Jesus Worldview: The Greatest Thing Matthew 22:34-40

Jesus Worldview: The Greatest Thing
Matthew 22:34-40
Rev. Dr. Rhonda Abbott Blevins
June 7, 2026

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him. 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 and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

If you only had a few days — even a few hours — to live, what would matter?

Not what would you say matters. Not what you’d put on a bumper sticker or a church marquee. What would actually matter, when the noise fell away and the clock was running down?

I want you to hold that question as we spend some time together this morning. We’ll come back to it.

The ancient Talmud tells the story of a Gentile fellow in the first century who was considering converting to Judaism — but he had one condition. He would convert only if a rabbi could teach him the entire Jewish law while he, the prospective convert, stood on one foot.

So the man went to Rabbi Shammai, known for his strict interpretation of Torah. Rabbi Shammai was insulted by this ridiculous request and threw the man out.

Could you blame him? There are 613 laws in the Torah. Six hundred and thirteen. How in the world could all of that be summarized in the time an average person can balance on one foot? I completely understand why Rabbi Shammai sent the man packing.

But the man didn’t give up. He made his way to Rabbi Hillel — known for his humility and a somewhat more generous spirit than his colleague. Rabbi Hillel agreed to the challenge. He invited the man to stand on one foot.

And here is what he said:

“What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this — go and study it!”

One foot. Whole Torah. Done.

Religions are known for complicating matters. Christianity is no exception.

Some churches place their emphasis on what people believe. Get your theology exactly right, hold all the correct doctrinal positions, sign the right statement of faith — and you’re in. If you don’t believe the right things — the right things being, conveniently, whatever I think — then I’m sorry, but good luck to you.

Some churches place their emphasis on how people feel. The goal is spiritual ecstasy — the right music, the right atmosphere, hands raised, eyes closed. If you don’t feel the Spirit moving, well, close your eyes harder. Raise your hands higher. Still nothing? God must have given you a hard heart.

But here’s my question: what mattered to Jesus? What mattered most to the one we say we follow, for whom our entire religion is named? Was it correct beliefs? Transcendent feelings? Or something else entirely?

I suggest it’s something else entirely.

Listen again to what Jesus said when a lawyer came to trap him with a question.

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

With 613 commandments on the books, this was the ancient equivalent of asking someone to pick a favorite child. Whatever Jesus said, someone would be upset.

Jesus didn’t hesitate.

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Folks — that’s it. That’s the Gospel in a nutshell. All the law, all the prophets, all the popes and reformers and preachers and pundits — everything Jesus lived and stood for distilled into two commandments.

And there is one verb — one action word — in both of them:

Love.

Not believe. Not feel. Not agree. Not attend.

Love.

Some of you tease me about preaching love all the time. Now you know why. I’m just following instructions.

Jesus never said, “Here is the systematic theology for living the Christian life.” He never said, “You must feel a certain way.” He said the greatest commandment is this: love. In the Greek, agape. This thing called Christianity is, at its core, about what we do.

A Black preacher friend of mine used to coach young preachers with this: “Preacher, you gotta give ‘em something to DO.”

Jesus gave us two things to do. Love God. Love neighbor. Everything else, he said, hangs on those two.

I spotted a bumper sticker a while back that caught my attention:

“Life is fragile; love is the glue.”

I don’t know who wrote it. I don’t know what church they attend or whether they attend one at all. But that bumper sticker distills the Gospel in the time it takes to read a bumper sticker. Life is fragile. Love is the glue. Jesus said it first — just with more words.

Now here’s where it gets personal.

If love — agape love — this wholehearted, unconditional, devoted love of God — is the organizing center of Jesus’ worldview, then the uncomfortable question is: how’s that going for me? For us?

Author Glennon Doyle has this remarkable passage about the human condition and our longing for love:

“We hurt people, and we are hurt by people. We feel left out, envious, not good enough. We have unrealized dreams and deep regrets. We betray and we are betrayed. We don’t understand ourselves. We don’t understand why we hurt those we love. We want to be forgiven. We cannot forgive. We are lonely. We want to be left alone. We want to belong. We want to be loved. We want to be loved. We want to be loved.”

That’s all of us somewhere in that paragraph, isn’t it? Every person in this room — vacationer or local, first-timer or nine-year regular. We are all somewhere in that list. Wanting to be loved. Often failing to love. Desperate for something that holds.

The 13th-century Persian poet Rumi offers a powerful truth about our quest for love:

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

The barriers Rumi names — the ones we build against love — they don’t just keep other people out. They keep us in. Defended. Isolated. Hoarding what little love we feel like we have, terrified there won’t be enough.

Jesus says: take the walls down. Love God with everything. Love your neighbor as yourself. Watch what happens.

Here’s the thing about love: love is the only thing in the world that multiplies when you give it away. We get more of it by spending it. The path toward the love we’re all longing for runs directly through the act of giving it to someone else.

So how do we implement these two great commandments? How do we put this into practice in our daily lives? Pastor Steven Koski asks this thought provoking question:

“What if our spiritual practice is simply asking each morning, ‘What is love wanting me to do today?’ Love is not winning in the world. Yet love endures. The story continues. How can I be brave with my heart — being a storyteller of love in my corner of the world today?”

What is love wanting me to do — today?

Not: what does my political tribe want? Not: what will keep me comfortable? Not: what is the minimum required?

What is love wanting me to do — today, in my corner of the world?

Koski tells a story from the early days of the war in Ukraine. Near the town of Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, a woman knew she couldn’t stop the war. She couldn’t fix the inhumanity or reverse the evil. But she said yes to what love was asking of her. So she spent her days rescuing disabled dogs from abandoned shelters, carrying them to safety one by one.

She couldn’t save the country. But she could do that.

That is the Jesus Worldview in action. Not grandiose. Not political. Not theoretical. Just a person asking each morning what love requires — and then doing it.

The 19th-century Japanese poet Ryōkan wrote:

“If you want to find the meaning, stop chasing after so many things.”

I think about how many things we chase. Security. Status. Certainty. The right opinions. The right politics. The right version of Christianity — certified and branded and defended.

And Jesus says: stop. Here is the meaning. Right here. Two commandments. One word.

Love.

That’s what Rabbi Hillel knew. That’s what Rumi knew. That’s what Ryōkan knew. And it’s what Jesus announced — out loud, without apology, to a lawyer who was trying to trap him — as the center of everything.

So let me bring you back to where we started.

If you only had a few days — even a few hours — to live, what would matter?

I suspect you wouldn’t spend those hours defending your theology. You probably wouldn’t spend them winning arguments on the internet. You wouldn’t be worried about whether you’d held all the correct doctrinal positions or felt the Spirit in precisely the right way.

You would want the people you love to know you love them. You would want to have been kind. You would want, maybe for the first time, to have really seen the people around you — not as obstacles or categories or opponents, but as neighbors.

That clarity that comes at the end? Jesus is inviting us to live from it now.

Life is fragile. Love is the glue.

In a few moments we will come to this table — and I want you to know that this table is the most honest expression of that love I know of. Jesus didn’t write a theology. He didn’t build an institution. On the night he was betrayed, he broke bread and poured wine and said: this is my body, given for you. This is my love, poured out.

The greatest thing.

Come and receive it. Come and be sent out by it.

In this world, may we be like Jesus.