This coming Sunday is the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Lectionary Cycle A.

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.” 

From the 26th through the 28th Sundays, we considered three tightly connected Matthean parables: the two sons 21:28-32; the tenants in the vineyard 21:33-46; and the wedding banquet 22:1-14.  They are parables about doing (or not doing) what God (father/landowner/king) wanted (or submitting one’s self to their authority): sons working in the vineyard, tenants giving the owner the fruit, and invitees accepting the king’s invitation to his son’s wedding feast and wearing the proper garb.

On the 29th Sunday, we moved into a section of Matthew’s gospel that comprises a series of controversies between Jesus and the religious authorities of Jerusalem.

• “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (asked by Pharisees and Herodians: v.17);
• “In the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be?” (asked by Sadducees; v. 27);
• “which commandment in the law is the greatest” (asked by a lawyer; v.34)

It is the third controversy which is the context of our gospel this week. Where the lectionary draws the boundaries of a reading and where scholars mark the boundaries can be different. For purposes of studying Scripture, the boundaries of our gospel narrative is usually taken to continue and includes vv.41-46, where at the end of the questioning by the leaders of Jerusalem

Jesus asks them a question:

41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus questioned them, 42 saying, “What is your opinion about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They replied, “David’s.” 43 He said to them, “How, then, does David, inspired by the Spirit, call him ‘lord,’ saying: 44 ‘The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies under your feet”’? 45 If David calls him ‘lord,’ how can he be his son?” 46 No one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:41–46)

There are really two parts in play: the end of the controversy questions put to Jesus and the beginning of them being put on final notice that something greater than King David and Prophets is here before them.

Image credit: The Pharisees Question Jesus (Les pharisiens questionnent Jésus), James Tissot, 1886-1894, Brooklyn Museum, PD-US