The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle A)

The tie in between today’s readings: Impossible Love

Psalm 18:2-4;47-51, Exodus 22:20-26, 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10, Matthew 22:34-40

Today’s gospel, Matthew 22:34-40, opens with another question to Jesus from the Pharisees. They ask the Lord, “Which is the greatest commandment?” He gives them a two-part answer, “Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Also, love your neighbor as yourself.”  All present agree with Christ that the whole Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Finally, common ground! Of course, this is the same crowd that will crucify Him in a mock trial; once again showing that there is a chasm between knowing something and doing it. Going forward in today’s readings we will discover a good, a better, and then, the only way to close this gap.

In Exodus 22:20-26, the Lord teaches His newly freed Hebrews how to conduct themselves in His society. Observe here that instead of beckoning His people toward Him in love, He threatens. Idolatry earns obliteration for straying away to other gods. Oppressing others brings the hammer of the Almighty on your head. You can easily fall into the cliché that Old Testament Jehovah is wrathful and New Testament Jesus is loving. Silly boy, they are the same God. It boils down to whether the application is personal or public. There is nothing wrong with codes that safeguard the wellbeing of individuals and in a Theocracy, such as it was during the Exodus, worship of the one true God is paramount. Legislation that is written by any government to ensure fairness and order in society is always backed up with penalties. When it comes to laying down the law, there are never carrots…only sticks. The problem is that coercion is not conversion.  If the hearts of the people are not in it, rebellion ensues, which happened many times throughout the Jew’s history. We can see that something deeper must occur to apply these two great commandments to their full intent.

Today’s reading in Psalm 18:2-4 and 47-51 takes us a step closer. God is a hero, but not just any hero…my hero. He is my fortress. He saves me from my enemies. He gets revenge for me. My God is faithful forever! Daring deeds of deliverance usually elicit responses of thanks, admiration, and joy toward the rescuer. We are inspired to be like Him. To varying degrees, we take on His purposes as our life’s goal. We emulate the Lord in our own version of “paying it forward” and that’s a good thing. The world is in bad need of good deeds. However, while it is so much better than the coercion of the Law discussed earlier, this hero worship begs the question: where is the love?

We are helpless to cross the barrier and make a love connection with a Being so mysterious and so totally different than we are. The Lord, Himself, must make it happen. God bridges the expanse between us in His Son. Jesus Christ jumped the gap from the spiritual into the physical. In His humanity, we not only get better acquainted with the Almighty, but by His sacrifice on the cross, we can be born again by faith into a new spiritual life in Him. Through Christ, we become one with God. We know Him and He knows us. 1 John 4:7-14 sums this up best:

⁷ Beloved let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. ¹³ By this we know that we remain in Him and He in us, because He has given to us of His Spirit. ¹⁴ We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

The evidence of all this is picked up in our reading in 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10. St. Paul reminds this church that the gospel of salvation came to them in power and the Holy Spirit. God had worked His love miracle in their hearts. In fact, word had spread back to Paul about the reputation of the believers at Thessalonica. They had turned from idols to the true God and their conduct as imitators of Jesus had become a model for the other churches to copy. They were living proof of the power of God in them fulfilling the Great Commandments. Their work is finished. It is our turn now.

The real love of God can only be obtained through uniting with His Son and His sacrifice on the cross. Until this happens, we may think that we love God but in reality…we are only flirting. Let us, by faith, earnestly take hold of the salvation provided to us in Jesus. Let us grow in Christ and, under His Lordship, move toward knowing God, loving God, and serving others in this world. Let that be our calling. Let that be our motivation. Let that be our life.