Matthew 22:34-40
So many important things come in sets of three. The Holy Trinity, of course. The three Magi. The three bears, three amigos. Okay, unimportant things, too, come to think of it. Three is just a useful number.
Think back a few weeks, when we were discussing parables, and we noticed that Jesus told a set of three parables to the religious authorities in Jerusalem. He told the parable of the man with two sons, followed by the parable of the wicked tenants, and finally the parable of the wedding banquet. Each one layering criticism upon the Pharisees and Sadducees, and chief priests and scribes. By the time he is finished they have heard the message loud and clear. How do they respond? “So then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him.”
They pose a set of three questions to him, meant to trick him into incriminating himself. The first question we discussed last week – is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar? – which he handled quite well. The second question was a complicated word problem about a woman who married and survived each of seven brothers, and the problem is whose wife will she be in the afterlife. In the first two questions they pose to him, Jesus doesn’t take the bait. He doesn’t allow the authorities to set the terms of discussion because he knows that God’s truth doesn’t fit into their narrow terms. In response to these first two questions, Jesus does not give them a direct answer. He reframes the question. A marvelous skill that we should all try to learn. Many ugly and fruitless arguments could probably be avoided if we did what Jesus did.
So then they come at him with their third question – the magic of threes. Which commandment is the greatest?
We should know that they are not just talking about the 10 commandments here. Christians have elevated these ten that Moses brought down from the mountain because they seem to be such an elegant summary of God’s law. But when it came to the law, Israel had much more to be concerned with than just ten. There were 613 laws written down in the scriptures. They are in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, primarily. 613. And they were all deemed essential.
Given what we have already seen, given the way he has handled the first two, we would expect him to skillfully sidestep this question. To reframe it in some way, as he has done before. Like, “Why would you even ask which one is the greatest? Is there anything that comes from God that is not perfect?” I mean, that’s what I would have suggested. If Jesus asked me.
But he didn’t. He didn’t ask me, and he didn’t do what he had done before. Jesus answered their question this time – clearly and concisely. And in doing so he gave the world one of the most beautiful and memorable verses in all the scriptures.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. That’s it.
What did he do here? Well he answered their question simply and directly. But then again, he didn’t. He didn’t choose one particular ordinance. He didn’t argue the case for one specific rule – out of all the rules governing family life, community life, farming, diet, dress, worship, and so on. He went back to something so simple that it was one of the first thing every child of Israel learned. Something so basic it, perhaps, hardly seemed mentioning. Love God.
And then, ignoring their specific request for only one, he went on to slip in another, which, he says, is just like it: love your neighbor as yourself.
And just like that, he makes these three things inseparable: Love God. Love your neighbor. Love yourself. Everything else hangs on this.
And you know what? I am so glad that, this time, he just answered their question.
Because when he answers their question, he says to us that the basic things are the greatest things. And the most basic thing about God is love.
The most tragic thing about the world is that this is so hard for us to accept.
We’re usually okay with love in the abstract. The idea of love is, you know, sweet. But when it comes to the particulars? Then we are just like the lawyer in this text who asked the question – we want to know the details, the parameters. Who? When? How?
Who am I supposed to love? The people in my family? In my tribe? In my church? in my political party? What are the boundary lines?
When am I supposed to love them? When they do good? When I’m feeling generous? In what circumstances?
How am I supposed to love them? Really. How?
Jesus gives us a clear and simple rule and what do we do? We look for the exemptions.
I know why we do this, because loving is hard – particularly when we are looking at the world from that classic win-lose framework, which I spoke of last week. We tend to see things in this black and white, right and wrong way. If I am right, then you must be wrong. And if you are wrong then I don’t know how to love you.
I don’t know how to love you because I think love means agreeing on everything, or at least all the important things. It’s okay if we don’t agree on which ice cream flavor is the best, but it’s not okay for us to disagree on which political platform is the best. I don’t know how to love you because I think you have to be good enough in my eyes for me to love you – that somehow, I will judge whether you are worthy of my love. And when I do this, I have completely missed the point. Because I have elevated judgment over love, and God does not do that. I have missed the point because I have made love secondary instead of primary. I have made love conditional.
And then I am like the religious authorities who are working so hard to pigeon-hole Jesus, to figure out if he is correct enough, to determine if he can, against all odds, figure out which of the 613 laws is the most important – the greatest.
In our society we, too, argue about which laws are the greatest. We do it during these political seasons, when each candidate tries to lay out their agendas and convince us that their way is the superior way. And when we participate in this civic activity, we are also trying to figure out which are the most important things – the most important rules – to make our society really great. Which is the most important thing to do first? And who is getting it right?
Who is getting it right – this was the question hanging over Jerusalem that day.
It’s worth a minute to think about what the authorities are doing in this passage from Matthew. They are trying to figure out what to do about him. How big of a problem he is. What kind of threat he poses. How he deals with a question about the law – this will tell them something about his priorities.
I have listened to a lot of arguments between people of faith about our civic priorities. Sometimes it’s about which law is the most important to uphold; sometimes it’s about which law is the most important to get passed.
When Jesus was asked which was the most important, he chose love. Perhaps we should try that too.
When you enter the political arena – to vote, to listen to a debate, to read about what’s going on – perhaps we should just try looking for love. In the words, in the policy positions, in the faces – where do you see love?
Because sometimes the best way to love God and your neighbor and yourself is to vote for love. When love wins, everyone wins.
Photo: courtesy of KXAN. The wall outside Jo’s Coffee in Austin, Texas usually says “I love you so much.” For election season it got a makeover, thanks to the League of Women Voters.
