Similar to our Gospel from last week, Jesus this morning is confronted by a scholar of the law who asks Him, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Matthew 22:36). There are a couple of caveats that we should know in order to understand this interesting dialogue.
Firstly, the scholar of the law is not a man seeking to better understand the teachings of Moses or to learn some sage advice from the Master. When he asks Jesus that question, St. Matthew tells us, he was testing Him; he presumes he already knows the answer.
The second important detail is that the scholar is not asking Jesus which of the Ten Commandments He thinks is the greatest. The Mosaic law consists of some 613 commands, not jus the Ten Commandments. This is an expert in the law, seeking to test Jesus as to how He understands this great covenant God has made with His people.
Jesus, who is the Master and Teacher, responds in a way that is remarkable and surprising. He begins with the Shema, the great confession from Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mathew 22:37). That answer would have been anticipated; this is indeed the first and greatest commandment, as our Lord clearly explains. But then He adds something that would have been illuminating: “The second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). He is placing love of neighbor on a par with love of God.
Then the Lord concludes with something that would have probably surprised the scholar of the law greatly. He says: “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40). The entire law, all 613 commands, plus all the teachings of all the prophets; all of it depends upon these two commandments. This morning I would like to reflect on the question, “Why?”
To answer that question we need to look at why there is a law to begin with. God makes a covenant relationship with His people, promising to be their God and that they will be His people. The entire law helped to define the terms or parameters of that relationship. They were to be faithful to the law as a sign of fidelity to God. When they failed to be true, God remained faithful. It was then that He sent them the prophets. In many different ways they communicated the basic message that God still loved them, God was willing to forgive them and call them back to Himself. What he wanted most of all was a full response to that covenantal relationship that He had made with them.
In a word, the whole law and the prophets depend on love of God and neighbor because they speak of that intimate relationship upon which everything else is founded. Basically, it does not matter if you strive to follow all 613 commands of the Mosaic law if you do not have a personal relationship with God and strive to love Him. It does not matter that you know the teachings of the prophets inside and out, if you do not have a real and growing relationship with God and show that by loving those around you.
Our first reading this morning from the Book of Exodus describes well the essence of that relationship. God speaks through Moses:
Thus says the Lord: “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt”.
—Exodus 22:21
God is saying to them, I loved you, and cared for you. You were enslaved and I set you free. I have given everything to you, and brought you into the promised land. You must now do everything in your power to treat others the way that I treated you. Are there foreigners among you, or those enslaved by various circumstances? Love them, as I have loved you.
For us as Christians, the freedom we have received is not freedom from slavery in Egypt but freedom from slavery to sin and death. Christ died on the cross for our salvation and to make us free. We are to cherish that relationship He makes with us, and strive to love those around us in the way that we are loved by Him.
There was a film that came out in 1998 called, Saving Private Ryan. I am sure that many of you have seen it. It is a story about four brothers, very close in age, who are fighting as American soldiers for the Allies in World War II. As the film begins we soon find out that three of those brothers have died in combat in a very short time, and only one is left: Private Ryan. This news reaches the War Office in Washington, D.C., and a general there immediately sends out an order for the sole surviving brother to be found and brought safely back home. An Army Ranger Captain and a small detachment of soldiers are tasked with carrying out this mission.
The opening scene of the film shows an old man slowly making his way towards a field in Normandy, France filled with crosses (and a Star of David) marking the graves of the soldiers who died there during World War II. It is the present day, and he clearly has an attachment to this sacred place as he walks towards one of the crosses in particular. His wife and their adult children follow a few paces behind. The man falls to his knees before the grave and begins to weep. The scene then changes back to June 6, 1944 and the Invasion of Normandy, where the Americans take heavy casualties to secure Omaha Beach and gain a foothold in German occupied France. Immediately after that horrific encounter, the Ranger Captain receives his orders to find and bring back Private Ryan.
They finally locate the soldier and tell him the tragic news of the death of his three brothers and how they have been sent to bring him back. Towards the end of the film a dramatic battle ensues and most of the men lose their lives in the fight. The Army Ranger Captain is mortally wounded, but he manages to offer some final words to Private Ryan. The Captain tells him that the rest of his life should be worthy of all that has been given to safeguard it.
A moment later and the scene changes. We are once again seeing that hallowed graveyard and the rows of crosses in present day France. The cross marks the grave of the fallen Army Ranger Captain and the old man standing before it is an elderly Private Ryan. He turns to his wife, with their children close behind, and with tears in his eyes says to her, “Tell me I’ve led a good life. Tell me I’m a good man.” She is taken aback by the question, at first. Of course he has been a good man! Then she smiles tenderly and says, “You are.”
Friends in Christ, Jesus is not saving Private Ryan. He is saving all of us. We are called to be moved and motivated not by a heroic and selfless deceased soldier but by the living God who suffered and died for us on the cross. We have a living and intimate relationship with Him because He was risen from the dead and now lives in us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus loves us, protects us, forgives us when we fail, encourages us when we struggle and leads us everyday along the path of salvation. That is the reason we exist and the purpose behind which our love is purified and made more perfect in this world and guides us on into the life of the world to come.
This week, we ask for the grace to find Christ at the center of our lives and allow Him to ignite the fire of that love by which we have have been saved. We seek to love the lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind, and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
