Exodus 22:20-26 / 1 Thess 1:5-10 / Matthew 22:34-40
There was a board-game that children used to play in the past, but that board-game doesn’t seem to be around nowadays. Maybe it became extinct with the high tech toys like Xbox and PlayStation.
That board-game is called “Snakes and Ladders”, provided for the children of the past, simple enjoyment and excitement.
It is actually a very simple game. On the game-board there are numbered and gridded squares. A number of "ladders" and "snakes" are pictured on the board, each connecting two specific board squares. The object of the game is to navigate one's game chip, according to dice rolls, from the start (bottom square) to the finish (top square), helped or hindered by ladders and snakes respectively.
So each player has a coloured chip and he moves on with the throw of a dice. If he is lucky, he will reach the end of a ladder and then he will move up many squares. But if he happens to reach a square in which there is the head of a snake, then he will slide right down to its tail end.
The game provided for the children of the past, a source of simple enjoyment and excitement. The game is a simple race contest based on sheer luck.
But the game seems to have roots in morality lessons, where a player's progression up the board represented a life journey which is complicated by virtues (ladders) and vices (snakes).
In the gospel, the Pharisees may not know about the game of “Snakes and Ladders”, but what they played was a game of “snakes and blunders”. That is because the gospel mentions about the Pharisees getting together to disconcert Jesus.
To disconcert is to upset someone, to make someone flustered so that he will make a blunder. The Pharisees wanted Jesus to make a blunder, then like snakes they will swallow him up. No wonder John the Baptist called them “you brood of vipers”.
They not only wanted to disconcert Jesus, they even wanted to trap Him in order to get rid of Him. This was obvious when on other occasions they asked Him to pronounce judgment on the adulterous woman and also about the issue of paying taxes to Caesar.
This time around, they wanted to see if Jesus knows His stuff by asking a seemingly trivial question: Which is the greatest commandment of the Law?
It was a trivial question because it is not like as if they don’t know, and so it was quite obvious that the Pharisees were trying to disconcert Jesus. And here, Jesus showed once again how He could turn an ulterior motive into something positive.
Jesus didn’t get Himself swallowed into the small details of the Law. Rather He gave the big picture of the Law; He gave the fundamental, the essence of the law.
It was so simple but yet so profound: you must love God with your whole being; and you must love your neighbour as yourself.
To a disconcerting question that was meant to disturb and unsettle Him, Jesus gave an answer, and if the Pharisees were to think about it seriously, an answer that would make them tremble.
Because attached to the law of loving God and loving neighbour, there is this word “must”. It is a serious word, an imperative, a command, and it gives us no options actually.
And so without exposing them outright, Jesus was indirectly asking the Pharisees, if what they were doing was out of love for God, and out of love for the neighbour who was standing there before them and whom they were trying to disconcert.
If the Pharisees had thought seriously about it, they would have trembled. Because they were like snakes waiting to swallow up Jesus if He fumbled.
Yet, Jesus did not play into their little snake games. Rather, He held out to them a ladder, a ladder of love, to help them climb from their ulterior motives and their evil intentions, to the level of the commandment of love.
And to us who are listening to what Jesus is saying in the gospel, He is also holding out to us a ladder of love.
Because we have also played those little snakes games, games to disconcert others, to mislead others, to discredit others, to cheat others, to use others. Oh yes, we have played all these games, and maybe still playing these games.
Especially when our security and comfort is threatened in these difficult economic times. And with the fears of insecurity, we begin to selfishly guard our survival. We become like snakes that will bite at anyone that comes our way or seems threatening to us.
So we, as the people of God, how are we going to respond to the external factors that seem to disconcert us? Are we going to let external situations make us fumble and tumble and be swallowed up by the snakes of fear and insecurity?
Well, Jesus showed us how He turned a disconcerting situation into a reminder of love and salvation. He turned the game of vice into a teaching of virtue.
There are the snakes of evil that we could succumb to and be swallowed up by the vices around us. Yet, Jesus is here to hold out to us the ladders of love. With the ladders of love, we can climb out of our fears and insecurities
So where are these ladders of love, and how are we going to climb these ladders of love. Well, this could be how:
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives ; be kind anyway
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies ; succeed anyway
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you ; be honest and frank anyway
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway
If you find serenity and happiness, people may be jealous ; be happy anyway
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow ;
do good anyway
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough ; give the world the best you’ve got anyway
So we just have to keep climbing the ladders of love so that as we climb towards God, we too will be able to love our neighbours as Jesus has commanded us.
Loving God and loving neighbour is certainly not a game. And the gospel is the only story where the hero dies for the villain.
In other words, the Saviour died for the sinner, so that the sinner can begin to love. So let us love God and neighbour so that the gospel story will continue in our lives.