SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

[cappie]

Today's gospel is a continuation of the teaching that began in last Sunday's gospel. Recall that in Luke's Gospel, this teaching is addressed to Jesus' disciples. Today’s words from Jesus' teaching are familiar to us. They constitute the crux and the challenge of what it means to be a disciple: Love your enemies, turn the other cheek, give to those who ask, do unto others, lend without expecting repayment, judge not lest you be judged.

Jesus' words challenge those who would follow him to be more like God. God loves us beyond our expectations, beyond anything we can possibly imagine. In response to God's love, we are to love as God loves, beyond expectations and with a depth beyond imagining.

 A man who had reached his 100th birthday was being interviewed by a reporter. “What are you most proud of?” the reporter asked.
“Well,” said the man, “I don’t have an enemy in the world.”
“What a beautiful thought! How inspirational!” said the reporter.
“Yep,” added the man, “I outlived every last one of them.”

We may not be able to feel charitable toward our enemies, but we can at least begin to move in that direction.  In recognizing our own failure to love, we can begin to have compassion for others who fail to love. My failure to love my enemy can give me insight into my enemy’s failure to love me. Acknowledging my own failure, I can begin to have compassion on the failure of others. We can, in a sense, recognize something of ourselves in the “enemy”.   

This process of recognizing our common humanity, can lead us into a more expansive way of thinking.  By recognizing how similar my failure to love is to my enemy’s failure to love, I begin to see that we are in the same boat.  I may not be capable of warm fuzzies toward my enemy, but I can at least begin to respect his or her dignity as a human being. I can at least begin to see that we are probably more alike than we would want to think.

Our own failure to love, then, can be a way forward to greater compassion and greater humility.  And greater compassion and humility are the way forward to completion, fullness of life, perfection. To greater love—maybe even as far as loving the enemy.  It’s a dynamic process of growth  and some failure is inevitable

But Jesus’ call to perfection is a keen insight.  Failure to love can, if we are so disposed, actually help us to grow in love.  Failure to love opens the door to humility. Humility opens the door to compassion.  Compassion opens the door to love. And love opens the door to that expansiveness of life that is the goal of our existence—our completion, our perfection.

 We need the vocabulary of repentance in our national discourse too. Words like failure, contrition, remorse, humility, restitution, “we were wrong”, “we’re sorry”,—this vocabulary needs to make its way into our public statements.  And soon.  Our failures may yet be the salvation of this country.   Our failure to love our enemies may yet open the door to humility—and humility opens the door to many good things.

The world is waiting.

 When Jesus commanded us to “love our enemies,” he was pointing to a fundamental truth behind those words. When we open our hearts enough to truly love, our enemies turn into the possibility for healing. So, it’s not about treating our enemies a certain way, it’s about the fruits of relating to each other, to everyone, in the fullness of Christ’s love. Practice loving fully and our great reward is being free from holding onto feelings like anger and hatred. And then instead of enemies, we have opportunities to act in the world for peace and justice — servants — of God’s love.

Edited February 22, 2019 by cappie