Luke 6: 27-38
The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022325.cfm
Our first reading this Sunday from the book of Samuel
leaves us perhaps with mixed feelings.
David has a once in a million chance to gain one up on his enemy Saul by
killing Saul while he slept. Not only slept but stood over him as he did so! –
but he doesn’t do that. David resists
the temptation from his companion Abishai who wanted to nail Saul “with one
thrust of the spear” when they find him sleeping. David resists and takes the non-violent
approach as he acknowledges King Saul as the “Lord’s Anointed.” While that may
not be the best military strategy, to instantly win the advantage, it certainly
highlights the core moral teaching of Jesus we hear in the Gospel from Luke
today about the unique nature of Christian love.
While David’s resistance was a momentary response,
Jesus invites his disciples to make such behaviour our way of life. For David’s
response raised him to a higher level than violence for violence. He rose above evil with charity. David was
hardly perfect and had done sin himself blinded by lust for Bathsheba and a
murderous plot of her husband, but such past sin was repented and rejected and
he chose the better part with Saul.
The Scriptures this Sunday continue for us Luke's version of Jesus' famed Sermon on the Mount but in his case, the Sermon on the “plain” or really a level stretch of ground from the higher stand of the upper mountain. This Sunday we are reminded about the controversial nature of Jesus' teaching; the fundamental call to non-violence and love of enemies is given a prime place in Jesus' sermon to the crowds. It is what makes Christian love unique and counter intuitive.
Many times, we feel guilty about our anger. We may confess the natural emotion of anger
as sinful. But it's right to acknowledge that anger is normal. There is no sin in emotion. It's normal to feel joyful, angry, sad,
jealous, or an attraction to things and others, etc. Emotions are emotions and they in and of
themselves have no morality. Our natural
anger rises in the face of injustice, rejection, or being treated unfairly but
that's just the feeling. We may sense a
physical attraction to a person, no priest is immune from such either, but the
point I make is that this is normal and human. It means we are alive! It's
built into our brain and DNA. And
certainly, we may feel we want to seek revenge against another person and that
they don't deserve our forgiveness or certainly not our love for what they did
to me or to another was hurtful. This is all the stuff of normal life. But it
is just emotion based. Our thoughts and our feelings should not be our sole
guide to action.
What Jesus speaks of are not emotions but rather
actions and reactions. Did Gandhi feel
anger? Did Dr. Martin Luther King feel
like returning violence for violence? I
wonder if St. Teresa of Calcutta ever felt jealous, anger, or was tempted to
pride. I would guess they did but did they follow through, act upon their
feelings? No, and that is the
point. To recognize our natural emotions
as normal but we resist acting upon them in a vengeful sort of way. In there
lies virtue.
I remember hearing a story of the famed Cure of Ars,
the extraordinary parish priest in 18th century France whose fame spread
quickly as a confessor and holy pastor.
The thousands who came to see him would jostle and push in the crowds
around him and at times he would recognize his rising aggravation. He once said that he kept a handkerchief in
his pocket and rather than speak angrily at a soul who would annoy him, he
would squeeze that handkerchief very tightly in his hand discreetly and direct
his negative energy into that ball of cloth.
Well, it apparently worked!
Rather than seek retribution and put gas on the fire
as it were simply to make myself feel justified, I will instead offer a
peaceful and non-violent response. I
will raise myself to a higher level of behavior and instead seek to reconcile
or at least to offer love in the form of peaceful non-violent resistance and forgiveness.
In that way I absorb the violence of the enemy and show them a more powerful
way to behave. That love is stronger than hate. Sin is in behavior and not in
normal emotion.
Of course,
plotting and scheming a retaliation is sinful since the intent is to carry
through. We are then acting upon our potentially destructive feelings by our
thoughts and scheming. We find sin in
our thoughts, our words, and our deeds but not in our natural emotions. "I
confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned
in my thoughts, and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed
to do . . ."
Bishop Robert Barron speaks of gift giving as a model
for Christian love. Yet, when we gift
someone, we naturally expect some sort of return: another gift, a “thank you” note, something
even better than what I gave.
However, Jesus’ teaching demands far more. He speaks
of the difference between and active and passive love. And God, in Christ, is
the ultimate model for what this means; to give gratuitously without expecting
return. While giving in this way is in
some way contrary to our natural inclination we are called as disciples of
Jesus to model ourselves after him; after how God has given himself to us. If we love only those who love us we will
never learn to love as God loves. Jesus
teaches: “Even sinners do the same.” So,
our charity should always be active and not passive:
“Lend expecting nothing
back . . . love your enemies, do good to them . . . stop judging, stop
condemning, forgive, give . . . for the measure with which you measure will in
return be measured be measured out to you.”
Now there in brief short phrases and words is an ideal
examination of conscience before confession.
It will surely bring out our personal stinginess, jealousy, pride, and
prejudice. The whole sacramental system
of our Church is gratuitous gift, and the holy Eucharist is the greatest of all
– Christ himself given to us. Christ himself who actively ransomed us from the
darkness of death to the promise of eternal life. Jesus did not sit passively
in the sight of evil but through the active power of love, transformed
humanity.
While the world might consider such behavior foolish
imagine the witness it gives to the call towards love rather than hate,
forgiveness rather than retribution, peaceful non-violence rather than active
violence.
May we not tire of doing what is right and reach
beyond our natural limitations but only by God’s grace given as gift out of
love.
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