Living The Great Commandment

Scripture: Deuteronomy 34:1-12 and Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17  • Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18 and Psalm 1  • 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8  • Matthew 22:34-46

This week Jesus teaches us the "Great Commandment" which is a combination of the first part of Israel's great Shema (Hear): "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." And from Leviticus 19, 1-2, 15-18, particularly: "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD." 

Professor Alyce MacKenzie tells us in "Reality-Show Jesus: Reflections on Matthew 22:34-46," that Matthew's gospel account has Jesus teaching the Great Commandment after he was tested  by and confronted the religious leaders of his day by overturning the tables of the money changers, telling the parables of the vineyard and wedding feast, and after answering those who seek to entrap him with the question of whether it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar.

What is Jesus teaching us about the Great Commandment? About Love? See MacKenzie's article (above), The Rev. Canon Frank Logue's "Everything Hangs on Love," in which he describes what it means to be committed in loving another more than ourselves (agape love - ἀγάπη),  and The Rev. Sharron R. Blezard's "Living the Gospel of Love." What does living The Great Commandment mean while living in community? For us in our parish? See The Rev. Anjel Scarborough's "The Benedictine tradition of community." Laying down our egos, our long-nurtured grudges and resentments, and seeking the way of love is the way of the cross through which we find fullness of life in Christ.