NOTES for Mat 22:35-46

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.

For those to whom this Gospel was first addressed, the image of the "scribes and Pharisees" embodied both the people who did not accept and condemned Jesus, and the main "internal" threat to their community: after all, the "leaven of the Pharisees" could lead a believer to the same betrayal as then. And so, in the place of Moses the lawgiver and prophet sat "religious functionaries," and then Jesus paints a picture recognizable in every age: the first places at feasts and "in the synagogues."

Christ's disciples, in one way or another, will take up the religious realities familiar to them in order to build the Christian Church, and someone will have to occupy the first places, to lead, instruct, and be "teachers" and "fathers." What then should be done? Christ gives a paradoxical answer: the great must be lesser, the leaders servants, the high low. This is possible only if both the "great" and the "lesser" are first of all children of one Father, disciples of one Teacher.

The question asked of the Pharisees about what they think of the Christ echoes the earlier question asked of the disciples about who people take Him to be. But He has not yet revealed to the Pharisees who He is. Nevertheless, into the minds of the Pharisees, filled with dry information, Jesus tries to sow seeds of a deeper understanding of Revelation than what they had habitually memorized. To those accustomed to expecting the Messiah as the heir of King David, entitled to the throne of his glorious ancestor, Jesus makes clear that the Messiah is immeasurably higher and that His coming is incomparable with everything people had grown used to expecting.

Such words may seem to contradict the fact that in the Gospel Christ Himself is called the Son of David. But Jesus' words do not imply a rejection of this messianic title, for He is asking them not to reduce its meaning to a literal interpretation. It must not be accidental that those who were listening stopped asking questions precisely after these words. Apparently they sensed the breath of another, higher world, beside which even the wisest human reasoning appears imperfect.

Yet there is a danger in giving more attention to reasoning than to deeds. Meanwhile, in denouncing the Pharisees, Christ in no way denies the truth of their theoretical convictions, but exposes the gap between their words and their deeds. What He said on this subject then remains relevant to this day. For Christianity is not a set of ideas, but life itself, and a split between theory and practice is especially unacceptable here.

Christ's call not to be called teachers and to be brothers, to call only the Heavenly Father "Father," like many other words of His, may at first cause bewilderment. After all, one has to address one's own father somehow, or a schoolteacher whose profession no one has abolished. But we must remember the many meanings of these words, which are often used improperly. Here the point is that it is unacceptable to place oneself willfully in a position that demands special honor. In that case we risk becoming thieves of what by right should not belong to us.

But if the Lord places us there for service, we should not shrink from it. We need only remember that we have been placed there to work, not to exalt ourselves.

The Pharisees liked being religious people. They were an authority for their fellow countrymen, respected teachers of the law, guardians of cultural tradition, and so on and so on.

We, too, are not opposed to greetings in gatherings, if there is such an opportunity, and are ready to speak our weighty word in any situation; in general, to be on top. But the essence of our religion, if life with Christ can be called that, is not at all in this.

We are ready to be the Pharisees of our own time, or we already are. But are we ready to have no teacher other than Christ, no father other than God, no homeland other than His Kingdom, to be servants and not masters? Does this correspond to our ideas about religious life, about the tradition of the fathers whose heirs we are?

What, then, is the "newness" of the New Covenant? Is there really anything new in Jesus' words when, quoting the Old Testament, He names the chief commandments, the commandments to love God and neighbor? Yes, because before the incarnation, before God became man, people did not fulfill the Covenant made with God, but broke it.

But God is faithful to the end. He not only fulfilled the Covenant Himself, but did it also on behalf of the human being He had created, who had sinned. Fallen man could not be faithful, and God became incarnate and Himself fulfilled the Covenant given by human beings to Him. He did what we ought to do; He not only showed us an example, a path, but Himself became the Way by which we are to walk, the Truth which we can follow, in which we can believe, and the Life by which we can live.

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.

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.