A Reflection for the 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C).
1Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 11-13, 22-23 – 1Corinthians 15:45-49 – Luke 6:27-38.
Dear brothers and sisters, there is only one way to make the best of ourselves, and that is to live in accordance with the teachings of Jesus. Our Lord tells us Do not judge and you will not be judged (G v.37). How come? For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get (Mt 7:2). Jesus teaches us not only that spiritual love turns worldly values on their head, but He also identifies those whom we [as the Baptised] must not to neglect to love. Jesus’ teachings in today’s Gospel strike us as revolutionary because these God-given commands revolve around loving others No Matter What. We are being asked to do good to others for His sake, when what we really want is for them to get their just deserts!
Jesus commands you who are listening (‘those of you who are paying attention’) that we must love your enemies (G v.27). This is remarkably difficult to do and goes against our natural inclinations. Just think of the endless procession of warmongers, rogues and villains paraded before us on the TV news: we’re supposed to love them and pray for them? Yes, we are! (Mt 5:44). Of course it’s not easy to love one’s enemy. Of course we are more likely to respond with Christian love towards people who treat us well, than to people who don’t take to us or who make it clear that they dislike us. The thing is, God wants man to treat man as He does.
In the Old Testament, we can see how the Mosaic Law attempted to put a limit on taking revenge for someone else’s vile behaviour towards us. The law of taking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth (Lev 24:19ff) was intended to put a brake on man’s enthusiasm for wiping out his enemies. A parallel passage to today’s Gospel (Mt 5:37) has Jesus adding Do not resist someone who is evil and to “turn the other cheek”. Why? Because if someone strikes you on the right cheek and you turn and offer them the left, you make a second stroke awkward for them, whether they strike with the back of the hand or takes a second swipe with the flat of the hand. Either way, you wrong-foot (or, better, ‘wrong-hand’) them, and you retain the moral high ground. You have to do as you would be done by: As you wish that men would do to you, do so to them (G v.31).
Jesus commanded us to be compassionate, as your heavenly Father is compassionate (v.36). (Most translations of the Bible have “be merciful” rather than “compassionate” and one has “be perfect”.) “Compassion”, from Latin roots, means “feeling with”. We have to “feel with” – to ‘empathise with’ – people who are suffering. To be compassionate is to choose to walk alongside someone because you resonate with their suffering. To be merciful is to have a heart full of pity (misericors) for someone who is suffering and in pain, whether that pain be due to physical, mental or spiritual illness, bereavement, worries, lack, or other circumstances. There are so many needy people today, aren’t there?
Now here’s the really hard bit: Jesus teaches us that we have to show compassion to those lacking the grace to love us back: “our enemies”. Why? Because someone without love is someone suffering from hate. Ouch! Jesus teaches us to have pity for people who lack the graces of love and compassion. Jesus demonstrated His compassion for us to the ultimate degree on the Cross at Calvary, when He asked the Father’s forgiveness for us because they do not know what they are doing (Lk 23:34). Like Jesus, we will find ourselves hurt by people, or in the company of people who are nasty to us, but from Jesus we now know that we mustn’t become like them. We mustn’t join them by repaying wrong with wrong, or else the cycle of evil continues unbroken. Rather, we should block evil with goodness. Where natural human instinct drives us to want to retaliate, we Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and so should act in accordance with Christ’s teachings. This is the point St Paul was making in the 2nd reading (v.49), that we now possess the spirit of Christ, the Second Adam, because although we have been modelled on the earthly man, we will be modelled on the heavenly man.
In the 1st reading, David was compassionate. His heart was filled with pity for a sinner whose actions towards him were ungodly because he (Saul) had gone astray from God. What we learn from David is our need to confront the evil in someone while being compassionate to their soul. Rather than dispatching Saul, David showed him mercy and confronted him with his sins because Saul was the Lord’s anointed (v.23).
Sometimes we grumble inwardly about things and people that have gone off course, and sometimes we nip or backbite because things and people are not going the way we want them to. Even though we ourselves are imperfect, God deals patiently and kindly with us because He loves us. When faced with someone else’s imperfections, we need to practice looking beyond their mistakes and evil actions to the human soul within that is so greatly loved by God. Christ’s command is that you yourself do not judge or condemn other people. Leave judgement to Him. Emulate Him in being compassionate and in granting pardon. Conduct yourselves in the world, and especially in your relations with others, with integrity and godly sincerity … relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace (cf. 2Cor 1:12). Amen. God bless you.