Homily for 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Oct. 25, 2020
Matt 22: 34-40                                                  
Ex 22: 20-26                                                      
St. Joseph, New Rochelle, N.Y.
Holy Name of Jesus, Valhalla, N.Y.

“The whole law and the prophets depend on these 2 commandments” (Matt 22: 40).

The Pharisees questioning Jesus (James Tissot)

Jesus answers a question that the Pharisees put to him by quoting 2 verses from the Torah, the Law of Moses.  The topic—which commandment is the greatest or the most important—was a topic of debate among the rabbis, and it was natural that Jesus’ opinion should be sought.

His answer wasn’t unique.  It had been given before and was perfectly consistent with the Hebrew Scriptures that he and all the rabbis had studied.  The 1st commandment is to love God wholeheartedly, without reservation, with one’s entire being.  And the 2d is almost parallel:  to love one’s neighbor as much as one loves oneself.

By making a covenant with Israel, God had forged a close relationship with every member of the Jewish people, as he’s done with every Christian thru the new covenant based on the death and resurrection of Jesus.  To love those whom God loves is to love God, too.

In the 1st reading, from Exodus—part of the Torah—God takes the part of the most endangered members of Hebrew society, those most abandoned, those most hard-pressed by life.  He makes himself their defender, their champion, and in biblical terms, their redeemer.  The psalmist uses similar language:  “the Lord is his rock, his fortress, his deliverer who keeps him safe from his enemies” (cf. 18:3,4).

Jesus’ answer to the scholar of the law, i.e., one of the scribes, creates an identity between God and one’s neighbor:  the 2d commandment is “like” the 1st.  The entire Torah and all the prophetic writings “depend on these 2 commandments” (22:40).  You can’t truly love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind unless you also love your neighbor.

You know that Luke’s account of this dialog between Jesus and the scribe continues with the scribe’s asking Jesus who is his neighbor.  Obviously, the word means more than the person who lives next-door to you.  In 1st-century Judaism, most would have taken it to mean one’s fellow Jew.  But Jesus answers in Luke with the parable of the Good Samaritan.  One’s neighbor is any fellow human being, especially one in desperate need.  So Jesus’ meaning for “neighbor” aligns with the teaching of Exodus:  anyone like an alien—an immigrant—a defenseless widow or child, a poor laborer is one’s neighbor.

This understanding of the OT teaching and of Jesus’ teaching underlies the Church’s teaching on social justice, the social doctrine of the Church, which has been laid out by St. Paul, by the Fathers of the Church like Ambrose and John Chrysostom, by the Popes for 129 years, by the 2d Vatican Council, and by countless bishops all over the world.

Our practice of social justice, our love for our neighbor, begins at home:  with our families.  Our household chores, like cooking, cleaning, laundry, yardwork, taking out the trash, changing a diaper, reading a bedtime story to a child, shuttling kids to soccer or music practice—these are practical acts of love for those immediate neighbors who are our spouses, children, siblings, elderly parents.  Looking after a next-door neighbor who needs help with shopping or maintenance or a ride to a doctor, likewise.

We are obliged by what Jesus teaches to care for wider society’s unfortunates, in our own country and on other continents:  single mothers, the unborn, refugees, the victims of natural disasters, the homeless, the hungry, those who can’t find work, those without educational opportunities, the persecuted, those who are exploited by unscrupulous employers, businesses, landowners, government officials, or human traffickers.  In Jesus’ parable of the rich man and the poor beggar at his doorstep, the rich man lands in hell because he ignored the beggar (Luke 16:19-31).  We can’t be selfish, can’t ignore the needy, either as individual disciples of Jesus or as a democratic, self-governing society.

The Exodus passage concludes:  “If [your poor neighbor] cries out to me, I will hear him; for I am compassionate” (22:27).  When we show compassion to anyone in need—a family member, an immigrant, the victim of a disaster or of prejudice, the oppressed of the Third World—we’re acting like God; we’re being godlike—for the Lord is compassionate.