Hear, O Israel
Thirty-First Sunday Scripture Readings
Here’s what my Scripture commentary says about the scribe’s question in today’s gospel. “Teachers of the Torah … argued about the relative importance of the many commandments in the [Torah], with a view to finding the ‘parent commandment’ from which all others could be deduced.”[1] Jesus quotes the Shema’—the passage from the Torah [Deuteronomy 7:4] that forms the foundation of the Hebrew belief system: “Hear, O Israel, Yahweh, our God, Yahweh is one. You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Those words are so important that the Torah says you must hold them in your heart, teach them to your children, speak of them at home and abroad, while sitting, walking, or lying down, and bind them on your hand and forehead, and write them on the doorposts and gates of your home. With that level of importance given this commandment by the Torah, it’s no surprise to find Jesus recognizing it as the first and greatest commandment.
But then, Jesus diverges from tradition. True, the Torah teaches that observant Jews need to give love and respect to their fellow Israelites. However, the rabbis seldom went further than that. Indeed, Jesus refers to their teachings in the Gospel of Matthew [5:43] when he said to his disciples, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’” Evidently “neighbor” in that context referred to their fellow countrymen. Here, Jesus makes no such qualification. He stipulates that the love one must have for one’s neighbor should be no less than the love one bears for oneself. It’s the Golden Rule on steroids.
It was most likely not obvious to the scribe who was asking the question, but Jesus didn’t suggest that there should be any limit to whom might be considered to be a “neighbor.” We know from his other teachings—for example the parable of the Good Samaritan [Luke 10:25-37]—that he placed no such limits at all. In fact, it was only after the Holy Spirit was given to the Gentiles at Pentecost that it became clear that, indeed, God made no distinction among those Jesus’s followers were commanded to love. No distinction was made then, and no distinction can be made now, for those who claim the title of disciple.
The universality of God’s love as practiced by Jesus’s followers is only one aspect of the radical departure Jesus took from the Torah and the rabbis who taught it. After all, the scribe asked, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” So, Jesus answered him not with two commandments, but with one two-part commandment. The two aspects of this commandment are inseparable. One’s love of God is directly proportionate to one’s love of neighbor—one’s white, black, brown or Asian neighbor, one’s native-born or foreign neighbor, one’s straight, gay, bisexual or transgender neighbor, one’s Christian, Muslim or atheist neighbor, one’s rich or poor neighbor, one’s virtuous neighbor, and even one’s vicious neighbor. No one can be excluded.
The link between the so-called first and second commandments is unbreakable. Saint John writes in his first letter, “Whoever says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar.” [1 John 4:20] Yet, keep in mind that the opposite of love is not hate. Hate is just love gone astray. The opposite of love is indifference. This should frighten us who profess to love God, for how we treat one another is a direct reflection of our love for God. We cannot truthfully say that we love God if we are indifferent to one another.
“Hear, O Israel, Yahweh, our God, Yahweh is one.” There’s not a separate god for white, black, brown or Asian people, native-born or foreign people, straight, gay, bisexual, or transgender people, Christian, Muslim, or atheist people, rich or poor people, good or bad people. Yahweh, our God, is one. Therefore, shouldn’t we also be loving our neighbor with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength? I know. It’s comparatively easy to love the God we cannot see because that God is never really annoying. It’s not so easy to love the nasty neighbor who bothers us or who did us wrong. It’s not so easy to love the neighbor who’s so different from us that we struggle to understand them. Yet, that’s where our love of God plays out. Worship of God is straightforward. Love of our neighbor, on the other hand, is complex, difficult, and often messy.
Am I being too “woke,” or am I just a follower of Jesus? He’s told us what the first and greatest commandment is: to love God and love our neighbor. “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two laws.” [Matthew 22:40] But there’s more. He’s given us a new commandment that encompasses and supersedes all the others. “I give you a new commandment,” he told his followers. “Love one another as I have loved you.” [John 13:34] Give up on the “Ten Commandments.” They’re useless for bringing us closer to God. If we would learn how to draw closer to God, then we must learn to love one another with a sincere and indiscriminate love—that same love that God has shown us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
[1] Brown, Fitzimyer, Murphy, Editors, Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice-Hall, Inc., §42:28.
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