Up until the last sentence, this passage is very comfortable to me. I was raised by faithful parents in a household guided by the Golden Rule—so much so that I wrote about this in my admissions essay for Notre Dame. Matthew’s account of this same exchange was the Gospel reading at my wedding, and remains framed on our bedroom wall as the foundation on which my husband and I try to live our lives and raise our children.

Today’s seemingly simple passage follows a line of questions and answers between Jesus and various Jewish leaders who are challenging his authority. Each new question seems to up the ante of challenge, with Jesus responding with increasingly eloquent answers that are at the same time non-answers. And then this scribe steps up to ask what seems to be the most challenging question yet: Of all of these commandments, which is really the greatest?

Jesus’ answer is so basic, essentially boiling down our faith to loving God and loving others. At the same time, though, his answer is so amazingly complex and challenging. How can we really live this in our day to day life? What do we do when we inevitably fail and repeatedly return to sin? Is it not easier to stick to the various forms of visible religiosity rather than rise to the challenge of basing our actions and decisions on these two most important principles?

The scribe and Jesus affirm one another’s responses, then “after that, no one dared to ask him any question.” In other words, Jesus gave the ultimate mic drop. While Jesus’ telling of the greatest commandments is familiar and comforting to me, it is a new and powerful revelation for the crowd in this story. Those gathered are so stunned by Jesus’ answer that they have no more words.

Perhaps we can learn not only from the witness of Jesus and the scribe by understanding and striving to live these two greatest commandments, but also from the experience of crowd, who is overwhelmed and inspired by the magnitude of what Jesus asks of us.