to live under a set of rules that they don’t really accept or understand. Exclusively focusing on the rules divides people into groups of those who follow and those who do not, and makes it both simple and natural to live life by judging others through our own personal understanding of the rules. I just don’t think that is what Jesus had in mind.
The problem is that many folks use the “rules” to define their understanding of what a Christian person is to do in everyday life. Theologians talk about this issue as the question of human “vocation.” Many people associate the word “vocation” with work, with what we do to earn a living. In this book, I would like to expand our understanding of vocation beyond simply what we do to earn money to a much broader definition that includes what we do in life. Seen this way, vocation is an answer to the oldest of questions: “Why do we exist?”
It seems unlikely that many of us would be comfortable taking a job without understanding what was expected of us in that job. We would want to know our working hours, what tasks would be expected of us, what tools would be available, and what we would be paid. We would spend time and energy before we accepted a job to develop a good understanding of what would be expected of us and what we could expect to receive in return.
Yet, many of us have no idea what a Christian person is to spend their time doing! When asked, most people will say something vague about being good or about loving people, but they cannot put their “job description” precisely into words. The issue becomes even cloudier when folks try to explain precisely how they should go about Christian life, or even why they should live in a certain way. It is no wonder that so many contemporary people have trouble relating to Christianity when Christian people have problems describing what Christian life is all about.
Thankfully, there are scriptures that address Jesus’ teachings on the task of humanity, his approach to acting in the world, and his statement of the goal of his ministry. We can look at those scriptures together to create a simple matrix that illuminates the tasks and spirit of a balanced and healthy Christian life, a life of simple harmony. These scriptures shed light on the balance of doing and being that Christ calls us to embrace. They help us understand what a Christian person is to focus on in daily life, how we are to do those things, and why we are to do them. Scripture helps us understand the human vocation—why we are here in the first place.
Food for Thought
Does Christianity ever feel like a set of rules that you must follow? Could you see where society might feel that?
What do you think a balanced and healthy life as a Christian looks like?
Do Jesus’ teachings help you understand that view?
2
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
—Matthew 22:34–40
The first of the three anchor passages is often referred to as the “Greatest Commandment.” In the passage, Jesus is involved in an extended conversation with a group of priests, Pharisees, and Sadducees who have confronted him regarding his authority. Earlier in the day, as reported in Matthew 21, Jesus had entered the temple and driven out the vendors and had overturned the money-changing tables. The temple’s figures of authority confronted Jesus, questioning him about his behavior and about his authority to act as he did. The exchange takes place during the climactic week of Jesus’ ministry, which culminated with the death and resurrection.
Matthew 22:23 identifies the people who questioned Jesus as the chief priests and elders of the people. Later in the chapter, we learn that those elders included Pharisees and Sadducees, who were members of religious factions that interpreted Torah differently. According to the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon Press, 2009), the Pharisees were more aligned with the common people and thought of themselves as upholding the traditions of Moses, while the Sadducees tended to be more aristocratic and were more closely tied to the priestly traditions. It was quite common for the two groups to debate interpretation with one another, and it would have been expected that elders of both traditions would participate in the temple leadership.
The temple’s figures of authority challenged Jesus with a direct question regarding his authority, but Jesus invoked his status as a rabbi to answer their question with a question. When the temple authorities could not answer Jesus’ query to them, Jesus then invoked his right not to answer them directly. Instead, he took the opportunity to teach three parables that describe the ministry of John the Baptist, the ministry of Jesus. and the coming of the kingdom of God, all of which reflected poorly on the temple authorities.
The Pharisees and Sadducees then asked Jesus a series of questions that seem to be intended to entrap Jesus in an anti-government or blasphemous position so that his words might be used against him. The resulting questions and answers include important teachings on taxation, resurrection, and the identity of the Messiah, and they also include Jesus’ pivotal statement on the nature of the vocation of humanity—to love God with all the heart, soul, and mind, and to love others as oneself.
The response of Jesus was grounded in Torah. His response begins with the first of the Ten Commandments as related in Deuteronomy 6:5. The commandment to love God completely with one’s entire being was especially familiar to the Pharisees, who included this passage in the phylacteries worn on their bodies. A phylactery is a set of pouches with straps that would be filled with scripture and then strapped to the forehead and arms. The commandment to love others is found in Leviticus 19:18 in the midst of a teaching on just and moral behavior. Jesus the rabbi places the two commandments in relationship with one another in a way that allows them to amplify one another.
In the Greatest Commandment as it is presented in Matthew, Jesus Christ presents a very clear statement detailing precisely how people are to order their lives and spend their time. By their very definition, commandments are directives—not suggestions, not options, not possibilities, but imperative statements of that which is to be done. Jesus begins by giving God priority and by saying that we are to love God with our entire being, using all the gifts of our heart, mind, and soul. He then equates a second commandment to the first, instructing us to love our neighbor as we love ourself. Jesus concludes his response with a remarkable statement that sharpens our reaction—he concludes that all of the Law and the Prophets are based on these two commands, that this is what we are to focus on in the world.
The Greatest Commandment becomes an even more powerful statement in the context of Matthew 23, which immediately follows it. In that chapter, Jesus levels a series of scathing accusations against the scribes and Pharisees in some of the strongest language attributed to him in the Gospels. Jesus condemns the practice of emphasizing form over substance—of focusing on rule keeping rather than justice. He accuses the leaders of completely missing the point of God’s teachings by focusing on compliance to minutia and caring about outward appearances rather than dedicating themselves to love. When read in sequence, it seems very clear that Jesus says that loving God and loving others is the most important duty a person can have, and that to emphasize anything else leads to woe.
Variations on the Greatest Commandment appear in all four Gospels. In the variation found in Mark 12:28–34, the context remains an inquiry into the authority of Jesus by the temple hierarchy, but with some interesting differences. In Mark, the questioner is a scribe, not a Pharisee, and Mark describes the motivation for the question as true curiosity driven by a respect
