Today's gospel passage (Matthew 22.34-46) comes as the culmination and climax of a whole section that has been going on since Matthew 21, in which Jesus is shown in conflict with the Jewish authorities. It arises in the context of Matthew’s community, in the days after the fall of the Temple, when Jewish Christians were really asking themselves what they needed to keep from the Jewish law and what they could let go. Hence in exchange after exchange and parable after parable, Jesus exposes the inadequacy of the Jewish law as it was being interpreted by its leaders. At this point I think he is portrayed as being really at the end of his patience with answering trick questions and dealing with their constant antagonism.
So here Jesus recalls the Pharisees to the foundations of their Jewish faith; to the opening of the Schema, the oldest fixed prayer of Judaism recited every day and based on the summary of the Torah, the law in Deuteronomy 6:5. He could not have returned a more orthodox answer if he had tried. We could read this final question as if they were giving him a chance. The Pharisees, who had their own internal disputes with the Sadducees, had heard that he had returned a good answer to the Sadducees on the question of marriage and the resurrection and I suspect that a few of them were thinking, ‘perhaps this guy is on our side after all.’ And Jesus gives an answer to their question with which they could not possibly argue - all agreed that this was the central teaching - love; love of God, love of neighbour, love of self. Of course this remains the central teaching, not only in Judaism and Christianity, but across all the great world faiths, this ‘golden rule’ of love of God and love of neighbour, love of true self is asserted...
So here Jesus recalls the Pharisees to the foundations of their Jewish faith; to the opening of the Schema, the oldest fixed prayer of Judaism recited every day and based on the summary of the Torah, the law in Deuteronomy 6:5. He could not have returned a more orthodox answer if he had tried. We could read this final question as if they were giving him a chance. The Pharisees, who had their own internal disputes with the Sadducees, had heard that he had returned a good answer to the Sadducees on the question of marriage and the resurrection and I suspect that a few of them were thinking, ‘perhaps this guy is on our side after all.’ And Jesus gives an answer to their question with which they could not possibly argue - all agreed that this was the central teaching - love; love of God, love of neighbour, love of self. Of course this remains the central teaching, not only in Judaism and Christianity, but across all the great world faiths, this ‘golden rule’ of love of God and love of neighbour, love of true self is asserted...
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