NOTES:
1] Cf. MK12: 28-31, LK10:25-28. 2] The Pharisees regroup for another attack on Jesus. 3] The first of the two 'great commandments' (DEUT 6:5) was well known to them, & so, too, the 2nd (LEV 19:18). 4] Messiah (Hebrew) = Christ (Greek) = Anointed One. 5] Riddles (like this one about the Messiah being David's son ('How can a father call his son his lord?' from PS110:1) were part of a rabbi's stock in trade.

WARMING UP: Heard any good riddles lately? Or are they only for little kids?

TREASURES OLD & NEW: Identify God at work in anything this week?

ENTERING INTO THE STORY:
34-36    If we were asked the question they spring on Jesus here, would we answer as he does? What other answers might we consider? What sources do we draw our answers to 'religious' questions from? Do we have a set of stock answers? In the end, is there any question that's not religious? Is true religion really only a matter of loving God & others fully & totally?

37-40    Do we normally associate commandments first & foremost with love as Jesus does here? What's the difference between loving God with our heart & our soul, our soul & our mind, our mind & our heart? Between.....any / all of these & our strength?

If it's one thing to know the commandments, as his questioners do, but another thing to carry  them out (as they don't) what does that say to us in our situation? Is Jesus making it all too hard, if not impossible, making everything hang on love? How can we obey such commandments?

41-46    When Jesus poses his riddle about whether the Messiah is descended from King David, is he trying to show that: a)  the Messiah doesn't become the Messiah by descent from King David's family, but from God? b) King David will have to 'bow the knee' to one of his own descendants? c) something else? Whatever the point of the riddle back then, can we see some point in it for us today? What if the riddle & its teaching are over our heads?

Even if we can't answer God's seeming 'riddles' in life, does that stop us loving? Is love maybe the greatest of all riddles, & at the same time the answer to them, just as it's also the greatest commandment?