Matthew 22:34-46
Gospel Reading for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)
Since early September, our youngest son and I have been doing weekly “Dinner, Discipleship, & Dad” meetings or “D&D&D” for short (last week, we added another “D” when we had deep dish pizza). Liam is wanting to take the next step in his faith by getting baptized. At our old church he would have been getting ready for a confirmation class of sorts. Though we are attending another church, he doesn’t really feel comfortable there yet. So we’re pressing forward with our one on one confirmation class, which sometimes feels like I am going rogue yet I take some solace in that I am ordained and seminary-trained.
It’s one of my favorite times of the week. Part of it comes from the fact that any time you get to have one-on-one time with your kid, it’s special. We have dinner. We talk a little about school and then we talk about forgiveness or the life of Jesus. We pray. Nerd and former youth minister that I am, I make up colorful worksheets about whatever we are talking about that night.
As awesome as it is, I feel a certain weight to talking with my kid about faith. On one hand, I know that God is bigger than whatever shortcomings that I have. On the other hand, I want to give him a good foundation with which he can grow.
This verse is where I started. Truth be told, it was the version in Mark because I like how the “Hear O Israel” part connects to the Shema in Deuteronomy. But it was the Greatest Commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Is it obvious? Yes, but we are not trying to be clever or cunning here. In fact, one of the things I love about the Greatest Commandment in Matthew is Jesus’ assertion that all of the Law and the prophets hang out these two things.
Following Jesus really hangs on these two acts of love. There are ways that we grow and mature. We come to wrestle with some complexities and mystery in our theology. Yet at the end of the day, love of God and love of neighbor is our North Star. If we are not doing those things then we are not truly following Jesus.
That is what I told Liam that first night. It’s what I told students over and over. It is what I try to tell myself. It is very obvious and very simple. Yet it is something that we spend a lifetime trying to do with any kind of consistency. Every week at the Episcopal church we attend, we pray a prayer of confession where we admit that there were times in the week in which we have not loved God with our whole heart and we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves. We have a knack for struggling mightily with simple things and thank God there is grace and forgiveness for that struggle.
So remember this commandment. To borrow from that Shema passage in Deuteronomy, write it on your heart, the doorways of your house, and talk about it with your children as you go along the way. Remember it and try to live it out the best that you can and allowing for grace when that best falters. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. It all hangs on these two things.
