30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Matthew 22, 34-40
During my first year in the seminary, in my Religious Education class, our teacher challenged the class and asked if there was anybody who would be able to recite aloud all the Ten Commandments as written in the book of Exodus. There were only a handful in my class who raised up their hands and I was one of them. Then Fr Rudy Horst, SVD pointed at me and asked me to recite them. Fortunately, I was able to recite all the Ten Commandments. And in turn, the class clapped their hands in appreciation of my effort.
Now imagine you are a disciple of the Pharisees during the time of Christ and asked to recite not just the Ten Commandments but all the 613 rules derived from the Ten Commandments. You must have to be a memory nut to be able to recite even half of those!
In the gospel for today, again like the reading from last week, what seemed to be an innocent question is actually a loaded one, asked in order to trap Jesus into an endless debate with an intention to shame him by using his own words and arguments against him. After silencing the Sadducees, the Pharisees sent one of the scholars of the law and asked Jesus what seems to be a very simple question. The question goes, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” It seems to be simple enough, but actually this scholar of the law was hoping that Jesus would quote any one of the 613 rules or commandments and then this scholar would engage Jesus in an endless debate with the question about why he chose that particular commandment and disregarded the other 612. However, in a master stroke, Jesus quoted part of the “Shema prayer”, “You shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. And you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” And with that there could be no debate because how can you question that prayer which is the basis of the whole Law?
There’s a saying, “You can’t see the forest because of the trees”. By giving a simple answer to what seemed to be a very complicated question, Jesus was emphasising what is truly important, and that is, the spirit of the Law, and that is Love. By loving God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind, it means that God will only be our God and no other, we’ll not use God’s name in vain, we’ll make Sabbath day holy. By loving our neighbour as ourselves it means that we won’t kill, we won’t steal, we won’t bear false witness against our neighbour. And in the later passages in the Bible, in the Gospel According to John, Jesus even says that we should love another as Jesus has loved us. Which means if Jesus has given up his life because he loves us so much, so if need be, should we also sacrifice ourselves with the love we have for our neighbour.
Sadly, we live in a world where even in our Catholic Church, we tend to stick to so many rules that it moves us away from what is truly essential. Several years ago, I was asked to speak about the Rosary to a group of devotees in the parish. In my talk I said that according to our tradition, we meditate on particular groups of mysteries according to what day is. For example, we meditate on the Joyful mysteries every Monday and Saturday, Sorrowful mysteries every Tuesday and Friday, Luminous mysteries every Thursday and Glorious mysteries every Wednesday and Sunday except during the Sundays of Advent and Lent where we usually meditate the Joyful and Sorrowful mysteries respectively. I said that we don’t really have to follow strictly that rule in praying the Rosary. For example, if we want to pray the Rosary during a funeral wake, we may want to meditate on the Sorrowful and Glorious mysteries whatever day it may be, even during a Monday and Thursday for example. Or if we feel happy because of the birth of a child in the family and as a thanksgiving and we want to offer a Rosary as our prayer, we may want to meditate on the Joyful mysteries even if it’s a Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday. Sadly, the people on that group made a big fuss about it and insisted that it can’t be done. I said, this “rule” of the Rosary is only a guide to our prayer and nobody can stop us from praying whatever mystery we want according to our disposition. And until now, there are still Catholics who concentrate too much on the rules instead of the spirit of the Law.
The only rule that we must follow is the rule of Love. St Augustine once said, “Love God and do what you please”. It means that what we should do is not to focus on hundreds of rules, but on our act of loving God. All our actions should be guided by our love of God before everything else.
Let us continue to love God without being bogged down with all those rules. Because if we love God with all our heart, with all our minds and with all our spirit and love our neighbour as Jesus has loved us, then what could possibly go wrong?
