The controversies between Jesus and the
Pharisees continue. This time a scholar of the law, that is, a scribe puts
Jesus to the test, asking him about a question rather common among rabbis at
that time: “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?”—literally, “Which
is the great commandment (mandatum magnum) in the law?” Why did rabbis discuss this issue?
Because they enumerated a good 613 precepts in the Bible. We have had a sample
of these precepts in the first reading. So, it was understandable for rabbis to
discover which was the greatest commandment. Evidently, they also had problems with
catechesis: how to teach people so many commandments? It was absolutely
necessary to focus on the essentials. It is true that, among the more than six
hundred precepts, there are the ten commandments given by God to Moses; but
they are still ten. Is it not possible to find one commandment which can
summarize the other ones and on which all others depend?
Jesus replies citing not one, but two
commandments taken from the old testament. They do not belong to the Decalogue;
the first of them is from the book of Deuteronomy, and the second one from
Leviticus. Both of them order us to love—in the first case, God; in the second
case, the neighbor. A first objection we could raise is: how can love be
commanded? Love is a spontaneous feeling, which appears and disappears without
us willing it. Well, that is exactly the love which these two commandments do
not order, because this kind of love does not depend on us. It is easy to love
someone, when we feel affection for them. The problem is to love someone we do
not like. As well as it is very difficult to love someone we do not see, like
God.
And yet, the “great and first commandment” in
the law says: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your mind.” As you can see, we are not requested to
love with our feelings, but with all our self—heart, soul and mind. In the
Bible, to love God means to be faithful to his covenant, that is to say, to
observe his commandments, to do his will. The apostle John puts it very clearly
in the first of his letters: “The love of God is this, that we keep his
commandments” (1Jn 5:3).
That is why Jesus adds a second commandment:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Please notice, we are not requested
to love our neighbor as a mother loves her children or a young man loves his
girlfriend. To love, in this case, means to work for the good of others. Saint
Paul says in the letter to the Romans: “The commandments, ‘You shall not commit
adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,’ and
whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, namely
‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no evil to the neighbor;
hence, love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rm 13:9-10). So, the second
commandment of the law is a summary of all other commandments. And Jesus combines
it with the first commandment so that we may know how to love God: we love God by
loving our neighbor.
This does not mean that the two commandments
are interchangeable or coincide with each other. We cannot confuse God with his
creatures. We can see how the “measure” of the two loves is different: we have
to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind; instead,
we have to love our neighbor as ourselves. If the two commandments are not
interchangeable, nonetheless, they are inseparable. Which means: there cannot
be true love of God without love of neighbor; as well as there cannot be true
love of neighbor without love of God. We do not know whether it was Jesus the
first to combine the two commandments or whether others had already joined them
together. But it is not so important; what really matters is that, if we want
to please God and be saved, we have to love both God and neighbor—God in the
neighbor and the neighbor in God.
Q
