Homily for 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A
2023
Introduction
"Teacher,
which commandment in the law is the greatest?" That sounds like a good question. Wouldn’t we all want to know, which among the
many laws of God in the Old Testament, those of the New Testament, and then
those of the Church, even those of the state, which of them is the most
important, so that we can keep that one commandment and thus make our way to
heaven?
The scholar of the law who asked Jesus this
question, did not have this same noble motivation, but did so to test him. It is like,we heard last week the Pharisees
and Herodians, asking Jesus whether paying taxes to Caesar was right or
not. And just like in last week’s
gospel, any answer Jesus gave to this question would land him in trouble. Which of the 613 laws would he pick without
offending somebody?
But you can trust Jesus to find a way out
of this pickled, just like in last week’s gospel. How does he escape the trap set him by the
scholar of the law?
Scripture and Theology
First, let us remember that the 613 laws in
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy were of three types: the
ceremonial laws like washing, the liturgical laws like sacrifice, and the moral
laws like the Ten Commandments. From the
whole gospel we know that Jesus more or less superseded the ceremonial and
liturgical laws; that is why we don’t circumcise anybody or sacrifice
animals. However, the moral law, that we
still keep, because it has everlasting value.
And so it is the moral law that he turns to for the greatest
commandment.
So which of the myriad moral laws does he
pick? Well he doesn’t. Instead, goes to what should be at the root and
heart of all laws. Jesus goes back to
the Tradition, specifically to Deuteronomy 6:5 and pulls out this injunction of
God: "You shall love the Lord, your
God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And then he says: “This is the greatest and the first commandment.”
For a person of faith, this should make
sense. God must come first, God must be
the centre of our lives, since he created us, sent us a saviour and he
continues to provide for us. Any law
that does not in some way love God is no law at all. Underlying every law must be the desire to
love God, with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our minds, that
is, love him completely.
But Jesus does not stop there. Although the lawyer asked for one
commandment, Jesus gives him two. For
the other greatest commandment, Jesus draws from another Old Testament book,
Leviticus 19:18 to say: “The second is
like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Just like with the first one, any law that
does not in some way do good for a neighbour is no law at all.
But why does Jesus include this second
commandment about love of neighbour at all?
And why does he say it is like the first the commandment? What does loving our neighbour have to do
with God?
Let me illustrate this with a story that I once
heard a story about a married couple.
For years they went to the opera.
Several years into their marriage, however, it slipped accidentally from
the lips of the husband, that he did not like the opera at all. When the wife asked him, "honey, why
then did you go with me all these years?" he said: “I loved the opera,
because you love the opera and I love you.”
That is when the wife also said, “I too only went to the opera, because
I thought you loved it and since I loved you, I had to love it.”
Similarly, the second greatest commandment
enjoins us to love our neighbour, because we love God, who loves our neighbour. The spouses in the story I told you, loved the
opera, not in itself, but because they loved the person, who loved it or whom
they thought loved it. And so we are
enjoined to love not only God whom it is easier to love, and not just the
neighbour that is likeable, cute, useful, pretty, and intelligent. The real reason we must love our neighbour is
because this commandment is based on the first one – we love our neighbours
because we love God and God loves them.
Christian Life
That is why often God commands us to love
neighbours that we would not naturally be inclined to love. Today’s first reading gives us a few examples
of neighbours we must love as we love ourselves because God loves them:
About migrants and refugees God says: "You shall not molest or oppress an alien,
for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.” This country faces a real immigration
problem, something that only the politicians can solve. But what you and I do? The one thing I suggest is we do not use
demeaning language of our fellow man, simply because of his her immigration
status of national origin. That would be falling foul of the second greatest
commandment, which the Lord tells us is to love our neighbour, even our foreign
neighbour as ourselves.
A Catholic Relief Services worker currently
serving the people Gaza was asked why she was working in this Muslim region? And her response was, we feed the need women
and children, the refugees, not because they are Catholic, but because we are
Catholic. We love our neighbour, because
God has loved them and frankly us first.
Our first reading also gave another example
of loving one’s neighbour saying, “You
shall not wrong any widow or orphan.” Today we don’t have too many widows
or orphans, but at that time, the widow and the orphan were one of the most
vulnerable people in society. The widow
had no husband to care for her, and the orphan had no parents. That is why the Law of God enjoined the
society at large for these most needy people.
Who are widows and orphans today, against whom we must do no wrong, who
we must take care of?
One more law from the reading regards the
poor who you happen to lend money or other help. God says: “You shall not act like an extortioner toward”
them. While justice demands that they
pay pack what they owe, charity demands that you may have to forgive the loan
or part of the loan and certainly the interest.
Who are the poor of today, whom we might be tempted to extort due to
their poverty and lack of power, political or otherwise?
Jesus concludes his answer to the lawyer by
saying: “The whole law and the prophets
depend on these two commandments:” love of God and love of neighbour. That is because these two summarize the Ten
Commandments:
·
When we keep the first three
commandments, the commandments of the first tablet of Moses, we in fact love
God: by worshipping him alone, by not profaning his name and by keeping the
Lord’s Day holy.
·
When we keep the last seven
commandments, those on the second tablet of Moses, we in fact love our
neighbour: by respecting our parents and elders, protecting life, observing
marital fidelity, respecting the property of others, speaking the truth,
avoiding envy of others’ property and spouses.
Conclusion
And so, although the scholar of the law had
an ill intention in testing Jesus by asking “which commandment in the law is the greatest? he has provided the
occasion for Jesus to teach us a fundamental truth. We are now able to see good law, not as obstacle
to our happiness, but rather as the concrete means for me to show my love for
God and my love for neighbour.
Moreover, these loves are not
separate. As the First Letter of St.
John tell us, “We love because he first
loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,”
but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom
he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him:
whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:19-21).
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