All

Sunday 25 October 2026 (Year A)

Lectio Divina:*

Exodus 22:20-26 Psalm 18 (17) 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10 Matthew 22:34-40

(See also Mark 12:13-17 and Luke 20:20-26)

Meditatio:

“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:40)

Commentary:

This Sunday the clocks go back an hour. It also happens to be ‘Bible Sunday’ in many of the churches stemming from the Reformation. Most of what we hear and pray in church is directly taken from the sacred scriptures consisting of at least 66 books written by more than 66 authors at different times and in different contexts over a period of many centuries.  Holding them together is the agreed Canon or index of books which, it was agreed by Christians in the early centuries, is divinely inspired and, therefore forms part of the Word of God.

The next time you read the Bible cover to cover you might like to use a yellow marker and mark over the word ‘all’ (assuming you are reading the Bible in English). You will run out of yellow marker. You will be surprised at how often this word ‘All’ crops up from start to finish:

-        In all wisdom

-        With all your heart

-        All the people of Israel

-        That all may be one

-        Christ in all

-        All

-        All

-        & All.

John Wesley, one of the founders of the Methodist movement which sprung up from within Anglicanism spoke of four important ‘All’s’:

1. All people need to be saved.

2. All people can be saved.

3. All people can know they are saved.

4. All people can be saved to the uttermost

It can be said that the ultimate goal of history, of our own personal lives and of our communities is pretty straightforward when all is said and done. It is simply that God may be all in all.

But how?

The response by Jesus to some hostile questioning shows all that we need in order to be all (whole or holy):

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ (verse 37)

Oddly enough sometimes we don’t stop and ponder what the meaning of the phrase ‘all your mind’ actually means. It doesn’t mean suspending our God-given human reason to question and deepen our understanding and commitment.  To ‘heart’, ‘soul’ and ‘mind’ could be added ‘body’.  (Mark and Luke refer, in addition, to ‘all your strength’).  In short, we are called to love with all our being – every bit of it.

But to love God – who is all – with all our being means something very concrete, here and now. It means

Love your neighbour as yourself. (verse 39)

Who is my neighbour? My neighbour includes the person next to me, but also anyone whose need presents itself to me, whether nearby or far away. Being ‘next to me’ also includes someone who is with us on zoom or Whatsapp.

We can only know if our love for God is sincere and meaningful if it is expressed in love for our neighbour in the here and now in this place, in these circumstances and in this situation. To love is to act based on a desire for what is truly good for our neighbour and for ourselves (we realise our own good through loving).  It could actually lead to such deeds as not buying more than we need at any one time. Then it might involve staying faithful to a commitment or an appointment when this dearly costs.  It might even lead ultimately to giving our life – not such a rare thing in some parts of the world for people of faith.

In responding to the one who questioned, Jesus brings together two foundation commandments from the Old Testament:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’(Deuteronomy 6:5)

…love your neighbour as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18)

So, there is nothing new at one level – Jesus is merely quoting Jewish scripture.  At another level something new is happening. He is bringing two commandments together and directly linking them by means of a ‘new commandment’ which combines both. It is the hallmark of real Christianity which would follow much later as the Jesus movement within Judaism evolved into a gathering (ekklesia) of disciples a growing number of which would be gentiles.

The first reading from the Book of Exodus reminds us that genuine love of neighbour is measured especially by how we treat the vulnerable. Israel is commanded not to oppress the stranger, the widow, the orphan, or the poor. The God whom Jesus commands us to love with all our heart is also the God who hears the cry of those who suffer injustice. Love of God therefore cannot be separated from mercy toward the weak and the forgotten. How often we skip over and re-interpret these teachings to avoid responsibility?

The symbol, power and truth of the Cross is at the centre of Christian loving as revealed in Jesus Christ.  The cross has two beams:

a horizontal one that indicates love for one another (the two thieves on each side of Jesus, for example, as well as the onlooking crowd including immediate family).

a vertical one that indicates God’s love for us and our love for God.

Now the vertical beam cannot stand without the horizontal one and the horizontal one cannot hold without the support of the vertical one. So it is with one and the same love that has been given to us.

In today’s second reading, St Paul praises the Christians of Thessalonica because they did more than listen to the Gospel; they allowed it to transform their lives. They turned ‘to God from idols, to serve a living and true God’. Every generation has its idols: wealth, success, power, comfort, status or even ourselves. To love God with all our heart means continually discerning what occupies first place in our lives and allowing Christ to reclaim that place whenever something else begins to displace him.

God is loved in and through our neighbour. But, we love our neighbour for himself or herself and not as an instrument to please and love God. That is the way God wants it. After all God who is in all, loves all wants us to love all with our all.

And that’s not all:

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Matthew 22:40)

Jesus identifies the two great commandments on which the entire Law and the Prophets depend. He does not so much as abolish the Law but reveals its deepest meaning and purpose. His listeners were left speechless.

How we could simplify our lives and our laws and our canon laws and our rules of community if we took to heart the simple truth that underlying ‘all the law’ and the scriptures is the commandment to love God with our all and to do so sincerely by loving the person next to us now.

Very simple. Too simple in fact.

Love is the one thing you cannot overdo. If we risk everything for love we can liberate ourselves from a merely legal and false religion without conversion of  heart and behaviour and be conquered by that Love which has loved us from all eternity in the first place. 

And that’s all for now.

Some extras:
Collect of the Word for this Sunday (Church of Ireland)
 O God, whose Son has taught us that love is the fulfilment of your law; stir up within us the fire of your Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts your greatest gift of love, so that we may love you with our whole being, and our neighbours as ourselves; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Post-Communion prayer (Roman Catholic missal of 1970)
Lord, bring to perfection within us the communion we share in this sacrament.
May our celebration have an effect in our lives. We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord.
Private devotional prayer after Holy Communion
(from The Family Missal and Prayer Book of the Church of the Holy Spirit, Ballyroan, Dublin, 1976)
Lord Jesus, my Saviour, in your love you have called me to your Supper. Abide in me and I in you. 'What is the greatest thing a man can do on earth?', they asked you. 'What is the first thing that God asks of man?'. 'Which is the greatest of the commandments of God?'.
May I never forget your answer. 'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind'. I love you, my Lord, my strength, my rock, my fortress, my Saviour.  The second commandment is: you must love your neighbour as yourself. I shall be friendly to strangers, helpful to the weak, honest in work and trade. Thus may I be a servant of the real, living God: waiting for Jesus, his Son, whom he raised from the dead, to come from heaven to save me.