“Put on the spot”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Tuesday, December 7, 2021

Matthew 22:34-46 (Forward, p. 39) CEV p. 1013

We may not necessarily be aware of this phenomenon, but sociologists who have studied the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East identify it as being inhabited by a conflict-prone cultures. Or, put a slightly different way, they are honour or shame based. You, your family and your loved ones try to maintain your personal and family honour and avoid shame, while others are trying to do the opposite.

Sociologist John J. Pilch identifies this as particularly happening in the earthly ministry of Jesus. His opponents were constantly trying to ‘take Him down a notch’, while Jesus warded off their attacks. And so it was a constant verbal duel, a contest of repartee, of challenge and counter challenge. We see this particularly in today’s passage.

The Pharisees, seeing how Jesus had made the Sadducees look foolish, decided to try their hand at putting Jesus on the spot. They sent one of their legal experts to try his hand. For years, legal scholars and experts had debated how to best sum up the myriad pronouncements of the Law in just a few phrases, the less the better. So this legal expert asked Jesus to try His hand at this: “Teacher, what is the most important commandment in the Law?”

Jesus’ answer could scarcely ever be improved upon. He quoted part of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-5), the age old-piece from the Hebrew Scriptures that every observant Jew says a multitude of times every day. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind” (verse 38).

To that, He marries a second piece from the Pentateuch, Leviticus 19:18,

“Love others as much as you love yourselves” (verse 39). The two-fold call to love, to love God and to love others: what could ever best that! Indeed, Jesus’ detractors couldn’t.

So, He throws His own question back at them. He asks them whom the Messiah is expected to be descended from, and they answer, as would be ]expected, ‘from King David.’ But then Jesus throws them for a loop. He quotes Psalm 110:1, a psalm of David, where God [the Lord] says to ‘my Lord’ [the Messiah) ‘Sit at my right side until I make your enemies into a footstool for you.’ Jesus then points out that something is amiss here.

David is calling the Messiah ‘my Lord’, which hardly would be true if he was merely a descendant. Forebearers simply don’t treat their descendants in such a way. So, how can this be? Jesus asked, and His critics are silenced once and for all.

But in this ‘game’ of charge and counter-charge the authorities would ‘seem’, in the very end of Jesus’ life, to have finally got the upper hand. By arranging for His arrest, trial and shameful death, they thought that they had won. They thought that they had silenced Jesus for a change, silenced Him once and for all. They thought that Jesus was defeated. But God had the final card to play, God’s trump card, as it were. Death and the Cross would not have the final say and Jesus would rise from the grave, victorious once and for all. God put on the spot? No way, God always has His last card, His trump card, and no matter what it is that we are experiencing, it is never the end of the game, the end of the story. God isn’t finished, no, not yet. We can always trust Him for that. Amen.

Forward notes: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (verse 36)

“Every day of my life, I have been aware of the Christian tradition I was raised in and have continued to follow as an adult. As someone who tends toward overachievement, it’s no surprise that I want to do really, really well when it comes to All Things Christianity.

“In this way, I don’t think I’m too far from the Pharisees who got together and tried their hardest to stump Jesus by asking him to pick and choose the greatest commandment. After all, they knew scripture, frontward and backward; they knew the ways and words of the One who loves Israel.

“So, I can’t help but wonder if the question they asked Jesus wasn’t just rooted in trying to catch him in the act of giving an incorrect answer but actually included some tiny semblance of wanting to please God. After all, the Pharisees were the best of the best—the most devout and committed and learned in the ways of God, the biggest overachievers in the whole temple.”

“When I think about it that way, I’m a lot like them after all.”

Moving Forward: “Dear God, help me not to be tripped up by the questions as much as by the answers you give. Amen.”