Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mass Readings

• First Reading Exodus 22:20-26
• Responsorial Psalm Psalm 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51
• Second Reading 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10
• Gospel Matthew 22:34-40

Open the Mass Readings on USCCB.org →

Step Into the Story

The law in today’s first reading is very old. It belongs to the Covenant Code of Exodus 20 to 23, likely the Bible’s oldest collection of laws, given at Sinai to a nation of freed slaves, probably in the thirteenth century B.C. Hammurabi of Babylon had published his famous code five centuries earlier, and he did not fret over a poor man’s blanket. Israel’s God did: a cloak taken in pledge goes back before sunset, “for in what else shall he sleep?” Under Tiberius, that Law is still argued daily in Jerusalem.

1. c. 1750 B.C.Hammurabi’s law code
2. 13th c. B.C.The Law given at Sinai
3. c. 20 B.C.Herod begins the Temple
4. 14 A.D.Tiberius becomes emperor
5. This week’s scene: c. 30 A.D.The greatest commandment

Climb into the Temple courts in Jesus’ last week, probably in 30 A.D. Along the south side runs Herod’s Royal Portico, 162 columns in four rows, each so thick that it took three men with arms outstretched to ring it. Feel the shade under its cedar ceiling. Listen to teachers and pupils arguing points of Law. Notice the leather prayer boxes strapped to men’s foreheads, some, Jesus remarks, made extra broad.

The Sadducees have just been silenced, and the Pharisees regroup. One of them, a scholar of the Law, steps forward to test Him. Which commandment is the greatest? Later rabbis would count 613, and a generation earlier the great Hillel had tried to fit the whole Torah into one sentence. Every man here prays the Shema each morning and evening: “Hear, O Israel.” Edge close enough to see the lawyer’s face, and wait for the answer.

Encounter the Lord

The lawyer steps forward with a test question. Jesus could have dismissed him. Instead He answers with the words every Jew prayed each morning: love the Lord your God with all your heart. Then He adds a second, and binds them together like two beams of a cross.

Look at the heart of the One who speaks. He is not reciting rules. He is describing Himself. No one has loved the Father more completely, and no one has loved His neighbor more concretely: lepers, tax collectors, you. The commandment is simply His own life, offered as yours.

This week, pick one person who is easy to overlook, the stranger, the widow, the coworker no one eats lunch with, and do one concrete act of love for them, for Christ’s sake.

Know Your Faith

The Twofold Commandment of Love

The Ten Commandments state what love of God and neighbor require: the first three concern love of God, the other seven love of neighbor (CCC 2067).

The Covenant Comes First

The first of the “ten words” recalls that God loved His people first, freeing them from slavery (CCC 2061). Your moral life is a response to His loving initiative (CCC 2062).

An Examination of Conscience

This week, examine your conscience in the light of God’s Word (CCC 1454), asking at each commandment, “Where have I failed to love?”