THIRTIEH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
25 OCTOBER 2020
The
religious leaders have been stung by the parables of Jesus, because they have portrayed
them in a very bad light. In last
Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus outsmarted the Pharisees and Herodians when they tried to
snare him in a political trap. Today,
the Pharisees try again. They want to
discredit this teacher. The Pharisees
have developed 613 laws from the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. They have labeled some of these laws as
“heavy,” and others as “light.” 248 of
these laws are “thou shalt.” 365 of these
laws are in the form of “thou shalt not.”
Only
scholars of the law could navigate their way through this vast number of
laws. That is why the Pharisees regard
so many people as “sinners.” The laws are
too complicated for most peasants to comprehend. So, a scholar of the law tests him with a
complicated question. The scholar refers
to Jesus as teacher, revealing his contempt for a Galilean rabbi with no formal
education in the law. “Teacher,” he
asks, “which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Jesus does
not hesitate. First, he quotes
Deuteronomy 6:5, which faithful Jews continue to pray every day. It is the Shema Israel: the Lord our God is
one. The Lord our God is holy. “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all
your heart (the center of a person’s being), with all your soul (the life
source of a person), and with all your mind (the source of understanding and
decision).” He points out that this is
the greatest and first commandment. Then
he says that the second is like it. He
quotes Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.”
In quoting
from the Torah, Jesus is teaching nothing new.
What he does, however, is to link those two commandments in such a
radical way that they can never be separated.
In the Biblical sense, “to love” has very little to do with emotions or
feelings. “To love” means “to belong”. Jesus reminds his listeners that God had
entered into a Covenant with their ancestors and continues it with them. He loves them, not because they deserve to be
loved, but because they belong to him and to each other as his people. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus
expands the definition of neighbor. We
who claim to love God must extend that love to anyone we encounter who needs
our help, as the Good Samaritan did.
As Saint
Paul reminds us in his Letter to the Thessalonians, we are members of the New
Covenant sealed with the Blood of Jesus Christ. We must respond as members of
this Covenant not so much with our words, but with our actions. He calls us to treat others as God as treated
us. The first reading from the Book of
Exodus provides guidance. The Lord speaks
to his people who are now comfortable and prosperous in the land which he had
promised to Moses and the Israelites. In
their comfort, they might oppress the alien, those immigrants who do not enjoy
the protection of families and friends.
In their wealth, they might neglect the widows, who had depended
entirely on men for their care. In their
security, they might forget the orphans, whose source of income is dead. Nor can they take advantage of the poor who
are desperate for help. They cannot keep
their cloaks as collateral, because they need them for warmth at night.
The Lord
speaks those same words to us. Many of
us are descendants of immigrants. As
residents of the First World, most of us enjoy comfortable lives. We must do more than speak of our respect for
human dignity of those pushed on the margins of our society. We must continue our tithe to our sister
parish of Saint Adalbert and our concern for Father Larry’s parish in
Uganda. We need to continue to support
our Saint Vincent de Paul Society as they minister to the needs of the poor in
our name. We must also connect our love
for God with our care for the immigrants, the widows, the orphans, and the poor
of our day.
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