Fr. Thomas Oyode
“Love of Neighbour: A Perfection of Christian Piety”
The confrontation of Jesus by Jewish authorities (Sadducees, Herodians, Pharisees) continues. In today’s gospel (Matthew 22:34-40), it is a lawyer from the group of the Pharisees who comes with a specifically religious question to trap Jesus. As a matter of fact, the Pharisees have grappled with this question for many centuries: “which is the greatest of the Commandments?” Majority interpreted the Torah in the understanding that the shema (meaning listen/hear) in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 is the greatest and they were made to recite it at least twice a day. However, the Rabbis’ persistent efforts to find a true definition for the essence of the Torah, led to a complication of its meaning rendering it complex and difficult to live by in everyday life. There was thus a wide ditch between Christian piety and concrete social existence. Matthew continues, therefore, to present Jesus as the ultimate interpreter of the Law. He is the New Moses and the New Teacher. To stamp his authority as a teacher, he responds by striking a balance between these two extremes of the debate and a long-standing dilemma of how to love God and bring same love to bear on actual human existence.
Jesus as a well-bred Jew tells them rightly that the greatest Law is the shema: you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. The Pharisees could not have disputed this because for them, nothing takes the place of Yahweh. However, Jesus draws their attention to a very important theological detail from which they have been distracted by their obsession with multiplying the laws of the Torah while attempting to interpret its true essence. This is the commandment of the love of neighbour (cf. Leviticus 19:18).
Religion and piety are pure and true only if they are rooted in God and flow in and through God. The love of God as taught by the Jews and as confirmed by Jesus today would be imperfect and lifeless if does not go out of itself to encounter others. In other words, true Christian piety is one that allows itself to be moved and directed by the Spirit of God for the Spirit of God is love. Also, the Spirit of God is not uni-directional; it is multi-directional, blowing wherever it wills as it manifests God’s presence. Not only that, everything that God does, he does out of love. In fact, God is love and he created, redeemed, and continues to sanctify the world in love and through love.
The depth of Jesus’ knowledge of the Torah reiterates the point that faith without good works is dead and love for God without love for neighbour is dead. Who is a neighbour? Once Archbishop Ekpu (now Emeritus) was on a pastoral visit to the Holy Cross Cathedral in Benin City and, during a general audience, one of the faithful asked him to explain this teaching about love for one’s neighbour and he said that we must first understand that “a neighbour is any one other than ourselves”. Any person who is not you is your neighbour. In this sense, our love for God is to be extended beyond ourselves to other persons irrespective of their tribe, religion, class, status, or condition of life. We are to look at the way we relate with God and juxtapose it with the way we treat our fellow men and women.
How do we treat our cooks, house helps, security men, the waiter, the vulcanizer, the less privileged in our society? How do we relate with our subordinates? How do we manage public treasury/funds (and this includes Church property)?
One key to answering these questions is to look at the very meaning of love itself as used by Jesus in today’s gospel
and as understood by the Jews in Leviticus 19:18. It is understood as agape, the love that builds and not destroys, the love that helps and not hinders, and the love that alleviates rather than aggravate. This love has a divine purpose, it animates community life and friendship where everyone flourishes in peace and quality living. This is the type of love that guarantees the abundant life promised by Christ himself (John 10:10). Thus, in extending love for God to our neighbours we are simply being God-like, making the world what God willed it to be.
Jesus, therefore, tells us to incarnate love for God by entrenching social justice. This means that certain attitudes and principles of fairness, equity, respect, and forthrightness ought to guide human society and those who love God must strive to make this happen. Today’s first reading highlights a blueprint, some specific signposts to guide us on what to do. We must not oppress the orphan, we must protect the widow and advocate for their rights, we must avoid usury or doing business with excessive profit as the goal, and we must be considerate of the poor. All these invite us to pay attention to the weakest and poor among us and make life easier for them.
The ultimate example is Jesus himself. His very life teaches us how to exhibit authentic love. For Jesus, love is not silence in the face of evil, love is not equivocation because we do not want to hurt people’s feelings. Rather, it is the kind of love that pushes us even into uncomfortable places just like Jesus who showed mercy to sinners, welcomed the marginalised, gave voice to the voiceless, dispossessed demonic enclaves and gave succour to the oppressed even if that would mean being hated and crucified. Love does not play the ostrich.
Finally, Jesus teaches us that if we truly understand how to love God and love our neighbour, we would be able to see with the eye of the Spirit of God and be able to practice love that is dynamic and not one-sided, a faith that is both lineal and circular, both vertical and horizontal. This is the kind of love that helps us to see truth in detail and not simply from the perspective of long held traditions that close themselves to the dynamism of God’s mercy and charity. In God’s love there is no final answer, under the light of the Holy Spirit knowledge continues to grow and both love and knowledge mutually enrich each other.
Mary, Mirror of Justice, pray for us.
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Fr. Daniel Evbotokhai:
The Greatest Commandment
In the New Testament, the greatest commandments were identified as love of God and love of neighbors. It is a perfect summary of the ten commandments. The first three of the ten were about God, while the other seven were about man. Thus, when Jesus was asked, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest? He said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Let us examine these commandments closely.
The First Part: Christ says we must love God “with all our hearts.” The heart is the most profound and personal part of the human person. It is the core of intimacy. So, Jesus wants us to enter into a personal and intimate relationship with God. Again, he says “with all our souls.” The soul is the seat of human desire. In Ps. 42:1, the Bible says, “As the deer yearns for flowing streams, so my soul yearns for you, my God.” Therefore, to love God, we must have an active longing for him, for holiness, and for righteousness. Lastly, Jesus says “With all your mind”. The mind is the intellectual home of the human person. It is the faculty of consciousness and thought. So, Jesus wants us to study and understand the truth of God revealed in the scriptures and to make a decision arising from our will. Jerome says: Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of God.
The Second Part: Christ says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In fact, these two commandments form one virtue. For we cannot love God without loving our neighbor, and vice versa. 1 John 4:20–21 says, “If anyone says, ‘I love God’ but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” Therefore, genuine love begins with those we see. That is, our neighbours. Thus, in the first reading, Moses exhorts us not to wrong, exploit, cheat, enslave, or take advantage of an alien, a widow, or an orphan. Lack of love is one of the fundamental reasons we suffer in this country. Where love is absent, evil is present. A man who cannot love cannot serve. Your capacity to love underscores your level of service.
Again, Moses warns against undue charging of interest just to take advantage of another; he frowns at deals that make the poor poorer. Obviously, this is the method of operation in this country today. Every deal makes the poor poorer. Even amongst ourselves, we lead people into deals just for us to acquire their hard-earned money. Beloved, we are reminded to love. God hates oppression. Zechariah 7:10 says, “Do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.” In the face of oppression, Moses was sent to protest against Pharaoh (Exd. 9:1).
In the second reading, we are made to understand how Paul and his companions imitated Christ, and the Thessalonians imitated them. Even the Thessalonians became a model for all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. Their faith in God was known everywhere. Those around us should see Christ in us. Let us proclaim Christ through good examples, words, and deeds. Do not shout “amen” in church and go back to your office to recycle hatred.
Let us pray
Almighty ever-living God, increase our faith, hope and charity, and make us love what you command, so that we may merit what you promise. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
