NOTES for Mat 22:34-40

It is not hard to imagine the mixed state of the Pharisees after Jesus forced the Sadducees to be silent: the One with whom they were used to arguing had put their opponents to shame. For that reason the lawyer's question about the two greatest commandments looks like a kind of probing: could He perhaps be drawn over to their side? It is hard for the Pharisees (and not only for them) to grasp that in fact they should have made the decision to cross over to His side. Moreover, even today many ideologues cannot resist the temptation to present Christ as their predecessor and like-minded ally; they too want to recruit Him into their camp. But what looks coherent in propaganda articles falls apart when it meets Reality.

And so Christ answers the Pharisee's question. But in doing so He does not simply give an answer to this particular question; He reveals the central foundations of faith and life. It is understandable that He named the words about love for God, absorbing all one's strength and aspirations, as the greatest commandment. However like it He called the commandment about love for the human person, which may have seemed strange to people accustomed to placing religious concepts above everything human. And yet this is exactly what Christ brought to people and what sets Christianity apart from all religions.

Of course, the commandment to love people is not equal to the commandment to love God; it is only like it. But in Christianity the human person is raised as high as no teaching raises him. And only Christ finally destroys the impassable barrier between God and people.

In the different Gospels this dialogue is described in different ways. Perhaps people approached Jesus several times with this question. In Matthew's Gospel the scribe asks, apparently wanting to understand how to find the right point of orientation in that sea of commandments into which the Jewish specialists had turned God's Law. Accepting Jesus' answer, the scribe turns from an intellectual understanding of the commandments to their heart's foundation and thereby comes closer to the Kingdom of Christ. After this, those who tried to catch Jesus stop asking Him questions, perhaps afraid that a similar conversion might happen to them.

The text of the psalm that the Lord quotes to us today is astonishing in its prophetic power. It is simply hard to believe that such a thing could have existed pre factum, before the tri-hypostatic being of God was revealed to us. Therefore, of course, opponents of Christianity have always tried to disprove the fact that this was a prophecy, because it is so powerful.

For this reason John Chrysostom, in his homilies on the Psalms, greets his listeners precisely with apologetics when the discussion turns to Psalm 109. This is what he writes. "When we assert that this is plainly spoken of Christ, the Jews do not accept it, but devise something else." Then he lists the options proposed as God's interlocutor: Abraham, Zerubbabel, or even the whole people. The saint refutes all these versions with great emotion. "Is it reasonable to refer to Abraham the words: From the womb before the morning star I begot Thee?" How can this be applied to David, or Zerubbabel, or the people? What is said here surpasses human nature. Moreover, the text speaks of a "Person who has an extraordinary and wondrous priesthood: Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." But then "they say: 'How do you allow another Lord, when Scripture clearly says: "The Lord your God. The Lord is one, and Him alone shall you serve, and there is no God besides Him" (Deut 4:35, 6:13). But for whose sake, tell me, was this said? Chiefly for the sake of your ignorance, O Jew. Why was nothing like this said to Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, or Moses, but only to you, when, after coming out of Egypt, you made yourself a calf?"

But we know that we confess monotheism. Of course, it is much easier for a person of our century than for a person of John Chrysostom's time to understand this apparent contradiction. We understand that inter-hypostatic communion is possible, because it has been revealed to us by Christ. Yet the unity is not violated. More than that, we ourselves are called to realize the same unity, a unity undivided and unconfused. "As You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, may they also be one in Us" (John 17:21).

Tempting Jesus, that is, trying to catch Him in His words, one of the Pharisees asks Jesus about the greatest commandment. He expects the Nazarene Teacher to say something that disagrees with the rabbis' teaching about the hierarchy of commandments, or better still, to speak dismissively about rituals. But, as in other similar cases, the Lord does not answer such a deceitful question; He speaks about something else. He speaks not so much about the hierarchy of commandments as about the meaning of God's Revelation contained in the law and in all Scripture. Love God and neighbor. This is the content of Revelation, this is the meaning of the covenant. What is absent here is any room for learned rabbinic research.

The distance between Revelation and petty religiosity is emphasized by Jesus' following question to the Pharisees about whose son the Christ is, whom David calls Lord (from the point of view of the Pharisees' logic, an ancestor cannot call a descendant this). God's Revelation in Christ is the mystery of love, the Cross, and the Resurrection, and not the sacralization or desacralization of daily life.

If only we knew how to read Scripture like the Lord does, how to see its essence... In His answers about the resurrection of the dead and about the greatest commandment, He proceeds from the Pentateuch, which His opponents knew almost by heart. He not only answers the scribes' provocative questions, but also shows us how deep the meaning of the familiar words of the Bible can be.

In the mysterious name of God, "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," revealed in the story of Moses' calling in the Book of Exodus, we suddenly discover a message about the resurrection of the dead. This will be revealed directly only in the later prophets and accomplished in the Resurrection of Christ. And the two most important commandments from Deuteronomy truly turn out to be a compressed form of the Decalogue (Ex. 20), where the first four commandments speak of love for God, and the remaining six of love for one's neighbor.

For the disciples of Christ, for whom this Gospel was written, their faith and hope were bound in the closest way to the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead after His execution and burial. That is precisely why the brief account of Jesus' opponents, who tried to prove the impossibility of resurrection, was so important to them. Their argument, which at first may look like meaningless casuistry about a nonexistent situation (seven brothers for one wife), is in fact strong precisely because of its absurdity. There is so much absurdity and evil in the world that death appears more like a cure for pain and deadlock. What will happen if all people suddenly "rise," that is, return to this life, with all its imperfection and limitation? How can seven brothers share one unfortunate woman?

Christ answers from an entirely different position. Resurrection is necessary because every person is in one way or another connected with the living God. And this means that in the resurrection a person lives by the life of God Himself, free from human absurdity and pain.