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June 21, 2022“Treat Others … the way you would have them treat you: this sums up the law and the prophets.”
This is the heart of today’s gospel passage in Mt. 7:12-14.
Later in the same gospel we find in 22:36-40,
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus said to him, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
What Jesus seems to be saying, at least to me, is that these three
commandments sum up the Law and the Prophets. That these three commandments are the heart “of the matter”. Everything else is
secondary.
What strikes me also is the extraordinary simplicity of content and
message. I find nothing complicated here.
However, simplicity is not to be equated with something easy.
AND I think it is important to look carefully at the meaning of the word “neighbor” and “others” (the same persons, no?).
As I’ve reflected on in an earlier entry in these daily offerings from Loyola, how far ‘afield’ do my neighbors live? to the end of James St.? Morristown? New Jersey? the USA? beyond???? maybe even to the other side of our southern border??
And who, in fact, are they? People of my skin color? my nationality? my sexual orientation? my political ideology? my ……?
In this rather challenging scenario, how am I being asked to love these people???
Could it possibly be as “simple” as treating them as I would want others to treat me, were I in their situation??
Is Jesus implying this in today’s gospel?
