It’s happened yet again. You’re out and about, getting ready to merge on I-55 and wouldn’t you know it, someone isn’t letting you merge in. Perhaps you’re shopping, and at the checkout carts are backed up, and you’re already running late.
How about it’s a day busier than beyond all others. You feel that tugging on your heart that you need to pray for that one intention in your life, weak as it may seem, and you’re just so busy.
These scenarios, amongst many, many others, are some that are not all that uncommon to our experience, and they involve a choice: do I live a self-centered or other-centered life? By default, we are going to choose to be wired for ourselves, but in all reality, when we do that time and time again, if we are being honest, it leaves us wanting for more. What are we to do, when this vital choice comes up- to choose between ourselves, and others?
The first reading comes to us out of the book of Exodus. To add to the context- the Israelites have been freed from the grip of the Egyptians. As such, they have been taken out from the rule of another, and are now living out of the freedom that God has provided through His strong and mighty arm. As they have been led out of that place of captivity and slavery, they are now being taught how to live with this newfound freedom. So, this reading comes from a dialogue that is happening between God and His people through Moses. As God speaks to the Israelites, and He is exhorting them to live in a new way. For so long, they have lived under a very selfish and cruel people, and so they are used to them being very self-centered, and very selfish.
This is going to change, however, because the Lord wants them to live as a people set apart. He tells them that things must be different, because they are going to act as the Lord has acted to them. “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do- when they cry out to me, I will hear them. Long story short, it will not go well for the one who did not hear their cry. The Lord does not mince words in saying that the plight of the widow and the orphan will become the plight of the man who does not heed nor love his neighbor.
There is a further directive- if one lends money, then they are to not deal with them as a creditor- one who will extort them and gain extra off of their services. Rather, they are to deal with them as a neighbor. If you take their cloak, you need to give it back to them, because it may be their only cover. If they will cry out to me, I will hear them, for I am compassionate. The way that God says this is interesting- we can imagine that being a harsh inditement against the one who does not abide by His directives. IF you are not compassionate- the Lord will be, and will show you how to act rightly. The entirety of this directive, though it is broken down into practical applications is all about loving one’s neighbor- about choosing to be other-centered, as the Lord has become.
The second reading continues the introduction of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Church in Thessalonica, and it continues to be a moment of thanksgiving, as Saint Paul recognizes how the Thessalonians have adopted the Lord’s way, and heard what Paul had preached to them. It really pivots around this central idea of imitation- that the people of Thessalonica had seen the example of Paul, and of the Lord, and as a result, they changed. They saw their old way of life, and changed so that they could start to live as the Lord desired them to do. They heard the call to conversion, they saw the example of Paul and the other disciples, and they were convinced to take up the faith, and to live it out to the fullest degree that they could.
Finally, we arrive at the Gospel according to Matthew. The Pharisees have heard how Jesus silenced the Saducees, and they are immediately taken aback, and try to trip Jesus up in another way. So a lawyer, a scholar of the law, asks another impossible question- what is the greatest commandment? We have to understand, this doesn’t seem like a difficult feat to us, but to the Jewish community at the time, they are sued to following 613 different laws and regulations. To pick one seems an almost impossible task. So what is the most important one?
Jesus, being savvy as He always is, answers with two. First, He comes to the greatest: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. That is the first and the greatest commandment. The second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole of the law depends on these two commandments.
This is a powerful statement- there are so many different rules and regulations, practices and conventions, and yet Jesus boils it all down to just two. It is a monumental teaching- and one that is so riveting, that it is found in all four Gospels. No matter the audience that was intended by the Gospel-writer, they needed to know about these two commandments.
This might seem like a gross over-simplification- but what if I told you that the Ten Commandments all fit under these two? If you’ve ever noticed, the concern of the commandments goes between two parties: the first three are about love of God, and the last seven, are love of neighbor. Even our own commandments fall under these two. The teachings of the Church? Under these two. Every homily you hear? Should be directed at these two commandments.
This seems so easy: but do we appreciate the difficulty of what is being asked? Do you and I take this and fully understand the task of what is being asked? The first point that we come to out of the Gospel is that we should love God with all our heart, mind and soul. This might seem a bit of a lofty idea, but Jesus did not back away from this commandment. Rather, He emphasizes it- ALL of your heart, mind, and soul. No part should be left out. What this founds like is like it is something easy to say, but harder to verify. I can say that I love God with all of my being, but how does that come to light? Let’s look at it this way: when it comes to your prayers- are they the first thing to be done, or are they easy to push off to last? Are we living out all of the commands that God has asked us to live out fully? If we aren’t, perhaps we are at a place where we need to give over more to our God. If we aren’t making prayer a priority, perhaps God would now desire that from us!
Second, we are to love our neighbor. Now, lest we think this too is hard to reach, notice the book of Exodus: love of neighbor is founded upon God’s love of us. He encourages the Israelites to live out of the same love that He gives to them as He released them from captivity to the Egyptians. He heard their cry as widows and orphans and answered them. If the Israelites cannot live that way themselves- then it seems that they have taken what God has done for them for granted. Yet, if they are truly grateful for what God has done, they are going to give out of that same gift of abundance.
Finally, there is one more thing that is more of a bonus point to this Gospel- how did Jesus tell us to love our neighbor? He told us that we need to love our neighbor as ourselves. Now, this doesn’t mean that we are to be selfish, but it means that we need to see the way that God loves us in return. If we think we are unloveable, or that we are less valuable than God thinks we are- of course we aren’t going to know how to love our neighbor! If we cannot truly see our God and how He dotes on us- we will fail to love our neighbor, and will become quite cruel or senseless people, often quite hollow, afraid, or even insecure, because we do not know our own value and our own worth either.
God tells us to love- love Him with all our heart, our mind, and our soul. To love our neighbor as ourselves. If we do that, we can surely follow the entirety of what the Lord is inviting us to do! Even if someone cuts us off in traffic, even if the lines are long at the store. Even if we are truly busy, and prayer seems like it is the last thing we can get to today. No matter where we are, we cannot live selfishly, and only focused on ourselves. We do this so that we can love Him in return, and love our neighbor as we love ourselves- and truly appreciate and see how God loves each of us, and we can imitate that as well..
And perhaps that is all to lead us to that initial question: are we going to choose for ourselves, or are we going to choose for others: to live out of love of our God and our neighbor?
