Following is an extract from a reflection on the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time by Steven P Millies
The Gospel from Matthew today (Matthew 22:34-40) presents us with the most concise formulation of our relationships and their implications: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” It would be difficult to distill the Christian message more succinctly. Even the Golden Rule — to love a neighbor as we love ourselves — is not sufficient, because it omits our relationship to God. We love our neighbor as we love ourselves because God created us both, and because God loves both of us, because we both bear the image of God. There is a reason why Jesus asserts, “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” This is everything in one place.
It is the beginning of this week’s reading from Exodus 22:20-26 that may sound the most important note for today: it is a reminder. “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.” It is no coincidence that reminders like this repeat throughout the first five books of the Bible. God knows how prone we are to forget. The covenant is here to help us remember. We are reminded not only to remember our own bondage, but also that the God of justice knows and sees our deeds. Justice in the community is found in this remembering and in fidelity to the God who is just and compassionate.
My personal observation and comment on the above is to say that it is surely hypocritical for people who are themselves descended from immigrants and refugees to place restrictions and obstacles in the way of new immigrants and refugees. “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.”