The first commandment is this: "Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." After giving two subtle answers to two complex questions that were aimed at landing him in trouble (paying taxes to Caesar [12:13-17] and the question about the resurrection [12:18-27]), Jesus is approached by one of the scribes who also has a question for him. But unlike in the two preceding scenarios, the scribe’s question is neither complex nor asked with a hidden agenda (although Matthew reports that the scribe put forth the question as a test [cf. Matthew 22:35]). According to the Evangelist Mark, the scribe approached Jesus with the question in appreciation of how he had perfectly answered the previous question(s). While we can conclude almost with certainty that the scribe was not putting Jesus to any test, he might have loved the insightful way in which Jesus was answering questions. As such, it can be that his motive in asking such a straightforward question must have been his eagerness to have Jesus offer some insight on the first commandment. And Jesus did exactly that.
For someone who had grown up in a Jewish household as Jesus had, and moreover for a rabbi (even the scribe regarded him as such), Jesus was expected to know the greatest commandment and to recite it without hesitation. The greatest and first commandment (loving God with one’s soul, mind, and strength) was part of the Shema prayer (‘Hear O Israel…’), the prayer that was the centerpiece of the daily morning and evening prayer in a Jewish household. It was a prayer that was to be taught by fathers to their children as part of their tradition and history (cf. Deuteronomy 6:4-9). As was to be expected, Jesus knew the prayer and, as the scribe himself acknowledged, he provided a perfect answer. But Jesus went beyond the extent of the question put to him and enjoined to the greatest and first commandment a second one: the love of neighbor. While this combination of the two commandments may already have been made in the practice of their religion (cf. Leviticus 19:18), its emphasis by Jesus was not without a reason.
Jesus was aware that those who had gathered about him were not only there to admire the spectacle of the signs he was performing. He was aware that they were as well hungering for the word of God and as such were genuinely interested in how he was answering the question. It was thus to their benefit that he enjoined the second commandment to the first. He was aware that those in the crowd knew what the greatest commandment said. However, they might not have paid much attention to how it was to be applied in real life (in other words, what it meant). The ‘second’ commandment which he provided was the expression or the practical application of the ‘first’ one. As St. John reminds us, God can only be loved by loving one’s brothers and sisters (cf. I John 4:20). The command to love God could not be separated from the command to love one’s neighbor since the one is realized in the other. The command to love God and the command to love one’s neighbor are complimentary and the one cannot be observed without the other. This was not something new that Jesus was saying. It was right there as part of their tradition (cf. First Reading). It had simply been ignored.
Although to the Jewish people the term “neighbor” was restricted to “fellow countrymen,” Jesus in his teachings used “neighbor” to mean all people, especially the vulnerable ones (foreigners, widows, orphans, the poor). In enjoining the second commandment to the first, Jesus was reminding his audience, especially the religious leaders, that it was not enough to have knowledge of the law. It was equally important to apply that law to daily living. Jesus had observed how the religious leaders related to their ‘neighbors.’ He had observed how the poor and the vulnerable were not taken care of. Yet, these were the people that God specifically commanded to be loved. The command to love the poor and vulnerable by acting charitably towards them was enjoined by God to the people of the covenant as a way of showing gratitude to God. For God had acted with charity and compassion towards them when they were suffering as aliens in a foreign land (cf. Exodus 22:20).