dilemma to the Teacher. The scholar of the law who crafted it thinks he has the perfect question, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” of the Jesus quotes to them the summary statement of the Decalogue from Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” He then adds what God said to Moses in the Book of Leviticus, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). Although one is the First Commandment, the other is like it, which is to say they are equal in God’s eyes. Not only are all the commandments found in these two, but all the words of the prophets as well.
This would have shaken up the establishment. Many subsidiary laws that were in effect mitigated the equal status of the command to love one’s neighbor wholeheartedly. We know some of these from other Gospel readings we frequently hear, but we read Scripture for our own sake, in order to apply it to our own life. It comes naturally to have a certain focus on ourselves. It’s hard to avoid self-love, and in fact, it is critically important to cultivate proper self-love, because it sustains us in being: we care for our health, our well-being, our relationships, our education, our jobs, and our families basically because we love ourselves correctly. It is our duty to protect, nourish, and support ourselves. Jesus says that we should love our neighbors in just the same way, to the same extent, for the same reasons. Would we dare to ask the other famous question here, “Who is my neighbor?” According to Jesus, it is everyone, especially the less desirable. He was himself the exemplar of this command, giving himself completely for all of us on the cross.
Prayer
Lord, help us to see you in everyone, especially in those who are hardest to accept and most difficult to appreciate. Let us reflect your love on everyone through our kindness and concern.
Contemplation
I see and serve You in my neighbor.