The Greatest Commandment and the Nature of Love

Matthew 22:34-46

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Rev. Bobby Musengwa

Transitional General Presbyter

The unholy drama against Jesus continues in the temple.

A lawyer steps up to test Jesus: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 

The Pharisees have just watched Jesus silence, or muzzle, the Sadducees, and they want to see if he will stumble. 

The Greek word used here for silence is muzzle, which is a stronger visual depiction of Jesus’ victory over his powerful challengers in these public debates in the temple.

With 613 commandments in the Torah, any answer starts an argument.

Jesus answers with two. 

From Deuteronomy: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 

This is the Shema, a prayer which devout Jews say daily when they wake up in the morning, and at night when they go to sleep.

From Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Everything else, he says, hangs on these two, the way a door hangs on its hinges. 

Take the hinges away and the door hits the floor.

My former doctoral classmate, Rev. Dr. Leon Bloder, Senior Pastor of Shephard of the Hills Presbyterian Church in Austin, uses the phrase, “Love God. Love Neighbor.” 

Four words. The simplicity explains the whole complex commandments, and it is hard to improve on.

It’s easy to hear this as a greeting-card verse, easier to remember than the Decalogue, also known as the Ten Commandments. 

Dr. Howard Thurman won’t let us. 

In Jesus and the Disinherited, Thurman, who was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s mentor, describes Jesus as a poor Jew under Roman occupation, a person with his back against the wall. 

For people in that spot, love is not sentimental. It is how a person refuses to let hatred win on the inside while still resisting injustice on the outside. 

Love protects dignity and keeps the heart from being poisoned.

My former doctoral supervisor, Prof. Tinyiko Maluleke, pushes this further. 

Maluleke, a prolific writer and a polymath, is a South African theologian who has spent his career asking hard questions about what love and reconciliation require in a land shaped by apartheid. 

His work reminds us that love of neighbor cannot skip over justice. 

If we talk about love but never ask who has been left out, who owns the land, or whose story never gets told, we are offering what many have called cheap reconciliation. 

It sounds holy, and it costs the comfortable nothing. 

Maluleke’s challenge is that real love tells the truth about the wounds between neighbors and then stays at the table to help heal them.

Put Thurman and Maluleke next to Jesus, and the commandment gets sharper. 

Love is not just feeling warmly toward people. 

It is attention, courage, and action. It asks for heart, soul, and mind. All of us. 

Prof. Amy-Jill Levine, the Jewish New Testament scholar, adds a reminder that Jesus isn’t leaving his tradition behind here. 

Amy-Jill Levine’s influence in my thinking goes back to the time when I used to teach Bible Study to retired pastors, professors, and other professionals at a retirement home. They loved her teaching, and so did I. 

Jesus is pulling together its deepest threads, and love of God and love of neighbor cannot be pried apart.

Then Jesus asks a question of his own about David’s son and David’s Lord, and no one dares ask him anything more. 

You can’t box Jesus in with your clever questions. You can only follow him.

For Mission Presbytery, with our large churches and small ones, our urban congregations and rural ones, this is a practical test. 

Before we debate our priorities, we can ask: Does this love tell the truth, honor the dignity of every person involved, and stay in the room when it gets hard? Love never gives up on anyone, does it?

A question for the week: Who in your community has a hard truth to tell, and what would it look like to listen without rushing to make things comfortable?

Let us pray,

God of love, you ask for our whole selves: heart, soul, and mind.

 Give us the courage to love you with all of it.

Open our eyes to the neighbor we have overlooked. 

Make us honest about the wounds between us, and keep us at the table long enough to help heal them.

Guard our hearts from bitterness. 

Protect the dignity of every person we meet, especially those with their backs against the wall.

In this election season, bless all election officials, including the poll workers, as well as the candidates running for public office. 

Keep us all safe from the temptation of resentment, anger, hatred or violence when we do not get everything we need.

Hold Mission Presbytery together, big churches and small, city and country, and send us out to love God and love neighbor in everything we do.

We pray all these in the name of Jesus Christ, who is Lord of us all. 

Amen.

Channeling my friend, the Rev. Dr. Carlos Baladez, pastor of Crestholme Presbyterian Church in San Antonio: You are loved and valued! 

Grace and peace, my dear friends! I love you all! 

Bobby

Rev. Bobby Musengwa

Transitional General Presbyter

Mission Presbytery