What Does Love Have to Do with Messiahship? —Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 22A/Proper 25A (Matthew 22)

Matthew 22:34-46 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

³⁴ When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, ³⁵ and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him. ³⁶ “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” ³⁷ He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

⁴¹ Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: ⁴² “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” ⁴³ He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,

⁴⁴ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,

“Sit at my right hand,

    until I put your enemies under your feet”’?

⁴⁵ “If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” ⁴⁶ No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

**********

                Holy Week provides the context for this reading from Matthew 22. According to Matthew’s account, Jesus entered Jerusalem in triumph and then went to the Temple where he caused something of a commotion by turning over tables of the money changers and the other merchants, declaring that they had made God’s house a den of thieves. That took place on Palm Sunday (Matt. 22:1-17). Then on Monday, after returning to the Temple he got into a conversation with the religious authorities about the nature of his authority. Enquiring minds wanted to know the basis of his actions. That led to a series of parables, which we’ve explored, followed by a question about taxes, which we again explored. Remember we’re still in the Temple on Monday of Holy Week. That last question came from the students of the Pharisees and the Herodians, a political group that believed collaboration with Rome was in the best interests of the land. Now we jump over a discussion about the resurrection, which a group of Sadducees took up (the Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection or afterlife. In other words, they were theological traditionalists).  

                After the Sadducees had their turn to question Jesus, a group of Pharisees decided they needed to find a way to trap Jesus. Now, the Pharisees had a very different agenda from the Sadducees. Unlike the Sadducees, who were aligned with the priestly class, the Pharisees believed in the resurrection and were committed to living holy lives in preparation for that eventuality. Therefore, they posed a different set of questions to Jesus. This time it’s a lawyer who speaks. He asks Jesus which of the commandments was the greatest. Now, Jesus had several possibilities. There were, after all, over six hundred commandments to choose from. Even if he limited himself to the Ten Commandments, which one might he choose? Which one would you choose? Jesus chose to go with what is known as the Shema; the commandment revealed in Deuteronomy 6 as a summation of the law:

⁴ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. ⁷ Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. ⁸ Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, ⁹ and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deut. 6:4-9)

This commandment, Jesus told his questioners, is the greatest. In many ways, this was an easy question to answer.  But Jesus wasn’t finished. “Obviously,” we should put loving God first (a word to the wise, don’t put the nation first), but Jesus isn’t finished. While the command to love God comes first and requires one’s entire being (heart, soul, and might), it’s not the only command that we should heed. That is because the second great command is like it, but this time, drawing from Leviticus 19, Jesus tells his questioners, that one should love one’s neighbor as oneself (Lev. 19:17). Then Jesu finishes by telling his enquirers that “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Mt. 22:40). If you do these two things: love God and neighbor, then you have fulfilled everything Torah and the prophets proclaim. It’s so simple it’s a wonder that we continually fail at it!

                Then again, if we look closely at Leviticus 19, the passage Jesus draws upon, we might understand why we might struggle. The Law regarding the neighbor as revealed in Leviticus 19 calls on the people to do several things, such as leaving the edges of one’s field unharvested so that the poor can glean from it. The same is true for the vineyard, a portion of which is to be left for the poor and the alien (Lev. 19:9). Additionally, you shouldn’t steal or slander or defraud your neighbor. In fact, you should not retain the wages of a laborer to the next day.  There are several other guidelines, but ultimately it comes down to loving your neighbor as yourself. As to the importance of this law, Michael Lee writes: “These commands demonstrate how the love of neighbor was intrinsic to the proper obedience of the law and how Israel’s covenant with God called them to prioritize those who were most vulnerable. While ‘neighbor’ is a term that we might use for those near us or just like us, this passage calls us to think of those most poor and marginalized as that neighbor needing love.” [Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship (p. 935). Kindle Edition]. This is the message of Jesus, lest we forget.

                Over the years, as I’ve pondered these two commandments, I’ve understood them as a means of organizing the two tables of the Law (Ten Commandments). The first Table deals with our relationship with God, while the second deals with our relationships within the community. The Ten are simply an extension of the two great commandments. With that in mind, it’s odd that the folks who want to put religion back in public life chose to build monuments to the Ten Commandments when it would be a lot easier just to list these two. But perhaps the call to love our neighbors would be controversial!

                By focusing on these two commands, we discover that the vertical and the horizontal relationships go together. You can’t really love God without loving your neighbor, and if you love your neighbor, then you love God.  As we read in 1 John, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). In fact, a few verses later in 1 John 4 we read: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen” (1 Jn 4:20). To be a follower of Jesus, to abide in Christ, is to love both God and neighbor for they go together.

                As is often the case in conversations like this, Jesus wants his turn. They asked about the greatest commandment. Now he wants to know what their view of the messiah is. Jesus asks them whose son the Messiah might be. They answered, “Son of David.” That seems like a good answer. After all, when Jesus entered Jerusalem the day before, the people hailed him the son of David (Mt. 21:9). Jesus didn’t seem to mind, but at this moment, with this audience, he wanted to push deeper. It’s important to note that, unlike the Sadducees, the Pharisees were hopeful that a Messiah would come and free them from oppression. The assumption that the Messiah would be the “son” of David, reflects the belief that the Messiah would be a political figure, from the line of David, who could restore the Davidic monarchy. This was a central plank of the theology of the Pharisees. We see this hope revealed in the Psalms of Solomon, a mid-first century BCE, Pharisaic document. It called for God to raise up a king, “the son of David, at that time which you choose, O God, to rule over Israel your servant. And gird him with strength to shatter in pieces unrighteous rulers, to purify Jerusalem from nations that trample her down in destruction” [Ps. Of Solomon 17:21-22; quoted in Israel Knohl, The Messiah Confrontation, pp. 132-133].

The general expectation of the Pharisees and their followers was that a warrior king from the line of David would come and liberate the nation. That was the primary expectation, but of course, Jesus didn’t seem to fit that picture. Jesus, on the other hand, saw himself in terms of a suffering messiah. There was an alternative tradition that envisioned a suffering Messiah rather than a warrior. It just wasn’t the one the Pharisees embraced. However, it was a view embraced by some, as revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls. As Israel Knohl notes, there are “three Qumran texts [that] present the idea of an unusual messianic figure who is both exalted—elevated to a quasi-divine status—and suffering. And like Isaiah’s suffering servant, he also atones for all the members of his generation” [Knohl, The Messiah Confrontation, p. 144]. These documents raise the possibility that Jesus had imbibed these ideas and centered his own vision of his ministry within them.

Returning to the discussion between the Pharisees and Jesus, it raises a question as to whether the Messiah is truly the son of David. In other words, could the Pharisaic messianic theology be wrong? Jesus asks his conversation partners, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet?” In asking the question, Jesus draws on the opening verse of Psalm 110. Drawing on this passage, Jesus reveals his belief that the Messiah must be someone greater than David, for the assumption here, is that the Psalmist is David, and that David is speaking here of Adonai (Yahweh) lifting up the Messiah and putting the enemies of the Messiah under his feet. Thus, if David calls the Messiah Lord, how can the Messiah be David’s son? As usual, no one could answer Jesus’ questions, nor did they dare to ask them. 

                So, what does love have to do with Jesus’ messiahship? I’m not sure that the text itself offers an answer to that question. However, if Jesus is the Messiah, and he embraces a different understanding of what messiahship involves than the Pharisees who envisioned a warrior deliverer rather than a suffering servant, then perhaps love is the defining characteristic of Jesus’ understanding of messiahship. If that is true, then his followers will want to embrace the call to love as well. As a quick look at the world around us demonstrates at this moment, what the world needs is a lot of love. 

 Image Atrribution: Jesus Mural of Faith, Hope, Love, and Peace, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56412 [retrieved October 22, 2023]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/36847973@N00/3342340183 - CC BY 2.0.