You can criticize leadership that’s not performing well; only let your criticism be constructive rather than make you sound disingenuous. About one past president, someone was quoted as saying: “The president could find a cure for cancer and his adversaries would say that he’s putting doctors and pharmacists out of work.” Another said: “He could walk across the Hudson River, and his adversaries would say: ‘See, we told you; he can’t swim!’” Some form of opposition could easily descend into gamesmanship and become utterly risible. By now you must have observed that Jesus, too, was a marked man with adversaries pacing and swirling all around him. Simon prophesied that He would be a sign of contradiction. But Jesus used opposition against Him to develop unassailable teachings.
Adding to the long list of Jesus’ adversaries in today’s gospel is a lawyer who injects a controversy about the hierarchy of laws, hoping that He’ll trip—as they do either in their direct questions or cross-examination. Living in America, you won’t think that 613 precepts are a lot of laws to observe. But for the Jew of Jesus’ time, that’s quite a burden, when you add them to the 10 commandments, all believed to be God’s will for Israel. Among these laws, 248 contain positive precepts (Thou shall) while 365 are negative (Thou shall not)—some of which we heard in today’s first reading. Several rabbinical schools tried to summarize these laws for easier comprehension. For example, the school of Rabbi Hillel the Elder taught: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole law, and all else is commentary.” The test posed by the scholar of the law to Jesus was to see if he’ll criticize any part of the law while presenting another as more cogent.
Jesus decided to apply positively Rabbi Hillel’s own summary: “You shall love the Lord your God..., and your neighbor as yourself.” As the originator of the law, He combines all the commandments into a statement and adds that on the two commandments—love of God and love of neighbor—hang the whole law and prophets. The key expression here is found in this verb krematai (“hang or depend”). Conceptualize a pole suspended by two ropes on each end on which is mounted a piñata at its center. The piñata hangs on the pole provided each end of pole is held tightly by the ropes. If the rope at either end gives way, the piñata falls. Or more simply, a bicycle can only ride on its two wheels. Remove one wheel and the bicycle is of no use. Jesus teaches that love of God and love of neighbor are like the two wheels of a bicycle or the two ropes holding the piñata in place. Remove one, and the other collapses.
This is classic teaching: You cannot love God without loving your neighbor; neither can you love your neighbor without loving God. Corroborating this teaching, St. John adds: “One who does not love the brother that he can see cannot love God, whom he cannot see” (I John 4:20). He also said: “The love of God cannot be in anyone who loves the world, because nothing the world has to offer—the sensual body, the lustful eye, the pride of possession—could ever come from God” (I John 2:15f). Jesus’ teaching counters the lie that is perpetrated each day in the society: that love is without obligation.
But that wouldn’t be the final statement Jesus makes about love. In John 13:34, He gave the mandatum novum, a new commandment. Loving your neighbor as yourself is no longer sufficient. He says, rather: “Love one another as I love you.” His sacrificial love on the cross becomes the paradigm for loving others; meaning that, love is not divorced from suffering. I think that just as it is law to stamp on certain products, the words: “This product may be harmful to health,” so we should have on marriage certificates that, “Love entails suffering,” and “The measure of love is to love without measure.”
Fr. Chukwudi Jo Okonkwo