“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
My brain is full pretty much all the time so it has to mentally triage in real time to decide what to think about. That’s why, when I read the greatest commandment section in Matthew (and in Mark), my brain skips over it. It wasn’t until I slowed down and read it more deliberately that I realised that Jesus’ greatest commandment wasn’t one of the Ten Commandments. I mean, there are Ten Commandments in the Old Testament (Exodus 20:2-17) that Moses and everyone since him have made a big deal out of, and Jesus talks about the greatest one, so…..it must be number 1 on the list…right…?
Except it’s not. The first commandment is to have no other God but him. Loving God with all your heart, soul and mind actually comes from Deuteronomy 6:5 and the second commandment to love our neighbours as ourselves comes from Leviticus 19:18. So why does Jesus pick out two commandment that appear to be buried elsewhere to the ‘Big 10’?
Maybe the Big 10 aren’t as big as we thought they were?
We focus a lot on the 10 commandments, but to the ancient Jews, there was a lot more to the commands and regulations provided throughout the Torah (ie the first five books of the Bible). The greatest command that Jesus cites actually comes from what is called the Shema. Shema is the alliteration of the Hebrew word “hear” and is the beginning of Deut. 6:4 when Moses says “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” before continuing with the exhortation to love God with heart, soul and strength.
It has that name because the Shema was a prayer or creed that was recited by the Jews every morning and evening as a summation of their faith and faith practice.
So while, to us, this command is “buried” along with hundreds of others, this was absolutely fundamental to the relationship with God for the Jews in Moses’ day, just as much as in Jesus’ day.
Context is key
The command in Deut. 6:5 is also in a section that commands the Jews to cultivate that relationship within their families and particularly in passing it onto the next generation. Loving God before all else was critical in ensuring the ongoing Jewish covenant relationship was strong. The commands are “to be on your hearts” says Moses, and the Jews are to impress them on their children, talk about them when they sit at home and walk along the road and when they go to bed and get up again (Deut. 6:6-7).
The command in Leviticus 19:18 says “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself.” It comes in a long list of commands aimed at the holiness of the Jewish community and their harmonious inter-relationships.
In this sense they do relate to the 10 commandments. The 10 commandments themselves are split into two sections. Commandments 1-4 focus on relationship with God and commandments 5-10 are focussed on their relationship to each other within community. So the two commands cited by Jesus would provide an umbrella over both of those sections: Love God, love each other.
Whose idea was it?
Was Jesus the first one to bring those two commands together as the greatest? We can’t know. But what we do know is that the teacher of the law who asked Jesus what the greatest command agreed with him (Mark 12:32). Jesus then replied to the man “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34).
These commandments open up the kingdom of God
These commands open up the kingdom of God to us. I find that comforting, amazing and a little bit confronting. Because the second command is the proof of the first. And this is where I fall down.
I might think that I love God with all my heart and soul and mind, but if I am not loving my neighbour as myself, am I really doing that? Some people are so hard to love. Some people I want to take some time to really dislike. Even Jonah didn’t want to preach to the people of Nineveh because if they repented they would be saved and he didn’t think they deserved that.
But, as noted by Grant R. Osborne in his commentary on Matthew, “This is not a ‘self-disregard’ or ‘other centredness’ that involves denial of self (that is true of our relationship with God) but rather a consideration and care for others as being part of yourself.”
This is still confronting but important and doesn’t come easily. I treasure God before all else, and that love will show in how I treat others. It may not come naturally, but I still need to work towards caring for those before me, including those that I (and Jonah and anyone else for that matter) don’t feel are deserving.
Sometimes it takes baby steps. But perhaps the first step is recognising that God is God, and I am just me. I surrender to his omniscience and glory and I will ask him to make me be quick to listen, slow to anger, quick to pray, quick to empathise and slow to turn away.
Pray it with me – Quick, slow, quick, quick, slow…….