Neighbour God

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, October 29th, 2023:
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Matthew
22.34-40

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the Law is the greatest?”

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment.

“And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

As I was sitting with today’s Gospel reading, I thought of a line I recently heard in a podcast by Fr Boniface Hicks, who was speaking about prayer with Scripture. He encouraged the listeners, when sitting with a Bible reading, to read it through slowly and ask themselves, “How do I experience God’s love for me in this Scripture passage?” When I was coming up dry in today’s passage, I decided to check out the context in the surrounding passages in the Gospel of Matthew, and this helped me see a little more of what Jesus was doing with this Great Commandment.

Here, Jesus has been preaching in the temple for a while and the Sadducees and Pharisees keep trying to trick him and expose some falsehood or inconsistency in His words. In today’s reading, when the Pharisees ask “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment?” it is clear that they are not asking with a pure intention, seeking to know the commandment so that they can live it. Instead, their words drip of deceit, and Jesus recognizes this, seeing their hearts and responding accordingly. He gives them the standard answer from the Old Testament law and prophets, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. But then He also adds the second commandment to it, Love your neighbour as yourself. 

Jesus is certainly teaching them, in the simple truth of these words, that the most important thing we can do in our lives is to love God and neighbour. But I wonder if He is also speaking more subtly to the hard hearts of the Pharisees who are asking the question. In their deception and tricks, with the plotting and traps of their questions, the Pharisees are showing Jesus anything but love for Him, their neighbour. What is so striking is that, even though the Pharisees are too hard-hearted to see this, to love Jesus fulfills the commandments both to love their neighbour and to love their God. In becoming a man among us, the Incarnate Word of God fulfills and perfects the more distant Old Testament commandment, to love a God they could not see. Because God became man, we may love Him not only distantly or without a face; but we love Him in the very person of our neighbour! 

Returning to Fr Hicks’ prompt for Lectio Divina, “How do I experience God’s love for me in this Scripture passage?” God’s love became tangible and took on a face that I can behold in Jesus Christ. And—wonder of wonders!—I can encounter this face of God in every person I meet, loving God and loving my neighbour. 



Sr. Angela Burnham

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