The WORD in other words (2017) by Father Randy Flores SVD – Divine Word Seminary of Tagaytay
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time – A
There is a story of a priest who wanted to go to the United States and thus was interviewed for his visa application at the US embassy. To determine that he was indeed a priest, the interviewing officer told him to recite the Ten Commandments in order. Forgetting its correct arrangement , the priest quipped: “Mr Officer, don’t you know that Jesus had already reduced the Ten Commandments into just two?”
The Jewish Rabbis tell us that there are 613 commandments (mizvot in Hebrew), four of these are contained in today’s First Readings. Each of the of the mizvot can be subsumed under one of the Ten Commandments which have two parts as they are written by God’s own finger unto two tablets (Exodus 31,18; 24,1; Deuteronomy 9,10): Duties to God and Duties to Other (people and even animals).
So when Jesus was quizzed by the lawyer on the greatest commandment, he put forward a double commandment of the love of God and neighbor. Jesus’ innovative answers was an allusion to the Jewish tradition and deeply grounded on the Torah: the First Commandment comes from the first line of the Shema, the Jew’s most fundamental expression of faith (Deuteronomy 6,4-9); and the Second Commandment is a direct quotation from Leviticus 19,18. Notice that Jesus cited the commandments in the Torah word for word; joined them back to back; ranked them as “first” and “second”; and concluded by stating that no other commandment is greater than the two. These facts show the Jesus could have been the first person to compose and even teach the Double Commandment (cf. John P Meir, Marginal Jew 4: Law and Love).
How could Jesus, a simple son of a carpenter that he was, innovate such outstanding teaching as beautiful as the Golden Rule (Matthew 7,12) and left scholars of the law (the nomikos in Greek) very impressed (Mark 12,32)? One can think that Jesus is the Son of God or that he was a natural genius; One can think that Jesus is the Son of God or that he was a natural genius; but we can say as well that Jesus’ wisdom was born of experience. He practiced what he preached. He showed his whole hearted love for the Father by willingly accepting the “cup” of suffering as that he prayed for in Gethsemane: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” (Matthew 26,39) His love for the neighbor reached its height when he “poured out” his life “for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26,28).
The Double Commandment of love of God and neighbor around which the entire Scriptures revolve can also be said to contain what Christianity in a nutshell is all about.
