Finally, It Is A Matter Of Love

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, October 31, 2021

In the Judaism of Jesus’ time, there were hundreds of commandments, laws, rules, regulations governing almost every aspect of life. So, it was a common practice among the rabbis to inquire from one another what is the greatest, what is the central commandment, what is the organizing principle of the law. Sometimes to ensure clarity and succinctness, a rabbi was compelled to offer this summary while standing on one foot. So, in accord with this custom, Jesus, in today’s Gospel (Mark 12:28-34) is asked by one of the scribes, a teacher himself, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” The scribe is seeking Jesus’ opinion about what matters the most to God, about what is God’s greatest or most fundamental commandment. What does Jesus do? He takes one of the laws of Moses from Deuteronomy and one of the laws of Moses from Leviticus, puts them together as the first and greatest of all the commandments. He recites the Shema, “Hear O Israel! The LORD our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” After that, he adds to it a second commandment that ties loving God to loving one’s neighbor as oneself (Leviticus 19:18). Then, to intensify the inseparability of these two loves, Jesus proclaims, “There is no other commandment greater than these.”  Why does Jesus do this? By the first century AD, there is already in Judaism a recognition that these two commandments— (love of God and love of neighbor) summarized the two tablets of the Decalogue—the Ten Commandment. If you look at the first three commandments inscribed on the first tablet: prohibition of idolatry, prohibition against taking the Lord’s name in vain, and keeping the Sabbath holy, they are all commandments orientated towards the love of God. In the second tablet of the Ten Commandments— honor your father and mother, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t bear false witness, and not coveting neighbors possessions or wife, these commandments are orientated towards love of neighbor. So, what Jesus is essentially doing is condensing the Ten Commandments down to their essence and to their core, and then linking those cores to the two passages of the Scripture: Deuteronomy 6 (love of God) and then Leviticus 19:18 (love of neighbor) which is not part of liturgical prayer, the Shema. 

Sisters and brothers, in this Gospel passage, Jesus announces that everything else in Jewish life, everything else in the life of his followers is subordinate to those two great commandments. That is the essence of the law. Finally, it is about love, because love is what God is. It is a matter of love, and the love of God and neighbor are tightly intertwined. If you follow every dot of the law, but has not loved, it means nothing. If you claim to love God but hate your neighbor, it worths nothing. Your love of God is in fact phony and hypocritical. The great theologian, St. Augustine once said to his students, “If you want to know the principle by which you should interpret the whole of scripture, use the commandment to love as the interpretive guide.” The entire Bible is meant to bring us to the point where we love God, and because we love God, we love our neighbor. After that, everything else is commentary. 

But why are the two commandments so tightly linked in Christianity? There are different ways to answer that question, but the best and simplest response is: Because of who Jesus is. Our Lord is not simply a human being, and he is not simply God; rather he is the God-man, the one in whose person divinity and humanity meet. So, it is conclusively and definitively impossible to love him as God without loving the humanity that he has, in his own person, embraced. Who stands at the heart of our faith? Christ who is the God-man. Christ who is in his own person both divine and human. Therefore, it becomes impossible for a Christian to love God without loving humanity.

What does this intertwined love of God and neighbor look like? To answer this question, we have to turn to the saints— St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, St. Maximillian Kolbe, St. Oscar Romero, servants of God, Sister Thea Bowman and Dorothy Day and on and on and on. From each of these saints, we learn what it means in practical sense to love God and neighbor.

As for people who wonder and are confused about how to give themselves to a reality, God, that they cannot see, this is where the second command of Jesus comes into play. The first commandment is to love God unreservedly, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. There is a strict logic at work here. When you really love someone, you tend to love, as well, what they love. What does God love? He loves everything and everyone that he has created. So, if you want to love God, and you find the project hard because God seems so distant, love everyone you come across for the sake of God. 

God bless you!