Matthew 22:34-40: a reflection

34But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, gathered themselves together. 35One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. 36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” 37Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and great commandment. 39A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

When a lawyer tests Jesus by asking which is the great commandment in the law, Jesus answers by drawing the whole law together into two commands. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; this is the first and great commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, he says, hang all the Law and the Prophets. The whole of God's requirement is summed up in love: love for God, and love for neighbor.

Notice how Jesus gathers everything into these two loves. All the many commands of Scripture, all the Law and the Prophets, hang on these two: to love God with our whole being, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Love is not one requirement among many; it is the sum and center of them all. To love God wholly, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, is to fulfill what God asks; everything else flows from these.

That gives us a clear and searching aim for our lives. It is easy to get lost in the details of religion, or to reduce faith to a list of rules; but Jesus brings it all back to love. The question to ask of our lives is whether we are growing in these two loves: love for God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and love for our neighbor as ourselves. Make these two loves your central aim. Do not lose the heart of God's requirement in the details; give yourself to loving God wholly and loving your neighbor genuinely, for on these two hang all the rest. A life growing in love for God and neighbor is a life fulfilling what God most asks.

Lord Jesus, when you were asked which is the great commandment, you gathered the whole law into two: to love the Lord your God with all my heart, soul, and mind, and to love my neighbor as myself; on these two hang all the Law and the Prophets. Give me this clear and searching aim. It is easy for me to get lost in the details of religion, or to reduce faith to a list of rules; but you bring it all back to love. Help me ask of my life whether I am growing in these two loves: love for you with all my heart, soul, and mind, and love for my neighbor as myself. Make these two loves my central aim. Keep me from losing the heart of your requirement in the details; help me give myself to loving you wholly and loving my neighbor genuinely, for on these two hang all the rest. Grow me in love for you and for my neighbor, that my life may fulfill what you most ask.