The Supreme Twofold Cross-Shaped Mitzvah of Love: Vertical Love to God and Horizontal Love to Our Neighbors - Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Who do you love most – more than anyone else in the world – above all? 

Those who are married usually say, “My husband”, “My wife!” Those who are courting often say, “My boyfriend!”, “My girlfriend!”, “My fiancé!”, “My fiancée!” Those who value filial piety say, “My parents!” And parents say, “My child!”, “My children!”.

But for those who are faithful to God, we love spouses, parents, children, and objects of courtship and friends, under the premise that our primary love object is our Lord God (Adonai Yahweh). So, in the Torah, there is this commandment:

Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).

This commandment is very important as it begins by calling full attention (shema – hear), to hear this commandment to love God with our whole hearts, and with our whole beings, and with our whole strengths. It means that we are to love God more than those whom we love so dearly among us. The way we love our spouses, children, parents, friends, are all derived observing this shemar commandment to love God first.

In fact, Jesus cited this commandment, when he was asked which commandment in the Torah is the greatest by the Pharisees, after he silenced the Sadducees (Matthew 22:34-36), who tried to prove Jesus’ teaching of resurrection to be nonsense according to the Torah but only to prove their foolishness in challenging Jesus’ teaching (Matthew 22:23-33).

In regard to the greatest commandment among the 613 mitzvoth in the Torah, Jesus said:

You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment (Matthew 22:37-38).

This means that Jesus considers Deuteronomy 6:5 as the most important mitzvah – to love God above all, more than anyone else.

In the same breath, Jesus added:

The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments (Matthew 22:39-40).

Upon citing Deuteronomy 6:5 as the greatest and first mitzvah, Jesus cites Leviticus 19:18, which commands to love our neighbors as ourselves, as the second important commandment:

Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your own people. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord (Leviticus 19:18).

According to Jesus, this mitzvah against retaliation and grudge but for loving our neighbors goes along with the first one. And he further says that the all the 613 mitzvoth in the Torah and the Nevi'im depend on these two (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18) (Matthew 23:40). This means that we cannot love our neighbors as God wants us to do unless we love God first. And the way God wants us to love our neighbors is not just to love our “immediate neighbors”, our others in our intimate relationships, such as spouses, parents, children, and friends. But it also means to love a stranger.

When a scholar of the Law, who asked who his neighbor to Jesus, upon citing Leviticus 19:18, together with Deuteronomy 6:5, when asked by Jesus what the Torah says about inheriting eternal life (Luke 10:25-28), Jesus spoke the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37). Given that the Samaritans and the Jews hated each other because the spiritual defilement of the former upon the Assyrian conquest (2 Kings 17:24-41), the Jews did not consider the Samaritans as their own people. But, whether Jew or Samaritan, Jesus pushes the spirit of loving our neighbors beyond the boundaries of those whom we consider as “our own people”, even to those whom we may harbor animosity. 

In Jesus’ teaching on the supreme set of mitzvoth of love (Matthew 22:37-40), if we truly love God above all (Deuteronomy 6:5), the way we love our neighbors (Leviticus 19:18) shall have no walls and boundaries as to whom we love as “our neighbors”.  In this teaching of Jesus, objects of our love as our neighbors are all those who are created in the image of the Triune God (Genesis 1:26-27). Therefore, it is against Jesus’ teaching to let our little minds to decide whom we love our neighbors and whom not. But if we truly love God with our whole hearts, and with our whole beings, and with our whole strengths, then, it shall be a natural consequence to love anyone created in God’s image as our neighbors, not to be an object of our hatred, retribution, and grudge.

In loving our neighbors, anyone who is created in God’s image, as we are so, the First Reading (Exodus 22:20-26) reminds us that we must care for those who are from other nations and those who are vulnerable and prone to be marginalized in loving our neighbors, as God cares for them with His compassion. Again, we shall not set “artificial” boundaries as to whom we love as our neighbors. And we must love our neighbors as God does. It means that our compassion should go toward anyone in need without any demarcation because this is how God pours His compassion.

Predicated by observing Deuteronomy 6:5, loving God above all, as our most important object of love, we love all of those who are created in God’s image, as our neighbor as ourselves, because we are, after all, created in God’s image. Our matrimonial love, filial love, and fraternal love, are practiced in this context.

It is noteworthy that Jesus crosses our vertical love to God (Deuteronomy 6:5) with our horizontal love to our neighbors (those who are crated in God’s image)(Leviticus 19:18). And this vertical-horizontal cross-shaped motif of the love commandment that Jesus cited in the Gospel Reading (Matthew 22:34:30) is a reflection of the vertical-horizontal cross image in the Decalogue, as the first three mitzvoth are about how we are with God and the rest of the seven mitzvoth are about how we are with each other – how we are with our neighbors (Exodus 20:2-17; Deuteronomy 5:6-21).

It is clear that our vertical love – loving our Lord God as our primary love object, sets the quality of our horizontal love – loving those who are created in God’s image as our neighbors, as if they were ourselves, reflected by the Decalogue. But why does God want us to love Him above all with our whole being?

To understand God’s desire on us to love Him first, we must remember that our Lord God, in whose image we are created, has loved us first and has sent His only begotten Son, out of His love for us, to cross the vertical love that He initiated toward us, with the vertical love that we practice with one another as our beloved neighbors (i.e. 1 John 4:7-21; John 1:1, 14; 3:16).

Loving God first and above all is our life’s priority (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37), because God has loved us first (1 John 4:19) and gave us His only begotten Son (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9). And we love our spouses, parents, children, friends, and all others in God’s image, as our neighbors without setting any boundary and demarcation (Leviticus 19:18; cf. Exodus 22:20-26). Because this is how God loves us. This is how we show the way we love God. Furthermore, the Second Reading (1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10) calls us to reflect Jesus’ teaching of loving God and loving our neighbors in our apostolic works. So, as Paul and his companions on mission demonstrated to the Thessalonians, we are to reach out to our neighbors, who have not yet known Christ, especially those in afflictions, with love and compassion, through the Word and the Holy Spirit, helping them to know Christ and to turn to the Lord God. Out of our observance of Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, we engage in our apostolic works to bring our neighbors, who have not yet known God, to Him, so that they, too, will love God and their neighbors, as we do. After all, we are called to propagate God’s love to us through our love to our neighbors.