Love God. Love Neighbor.

The final question and the final word.

Today is the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost. May Christ’s Spirit be ever present among us as we gather in different places to worship the same God.

I love that the final question posed to Jesus from the religious fear-mongers and anxious ones results in his summation of the greatest of the law:

Love God.
Love neighbor.

Such a simple word, and such a needed one in the world. It’s easy to imagine it was needed in 1st century Palestine. But it sure is needed today.

Then it’s Jesus’ turn to ask a question of them. There is a lot of messianic theological underpinnings going on here. They’re important, but deserve a fuller treatment elsewhere.

At the moment, it’ll suffice to say: The silence of the Pharisees here signals that Jesus has revealed the limits of their categories. Jesus is nudging the Pharisees beyond their assumptions of the Messiah as merely ‘son of David.’ He hints at a bigger reality, one they cannot grasp.

He’s done with theological gotchyas. Not because he can’t handle them, but because he’s got more important things to do. If they were asking in the spirit of true curiosity, we can imagine he’d be patient and spend time on it all. God can handle our honest questions (and wants to!). Just look at the psalms.

But the questioning of the religious leaders has nothing to do with honesty or curiosity. So Jesus is done with it and demonstrates it with a question of his own that they can hardly touch. But he’s not done with them. The next lengthy passage we’ll see has some of Jesus’ sharpest words for them.

Matthew 22:34-46

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had left the Sadducees speechless, they met together. One of them, a legal expert, tested him. “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

He replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

Now as the Pharisees were gathering, Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”

“David’s son,” they replied.

He said, “Then how is it that David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, called him Lord when he said, The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right side until I turn your enemies into your footstool’? If David calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?” Nobody was able to answer him. And from that day forward nobody dared to ask him anything.

Psalm 110

What the Lord says to my master: “Sit right beside me until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet!”

May the Lord make your mighty scepter reach far from Zion! Rule over your enemies! Your people stand ready on your day of battle. “In holy grandeur, from the dawn’s womb, fight! Your youthful strength is like the dew itself.” The Lord has sworn a solemn pledge and won’t change his mind: “You are a priest forever in line with Melchizedek.” My master, by your strong hand, God has crushed kings on his day of wrath.

God brings the nations to justice, piling the dead bodies, crushing heads throughout the earth. God drinks from a stream along the way, then holds his head up high.

Prayer

God,

Bless this Sunday.
Bless those who gather.
Bless those who don’t.
Bless your creation and those who take care of it.
Bless those who don’t.
Bless your people who are feeling it for some reason.
Bless those who are feeling it for the wrong reasons.
Bless the ministers.
Bless the people.
Bless the ones we all walk by on our way in.
Bless the children.
Bless the parents.
Bless the parent-less.
Bless the child-less.

Bless your people.
And shape them to bless the world.

By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.