The Great Commandment

We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from Matthew as we begin the New Testament. Our guest preacher is Bishop Ken Carter, currently the bishop of the Western North Carolina Conference, and the text is the familiar encounter when a lawyer tests Jesus by asking him the greatest commandment. Matthew is not the earliest of the Gospels, but it does have the most connections to the Old Testament, frequently quoting the Hebrew scriptures and seeing Jesus as the new Moses. In addition to the response of Jesus to love God and love one’s neighbor as oneself, Jesus says that all of the other commandments hang on these two. There’s a structure. John Wesley, too, had a structure, to be made holy through one’s life, and thus the title, “Methodist.” Wesley’s vision of striving for perfection was based on loving God and one’s neighbor. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus frequently says, “You have heard it said, but I say . . .” by which Jesus is calling us from a focus on the law to move toward love. In a polarized nation, it is to live our lives knowing that everyone is created in the image of God. Our journey is about loving God and loving each other.