Feb 22, 2020

7th Sunday: Love as our framework



(Jesus preaching: Tissot)

"So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect"

Matthew 5: 38-48


Our Scriptures this Sunday bring us further along the road of Jesus' moral teaching.  This week the fundamental call to love one another, in particular to "love your enemies" and "to pray for those who persecute you" present a great challenge to our natural desire to get back at those who do us wrong.  It is a call to non-violence of which we have seen powerful examples in history: the early Christian martyrs of our Church, Mahatma Ghandi, and in our own country Martin Luther King have been historical examples of peaceful protest, in the face of oppression and forced evil upon the innocent.  Our present day peaceful marches for the right to life are a perfect example of an application of Jesus’ teaching.

While we may acquaint such events as acts of social justice, Jesus’ teaching applies to our everyday lives, marching or not.  Our Lord was not so much a social activist with political ties but rather offers all of humanity a new insight on how we are to live in this world.  As followers of Christ, we have a particular responsibility and opportunity to show the world what Jesus meant for all. His call to act with non-violence in the face of evil is a powerful position to take the higher road of love as a guide. Yet, even more basically to respond to harm with generosity: turn the other cheek, go two miles, give when asked, love your enemies.

Yet it brings up the question we may ask about how difficult and realistic this teaching may be.  How is it possible to love your enemy; to turn the other cheek in the face of aggression? When we feel we are criticized unfairly or our reputation is defamed or someone we care about is harmed by another, our natural reaction is defensive with a desire to seek revenge. So, am I supposed to be a door mat?

Then maybe the most impossible demand: “Be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Come on now! I’m far from God’s perfection; I’m a sinner. But, the real power here is that Jesus speaks about the love of God and how to love as God loves. That is what should be made more perfect in us. St. Luke more specifically states to be “merciful” as God shows mercy.  To love in the face of hostility is to be merciful as God shows mercy, even to the unjust.

So, when Jesus says to "love your enemies “is he implying that we must feel affection for them as you would for your spouse, which is our popular understanding of love. In the case of our Lord, he supports a non-violent response to violent action.  We are not called to be door mats or wimps but to respond in a peaceful way. 

Our first reading from Leviticus to “take no revenge and cherish no grudge . . .” encourages a balanced approach but measured by the principle of non-violence.
To love our enemies is to not engage in an extreme response:. ”If you should injure my brother, I don’t send my friends to kill your family.”

It is better and wiser to seek peace rather than to continue the evil perpetrated upon me or others. It is right to stand up in the face of evil and respond with ones integrity in tact rather than give in to dishonor or humiliation from another.

In the Middle East the virtue of honor was sacrosanct.  To be humiliated and dishonored would be shocking.  To “turn the other cheek” is a way of saying that “I will not be overcome by your insult.” Our Lord implies that even these acts of dishonor really mean nothing. So, I respond with no ill will toward you; no eye for an eye which just continues the round of aggressive behavior. Rather, I wish you no harm and offer a hand of forgiveness.

What means everything is the power to love peacefully. You can slap me on the face, take my tunic, force me to walk the extra mile but it all really means nothing.  What matters is the power of my witness and the force of love to bring conversion.  My love must be universal and not selective.  This is what must be perfected in us and if so we have learned to love as God loves.  

Yet we know there is a price to pay. The martyrs of our Church are held in such high esteem because they stood as witnesses to the higher truth of their faith rather than cower in submission to aggression.  While they paid for this with their lives, their witness to this love only caused the Church to grow all the more.  This is the higher road to walk in which I maintain my personal dignity which they tried to destroy and it is possible through the grace of God.

So, it is that we put no limits on our love for others.  It’s not about how we may personally feel about them or their politics or their opinions but rather that we are all brothers and sisters joined by a common humanity.  As God makes his rain to fall on the just and the unjust, so too our honor and respect, our love for each other, should have no limits.  However, my own self-defense and by nations of citizens is not excluded by Jesus’ teaching.

Is this the road to perfection?  Can we then be perfect as our heavenly Father?  Well, in all truth conversion is a process, of course.  At St. Paul reminds us today, “you belong to Christ.”  Such high expectations by Jesus are only ultimately possible through the grace of God given to us. We know we are not perfect and will most likely never be so, yet to enter the process of embracing this way of reverence for others certainly offers us the road map to achieve holiness before God.

So, you may want to pray for those who have hurt you; forgive so that you may find peace in your heart; avoid revenge that would inflict more damage and perpetuate the hurt. We say it so often that love is the foundation of the Christian character. Yet, how often do we truly love as Jesus teaches?

In sharing the Eucharist together we share in the love of Christ, his body and blood, poured out for us. 

Grant almighty God, 
that, always pondering spiritual things, 
we may carry out in both word and deed
that which is pleasing to you. 
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, 
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 
one God for ever and ever. 

(Collect of Mass)  

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