Two Massive Kettle Pots

(Matt 22:35-40) And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “ Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And 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. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

I love when complex things are boiled down. I have a hard time remembering long lists of commands or principles. It is much easier for me to have a principle or two burned into my mind; then when temptation, trial or even blessing come, my mind is ready to give back to me that which it retained.

A lawyer asks Jesus to boil down the law. "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" This is a great question and I am thankful the lawyer asks it. Because Jesus looks back over all the commandments in the Old Testament and gives us two kettle pots that each and every other commandment can be boiled down into.

First he quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 for his principle of loving God. Then he quotes Leviticus 19:18 for his principle of loving neighbor. As I was reading this morning, I did not at first remember that Jesus goes back to Leviticus for the second greatest commandment. We typically think of Leviticus as the book everybody peters out in, while they are reading through the Bible in a year. Yet it is this book that describes for us what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves.  I would encourage you this morning to go back to Leviticus chapter 19, and read verses 1-18. You will see there (among many other things) what it looks like to care for the poor, to live as neighbors, to pay your debts and how to speak to one another.