Note: Each Thursday, I'll be looking at one of the lectionary passages for the upcoming Sunday. Today, we're looking at Matthew 22:34-46. Because I'm about to go out of town and am rushing to do a ton of stuff. I am going to simply read the passage and write out whatever comes to mind in four minutes. It is probably a horribly stupid idea.
I feel like the Greatest Commandment should be tattooed to our foreheads. Not really, but you get the idea. The command to love God with our entire being and to love our neighbor as ourselves should be the root in all that we say and do in life. It is the basis of Christian ethics. I'm not saying that it solves everything but it is honestly where we should start and to where we should circle back around periodically.
It's interesting to me that they lectionary does not stop there. Maybe the Lectionary Master (a really lame superhero who has the power to subdivide scripture) thought that giving just that passage would be too easy. Sermons on the Greatest Commandment write themselves.
Yet we go on with Jesus asking the Pharisees about whether the Messiah is the Son of David. It seems random. But it is all about authority. Up to this passage, Jesus is being questioned. And then just now he dropped the Greatest Commandment. It is not unique to Jesus but it is still an authoritative statement. By Jesus pointing out that he is something totally other and beyond David, he's establishing authority. He has the right to boil the law and the prophet down to two commands.
My time ended about 23 seconds ago. Next week won't be as rushed.