Other Sunday and Holy Day Readings
30th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (Cycle A)
Readings:
Exodus 22:20-26
Psalm 18:2-4, 47, 51
1 Thessalonians 1:5-10
Matthew 22:34-40
Abbreviations: NABRE (New American Bible Revised Edition), NJB (New Jerusalem Bible), IBHE (Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English), IBGE (Interlinear Bible Greek-English), or LXX (Greek Septuagint Old Testament translation). CCC designates a citation from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The word LORD or GOD rendered in all capital letters is, in the Hebrew text, God's Divine Name, YHWH (Yahweh).
The two Testaments reveal God's divine plan for humanity; therefore, we read and relive the events of salvation history in the Old and New Testaments in the Church's Liturgy. The Catechism teaches that the Liturgy reveals the unfolding mystery of God's plan as we read the Old Testament in light of the New and the New Testament in light of the Old (CCC 1094-1095).
The Theme of the Readings: The Command to Love
Love of God and love of our fellow man/woman/child is the basis
of the spirit of the Old Covenant Law. The first three of the Ten Commandments
addressed the obligation to love God above all else, while the rest addressed
the commitment to love one's brothers and sisters in the human family. It is
love that binds the two major sections of the Ten Commandments. We cannot love
God, whom we cannot see, if we do not love our neighbor, whom we see, and whom God
made in His image (Gen 1:27).
Our First Reading is from the part of the Law of the Sinai Covenant called the "Book of the Covenant" (Ex 21:2-24:18). This section of the Law is a collection of ethical and moral obligations that are divine commands concerning the stranger and the disadvantaged of society, including widows, orphans, and the poor. God commanded the Israelites to be sensitive to the plight of strangers and the needy because of their experience when they were defenseless strangers in Egypt. He ordered the Israelites to demonstrate compassion out of humanitarian concern and by divine decree. God addressed the people in both the plural and singular in this passage. Therefore, God will hold His people accountable as a nation and individuals. The vulnerable elements of society are always God's particular concern, and Scripture consistently revisits this theme throughout the Old and New Testaments.
The Responsorial Psalm is a hymn of gratitude and praise that David offered to God after the Lord rescued him from all his enemies. David's song gratefully proclaims that God is his rock, shield, deliverer, and Savior. David acknowledges that God delivered him from all his enemies, including his greatest enemy, death in battle. He declares that he is God's anointed agent (also see 1 Sam 16:12-13) and attributes his victories not to his success but because God loves him and he is part of God's divine plan.
In the Second Reading, St. Paul wrote to the Christians of Thessalonica that he was proud of the community's courage and faith. Paul rejoiced at the Holy Spirit's effect on the community through his missionary team's preaching. The Gentile converts had turned away from pagan idols to follow Jesus Christ and have become a model for all the faithful in Macedonia and Greece.
In the Gospel Reading, a scribe and teacher of the Law asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment from among the articles of the Law. Jesus's answer was from two passages in the Torah/Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament). Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment was to love God with one's entire being, and the second was to love one's neighbor as oneself. In quoting these passages, Jesus summed up the whole of Mosaic Law upon which, He said, the Torah and the books of the Prophets were based (Mt 22:40).
The First Reading Exodus 22:20-26 ~ Justice and Mercy for the Poor
20 Thus says the LORD: "You shall not molest or oppress
an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. 21 You
shall not wrong any widow or orphan. 22 If ever you wrong them, and they cry
out to me, I will surely hear their cry. 23 My wrath will flare up, and I will
kill you with the sword; then, your own wives will be widows and your children
orphans. 24 If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people,
you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from
him. 25 If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to
him before sunset; 26 for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his
body. What else has he to sleep in? If he cries out to me, I will hear him, for
I am compassionate."
Our reading is from the second section of the Law God revealed to Moses called the "Book of the Covenant" (Ex 21:2-24:18). The Book of the Covenant is a collection of divine commands that are ethical and moral obligations. The main body of the Law in this section concerns the stranger and the disadvantaged of society, including widows, orphans, and the poor. God commanded the Israelites to be sensitive to the plight of strangers and the needy because they were defenseless strangers in Egypt. The Israelites' compassion was to be not only out of humanitarian concern but by divine decree. In the passage, God addressed the people in the plural and singular. Therefore, God would hold His people accountable as a nation and individuals. The vulnerable elements of society always receive God's particular concern. It is a theme consistently revisited throughout the Old and New Testaments (see Jesus's teaching in Lk 6:20-23).
"If he cries out to me, I will hear him, for I am compassionate."
Jesus came to fulfill and transform the Old Covenant Law from
its temporal blessings (Lev 26:1-13; Dt 28:1-14) into eternal blessings. He set
a high standard for how His disciples must live in the image of God the Father's
mercy in the depth of compassion they demonstrate towards their fellow human
beings as they continue His earthly ministry. It is a standard that echoes the
spirit of this part of the Old Covenant Law. Jesus told them: "Be merciful
just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning
and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and
gifts will be given to you: a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and
overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you" (Lk 6:36-38 NABRE).
The Responsorial Psalm 18:2-4, 47, 51 ~ The King's
Song of Praise and Thanksgiving to the Lord
The response: "I love you, Lord, my strength."
2 I love you, O LORD, my strength, 3 O LORD, my rock, my
fortress, my deliverer.
Response:
3b My God, my rock of refuge, my shield, the horn, or my
salvation, my stronghold! 4 Praised be the LORD, I exclaim, and I am safe from
my enemies.
Response:
47 The LORD lives and blessed be my rock! Extolled be God
my savior. 51 You who gave great victories to your king and showed kindness to
your anointed.
Response:
Verses 1 and 51 establish the historical setting of this Davidic psalm: "after the Lord has rescued him from all his enemies and from the hand of Saul," and after David became King of Israel. 2 Samuel 22:1-51 has this same hymn of David's thanksgiving and praise for Yahweh, his Lord, even repeating the words from verse 1. Our response is from verse 2.
David's song gratefully proclaims that God is his rock, shield, deliverer, and Savior. David acknowledges that God has delivered him from all his enemies, including his greatest enemy, death in battle. He declares that he is God's anointed agent (Ps 18:51; also see 1 Sam 16:12-13; 2 Sam 5:3) and attributes his victories not to his success but because God loves him.
It was because of David's faithful love for God that he received an unconditional covenant in which God promised his "house" (dynasty) and his kingdom would endure forever (2 Sam 7:11-16, 29; 23:5; Sir 45:25). David's descendant, Jesus of Nazareth (Mt 1:1; Lk 1:32), fulfilled this covenant promise. Jesus Christ, Son of God and son of David, rules from Heaven over an eternal Kingdom.
The Second Reading 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10 ~ Imitating Christ
5 You know what sort of people we were among you for your
sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, receiving the word in
great affliction, with joy from the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became a model
for all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For from you the word of
the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every
place your faith in God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say
anything. 9 For they themselves openly declare about us what sort of reception
we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and
true God 10 and to await his Son from Heaven, whom he raised from the dead,
Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath.
In about 50 AD, St. Paul arrived in Macedonia (Greece) to begin his second missionary journey and his first journey into Europe. He made converts first in Philippi and soon afterward in Thessalonica. In both places, Paul and his missionary team faced persecution from Jews and Gentiles. Despite a rocky start, Paul wrote to the Christians of Thessalonica that he was proud of the courage and faith they demonstrated. Paul rejoiced at the Holy Spirit's effect on the community through their preaching. The converts had turned away from pagan idols to follow Jesus Christ. They had become a model for all the faithful in Macedonia and Greece, spreading Christian teaching throughout the region.
In verse 10, St. Paul made several critical points about the mystery of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom, including Jesus's promise to return from Heaven. St. John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople (344/354-407), commented on this verse and wrote: "... in a single text, St. Paul brings together several different mysteries concerning Jesus Christ: his glorious resurrection, his victorious ascension, his future coming, the judgment, the reward promised to the righteous, and the punishment reserved for evildoers" (Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Thessalonians).
All Christians wait for Jesus to return from Heaven to judge the earth (see CCC 671, 769, 1040). The Second Advent of Christ is a truth of faith prophesied in Scripture and professed by the faithful since the Church's earliest years (1 Thess 4:16-17). We also profess it in the Apostles' Creed: "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead." This was the same belief held by the community at Thessalonica. They were committed to living holy lives in imitation of Christ, standing in readiness for His return!
The Gospel of Matthew 22:34-40 ~ The Greatest Commandment
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the
Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them [a scholar of the law*]
tested him by asking, 36 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the
greatest?" 37 He said to him, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your
heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and
the first commandment. 39 The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor
as yourself. 40 The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."
[...*] In some Greek manuscripts, "lawyer, is probably
borrowed from Luke 10:25.
A group of Pharisees came to test Jesus. They selected one of their members, a lawyer who was an expert on the Law, to ask Jesus a question in an attempt to discredit Him with the crowd. The lawyer asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment from among the articles of the Law. According to the secular literature of the time, all the commandments were to receive equal devotion. However, Jesus summed up the commandments of the Law in two sentences, answering what was the greatest and second greatest of the Law's commandments. His answer was from two passages in the Torah/Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament). His first answer, identifying the greatest commandment, was a quote from the Greek version of the Shema, the Old Covenant profession of faith from Deuteronomy 6:5, summing up one's relationship with God. The second was from Leviticus 19:18b, which summarized the commandments concerning one's relationship with one's fellow man/woman.
In verse 40, Jesus said, in quoting these passages, that He was summing up the entire Law upon which the Torah and the books of the Prophets depend (Mt 22:40):
In giving His answer, Jesus has also offered a summary of the Ten Commandments. The first three deal with our relationship with God, and the last seven deal with our relationship with our brothers and sisters in the human family (see Ex 20:2-17 and Dt 5:6-21). St. Paul reminded us of Jesus's teaching on the Law when he wrote, Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfillment of the Law (Rom 13:8-10 NABRE; CCC 2196).
St. Matthew did not record the lawyer's response, but St. Mark wrote that he was impressed by Jesus's answer. In praising Jesus's response, the man demonstrated his spiritual understanding of the Law and his willingness to acknowledge that Jesus's answer was correct. The man's honest response prompted Jesus to commend him, saying, "You are not far from the kingdom of God" (Mk 12:28-34). This passage exemplifies a Pharisee swayed by the truth of Jesus's teaching. Not all Pharisees and Scribes remained hostile to Jesus. The Pharisees Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Saul of Tarsus, and others became Jewish Christians who fulfilled the new Israel's destiny in carrying the Gospel of salvation to the Jewish and Gentile world.
Jesus Christ upholds and fulfills the Old Covenant command to love God and neighbor in the New Covenant. St. John wrote: We love because Jesus Christ first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother (1 Jn 4:19-22 NJB). If you do this, like the Pharisee Jesus praised, you are not far from the Kingdom of God in Heaven. As we declare in the Alleluia, quoting Jesus from John 14:23, "Whoever loves me will keep my word," says the Lord, "and my Father will love him, and we will come to him."
Catechism References (* indicates Scripture quoted or
paraphrased in the citation):
Exodus 22:20-26 (CCC 1867*)
1 Thessalonians 1:10 (CCC 442*)
Matthew 22:34-36 (CCC 581*); 22:36-40 (CCC 2055*, 2196*)
The Ten Commandments interpreted through twofold love (CCC 2052*, 2053*, 2054*, 2055*, 2056*, 2057*, 2058*, 2059*, 2060*, 2061*, 2062-2068, 2069*, 2070-2073, 2074*)
Moral life a response to the Lord's initiative of love (CCC 2061*, 2062-2063)
Michal E Hunt, Copyright © 2014; revised 2023 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.