Thomas J Parlette
“Another Batch of Trick Questions”
Matt. 22: 34-46
10/29/23
Today we are once again in the Gospel of Matthew, and we have before us another batch of trick questions. Perhaps “trick” questions is the wrong phrase – maybe challenging questions would be better. They are, at the very least “head-scratchers.”
Last week, the Pharisees sent some of their disciples, along with some of the Herodians to ask Jesus a question designed to trap him. Jesus was faced with the question of whether or not to pay taxes to the Emperor. But he managed to avoid the trap and instructed the people to give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor – but give to God the things that belong to God.
Next up, a group of Sadducees approach Jesus with a rather ridiculous hypothetical question about a woman who remarries a bunch of brothers after each brother passes away – wondering whose wife she will be in the after-life. Again Jesus doesn’t answer directly, but instead points out that God is the God of the living, not the dead.
Finally, we come back to the Pharisees, who gather together and select one of their group, a lawyer, to ask Jesus another question – a question intended to “test” him. There are some interesting word choices that Matthew uses here.
First, the word for “lawyer” – nomikos – is unique. This is the only time Matthew uses this term. (1) When Mark tells this same story, he describes the questioner as just a scribe, but Matthew intentionally changes it to a lawyer, upping the stakes a bit and building up the tension.
Then there’s the word Matthew uses for “test”, in Greek, peirazo. Matthew only uses that word four other times, always in reference to either the Devil, or the Pharisees. (2) So, we know that Matthew is portraying this scene as a menacing one – this lawyer is trying to trip Jesus up and lure him into a trap.
After some more insincere flattery, by calling Jesus “Teacher,” the lawyer gets to his question – “Which commandment in the law is greatest?”
This was, and still is, a very common practice for Rabbi’s to summarize the law. There are after all, 613 commandments in scripture. There was a tradition of dividing the laws of the Hebrew Bible into “greater” and “lesser” commands. This had the unintended effect of ranking some commandments as important and others not so important. So, a common question was - Is there a hierarchy of laws in the Torah? Do some laws mean more to God than others? Can we simply disregard the insignificant laws and only worry about the more important ones? The question is attempting to goad Jesus into devaluing the law and discrediting himself as a teacher. But once again, Jesus does not take the bait. Jesus himself once said, “I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.”
The strategy here is very similar to what we see in political debates and campaign ads in our own time. How many times have we seen candidates take positions on some issues but not others – only to have their opponents point out that they must not care about that issue, because they didn’t even mention it.
So, instead of fighting a losing battle over the most important commandment, Jesus quotes words that every Jew knew by heart. They are the words of the Shema from Deuteronomy, chapter 6, the primary confession of the Israelites, with a somewhat unusual edit, especially for Matthew who quotes so often from the Torah. For some reason, Matthew leaves off the opening line, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” But the rest is the Shema, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.”
Then Jesus adds another commandment that he says is like the first. He quotes a little known commandment “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus links these two commandments together, as if to say you cannot love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, UNLESS you also love your neighbor – AND yourself.
But what does it mean to love God?
In our culture, to love something can mean many things, and there’s no end of objects to love or like, for that matter. We love our dogs and cats, hats, shoes, movies, artwork, music, photography and sometimes, hopefully, people.
Sometimes we try to parse the differences. The old, “Do you like him – or do you like, like him,” that we used to do in Junior High .
To like someone, we say, is to know the best of someone, and like them for it. Whereas to love someone is to know the worst, and yet love them still. Or, as an Eastern philosopher might say, “When you like a flower, you pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily.”(3)
So, how might we do that? How do we water God? We feed and pet our cats and dogs. We buy and wear our shoes and clothes. We patronize the arts. We spend time listening to music, and we are kind to people and try to take of others as best we can.
But what about God? We’ve never seen God. God is a spirit, a presence. Loving God is a mysterious, nebulous idea. Most of us are not against loving God. We’re just not sure what’s expected.
One of the most beloved songs in the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar” put it well when Mary Magdalene sings about following Jesus – “I don’t know how to love him.” We’ve all felt that way.
Loving God need not be without passion, but emotion is not the key element. The Greek word agape used here has nothing to do with passion, whereas the word eros has everything to do with passion.
That being said, although loving God may be passionless, it is not passive. One cannot love God without being responsive to God. Jesus himself gave us a rubric to help us know and learn how to love God.
We live in a way that responds to God… with our hearts and our souls and our minds. In other words, our love for God is not passive love – on the contrary, it is very active, visible and demonstrative. In fact, to use the words heart, soul and mind pretty much covers everything that we are, our total selves. That is how we are to love God : with everything in our being, all that we are and the best versions of ourselves. When we love God, we are all in. Nothing is held back.
First, we love God with all our heart. This can be difficult for Presbyterians, because it might involve some emotion, and that is not our strong point historically. We, and many traditional mainline denominations can be a bit cold and formal sometimes.
For instance, there was a Christian from a small, informal country church who went to visit a large and formal church in the city. The preacher was preaching a beautiful sermon and the visitor shouted out “Amen!” The congregation became a little disturbed, this was not done in church. The ushers moved in and sat on either side of the visitor. The preacher continued, and again the guest shouted out, “Hallelujah!” and he raised his hands. The head usher leaned in and said, “Sir, you’ll have to behave yourself or I will have to ask you to leave.” The visitor answered, “I can’t help it, I’ve got religion.” The usher answered back, “Well, you didn’t get it here, so please be quiet!”(4) Loving God with all our hearts can be challenging for Presbyterians, especially if it involved showing emotion – but it can be done. In fact, sometimes it should be done.
We are also called to love God with all of our soul, with everything that makes us aware and alive, able to express joy and empathy for one another – in effect, we love God with everything that makes us human.
The composer Joseph Haydn was once criticized for the lightness and joy in his church music. To his critics he replied, “I cannot help it. I give forth what is in me. When I think of the Divine Being, my heart is so full of joy that the notes fly off as from a spindle. And as I have a cheerful heart, he will pardon me if I serve Him cheerfully.”(5)
We are also called to love God with all our mind – referring to all our thoughts, understanding and rational being and intellectual capacity. So, we return to the thought that when Jesus “heart, soul and mind,” it is a way of saying “with all that you are.”
The great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick used to say, “If we could GET religion like a Methodist, be SURE of it like a Baptist, PREACH it like a Presbyterian, and ENJOY it like an African Methodist Episcopalian, then we’d really have something.” (6) How true that is. That would be loving God with our whole selves, everything we are.
Jesus gives a good answer to this trick question. But now he has a question of his own, and it too is a bit tricky. While all the Pharisees were still gathered together, Jesus asks, “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose Son is he?
They were quick to answer, it seemed obvious – “The Son of David.”
Really – how is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord.” Jesus is quoting Psalm 110 here: “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under my feet?”
If David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?
And the answer from the Pharisee – crickets. Nothing. Nobody could give Jesus an answer. Jesus is tying that Psalm directly to the Messiah, in essence foreshadowing that he is that Messiah. And from that day on, nobody dared to ask Jesus any more questions.
So, the “Trick Question” part of Matthew’s Gospel comes to an end, with Jesus coming out the victor. The cornerstone of his victory with these debates with the religious leaders is “Love the Lord your God with all that you are, and love your neighbor as well as yourself.”
The well- known Rabbi - Rabbi Hillel was once approached by a man who challenged him to teach him the whole of Torah while standing on one foot. The Babylonian Talmud reports Hillel’s response as follows: “That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary.” (7)
Jesus could have done the same thing. Love God. Love neighbor. Love yourself. That’s it. The rest is commentary.
Praise be to God. Amen.
1. Douglas T. King, “Feasting on the Gospels,” Westminster John Knox Press, 2013, p201.
2. Ibid… p201.
3. Homileticsonline, retrieved 10/11/23.
4. Stephen M. Crotts, “How to Love God” Sermons on the Gospel Readings, CSS Publishing Inc. 2004, p368.
5. Crotts… p368.
6. Crotts… p371.
7. Patrick Gray, “Feasting on the Word” Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p215.
