Saucier: Command performance

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The Pharisees tried to get Him on taxes, but Jesus went all Solomon with His “Render unto Caesar.”

They thought they’d take another shot — this time with the law.

A scholar asked the Teacher about the greatest commandment. It was a “gotcha” question.

Laws in the Torah sprouted up like justice gone to seed. There were hundreds, and most devout Jews would try to keep them all with equal care. Choosing one, Jesus was bound to upset someone.

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

Had He stopped there, we probably wouldn’t be talking about this. But Jesus, never leaving a pot unstirred, added, “The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

We may find this a bit surprising. For all of the cinematic homage and local enshrinement, not one of the Ten Commandments even got an honorable mention. Jesus didn’t say anything about killing or coveting, stealing or lying, even about sex. For Him, you fulfilled the greatest commandment by “doing,” rather than “not doing,” and the core of that was love.

His listeners were no strangers to these commandments. Citing love of God, Jesus quoted a verse from Deuteronomy (6:5). His addendum “love your neighbor” lifted words from Leviticus (19:8).

While familiar with these passages, His disciples probably had never heard them so inextricably linked.

They pervade Jesus’ teaching, but here the Scholar was setting a trap. And for Jesus, a trick question deserved a trick answer.

“Love the Lord, your God” is as unassailable as motherhood and apple pie, or in that case, rugelach. The problem is that, standing alone, it is all about a personal relationship with God, which anyone can claim.

But what about “with all your heart, with all your soul?”

A scientist prone to empirical proof, Galileo once said, “Measure all things and what is not measurable, make so.”

This is exactly what Jesus did, making the love of neighbor the measure of loving God. In the passage on the Greatest Commandment, there is no asterisk following the word neighbor: no list of exceptions in the footnotes.

Jesus makes it clear that we show our love for God, not by who we exclude, but by who we include; it is not about who we judge and shun, but whom we forgive and embrace.

That’s not exactly what the Pharisees wanted to hear.

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