A way to live a mission in your leisure or play-time:
Play by the rules; when you break the rules; you cease to love the other players; when you cheat in games; you also break God’s call to love your neighbors.
Based on Matthew 22:34-36
A way to live a mission in your leisure or play-time based on Matthew 22:34-36, a reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for the Twenty-first week after Pentecost, 10/29/17.
[Jesus’ encounters with groups opposing him ends with this last try by the Pharisees. Comment: this is not easy to understand; you may need to reread it several times to get it.] Since the Sadducees failed to trap Jesus; the Pharisees try. One of them asks what is the greatest commandment; he assumes the question is a problem because there are so many laws [613 distinct commandments]. Not trapped, Jesus answers with love God and love your neighbor (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18) and adds that all of the commandments and all the teachings of the prophets depend on these two commandments. Jesus now asks the Pharisees whose son is the Messiah [the long-expected agent of God who would fulfill God’s purposes for the Jewish people]. Their answer is the son of David [a widely held opinion at the time]. Jesus replies how can that be when David, in one of his Psalms inspired by the Spirit, calls the Messiah “my Lord” [Psalm 110:1]. The Messiah described as “my Lord” by David, assumed to be the writer of the psalm, must be greater than David himself and, therefore, cannot be David’s son. None of the Pharisees can answer. They did not dare ask Jesus any more questions.
A theme: Hold fast to the two basic commandments to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.
