Today's readings: Exodus 22, 20 - 26; 1 Thessalonians 1, 5 - 10; Matthew 22, 34 - 40.
The issue of love of neighbour and love of God spreads in our life from the basic attitudes that govern home or office relationships to the issues of justice in a culture of economic greed. The reading from Exodus today sets the tone for what Jesus says in the Gospel. Love of neighbor is not just a sentiment; it has to be translated in political terms. It is in no way far-fetched to assume that the current global economic crisis is symptomatic of a deeper spiritual crisis. It is the crisis of a society that worships at the temples of consumption.
The reading from Exodus says: "You must not molest the stranger or oppress him, for you lived as strangers in the land of Egypt. You must not be harsh with the widow, or with the orphan; if you are harsh with them, they will surely cry out to Me, and be sure I will hear their cry." Unfortunately, as UK theologian and commentator Simon Barrow wrote recently, "it is not world poverty affecting millions, or the threat of environmental degradation that produces the loudest calls for common political purpose, but a crisis revolving around bankers and billionaires - albeit one with devastating wider consequences for ordinary people".
God can easily become part of the system or part of an ideology. Love of God can transform itself in plain idolatry. This is exactly what Jesus in the Gospel today is warning about when he declares that love of God and love of neighbour are intimately linked. As Pope Benedict wrote in Deus Caritas Est, "love of neighbour is a path that leads to the encounter with God, and closing our eyes to our neighbour also blinds us to God".
Jesus declares that "on these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the prophets also". The question addressed to Jesus was, "which is the greatest commandment of the Law?" This question about priorities is understandable given the hundreds of precepts in the Torah. Matthew presents this summary-statement of Jesus as the Christian understanding of the Torah.
We commonly claim that Christianity is about love. Yet love is not the monopoly of Christians. What is so specific about Christian love? There was no need for Christ to become man and die on the Cross simply to bring the message of love. There are many non-Christians who practise what Jesus is proposing in today's Gospel as the first commandment.
Jesus bound together love of God and love of neighbour because love of God without love of neighbour is idolatry. God became man, and our way to God is the human way. It is love of neighbour that provides the key to understand the Lord's ways and His revelation. Religion, devoid of its horizontal dimension, becomes distraction or alienation, indifferent and with nothing to say about the suffering of peoples. It is only through veneration for humanity that we can come authentically to venerate God. Otherwise, religion becomes a false consolation.
Paul in the second reading speaks of, "breaking with idolatry and being converted to God to become servants of the real, living God". In the Scriptures, the issue is not belief or unbelief, but faith in the living God or idolatry. Starting from Exodus to the time of Jesus, the prophets educated the people to redirect their faith in idols to faith in the true and living God.
Central to all this is personal and social conversion. Unfortunately, our Sunday liturgies find it very difficult to connect with the hard reality people are daily facing. Hence the discontent. Often we are made to believe in that version of Christian realism which assumes that living differently is just too hard and so cannot be used in public policy-making. As Catherine of Siena says, on the journey towards the truth, "the pilgrim traveller needs the two feet of love of God and love of neighbour".