When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them (a scholar of the law) tested him by asking, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." (Mt 22:34-40)
Jesus is challenged by Pharisees and Sadducees and the leaders and so on. This itself shows that Jesus was teaching and preaching and doing things different from the rest of them. So representatives from each group come and question him. But the reply of Jesus is more traditional and often times from the Bible itself.
In the Law of Moses there were 613 commandments. These rules grew out of a few rules which were in the beginning and in fact they grew out of the basic understanding of the people when they left Egypt. Their understanding was ‘one God – one people’. It was this understanding that kept them together and brought them out of Egypt into the land of Canaan.
Jesus, as he is preparing the people for a new exodus, is re-emphasising to the people the basics of the rules. They are not orders to be obeyed in our own strength, but invitation and promises to a new way of life in which hatred and pride are removed or left behind so that love becomes a reality. Love is the only reality for Jesus.
