Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

"On these two commandments hang the whole law and the prophets." - Matthew 22:40

A scholar of the law asks Jesus which commandment is the greatest, hoping to draw him into a fight over rankings. Jesus doesn't rank six hundred and some rules against each other. He names two: love God with everything you have, and love your neighbor as yourself. Then he says the whole law and every prophet hang on those two, the way a coat hangs on two pegs.

Everything the fruit card has measured for three weeks comes down to this pair. Prayer, Mass, Scripture, confession, patience, kindness, generosity, all of it was ever meant to be love aimed at God and love aimed at the man next to you. If a work on your card came back thin, brother, this is the root of why. It wasn't lacking in effort. It was disconnected from one of the two pegs.

A steward's whole assignment fits on two lines, and everything else he does is commentary on them.

Exodus gives the sharpest test of the second peg. Do not molest or oppress an alien, a widow, an orphan. If they cry out, God says, I will hear them. Love of neighbor isn't measured against the people who are easy to love, brother. It's measured against the ones with no leverage to make you.

This week is resolution. Before you write anything new, go back to the two pegs and hang everything else on them again.

Read your whole fruit card once more. Beside each work, write G or N: does it flow from love of God, love of neighbor, or both. Anything you can't connect to either peg, mark for pruning next week whether or not it looked productive.

Everything I do is supposed to hang on loving you and loving the man next to me, Lord. Show me what I've built that hangs on neither. Amen.