This week, the Gospel reading ends with Matthew telling us that none of the Pharisees dared ask Jesus any more questions. Like the Saducees, they had had tried to trap Jesus with tricky questions that would force him to say things they could criticize or condemn, or that would make him unpopular with the crowds who followed him. It didn’t work. Eventually, they stopped asking questions (and began plotting).
The factions trying to trick or trap Jesus stopped asking questions, but the people following Jesus never did stop asking Jesus questions. The people following Jesus today still ask questions. I sure do.
This week, we are asking, “What does it mean to love God with all our heart and mind and soul? What does it mean to love our neighbors as ourselves? What does it mean to love ourselves?” These are big questions. Big questions that are at the core of the life of faith, really. Big questions we will be asking all our lives, because we will never fully know how to love God, neighbor and self.
This love we are called to is an active and interactive love. Not simply sitting around and have fond feelings for God and our neighbors and ourselves. We are called to act in loving ways. Kindness. Generosity.
Forgiveness. Understanding. Patience. More forgiveness. This is what we find in God’s love for us.
What will that kind of love look like in my life today? What will it look like in your life today? Can we find it in ourselves today to act kindly, to give generously, forgive abundantly, speak patiently, listen understandingly? Can we live a tiny bit of the love we have experienced from God?
Tricky questions, but not trick questions. Simple and honest questions that we will ask every day of our lives as we try to follow Jesus.
Matthew 22:34 – 46
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? 37He said to him, ” ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
41Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: 42What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he? They said to him, “The son of David.” 43He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
44‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”?
45If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” 46No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.