7^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A); 2-23-20

Lv 19:1-2,17-18 Ps 103 1 Cor 3:16-23   Mt 5:38-48

Deacon Jim McFadden

 

            Last Sunday we reflected how Jesus instructed his disciples on the Sermon of the Mount to watch over little things that undermine our love relationships. Today, he goes further by calling us to love our enemies, which is a radical departure from the way most people live; indeed, our Lord’s challenge is nothing less than a Christian Revolution.

            Keep in mind that as we reflect upon our Lord’s teachings, that via our baptism we were grafted onto Jesus as we became viable members of his mystical Body, the Church. Being in Christ, St. Paul can boldly proclaim that we are meant to “move, live, and have our being in Christ”.   So, living the teachings of Jesus is not an option, but is constitutive of being a Christian. If we backslide, ignore, or reject his challenge to “love our enemies” we are by that fact rejecting Jesus as our Lord—our relationship has been compromised.

Make no mistake, Jesus is proposing a Christian revolution that can only be lived through the life of grace. Our Lord is not trying to make our lives difficult by cluttering our lives with spiritual obstacles.   Rather, he is guiding us into reality that is grounded in Trinitarian love. Put simply, Jesus shows us that the way of true justice—the fair and equitable way human beings should interact—is done through the law of love, which is greater than the law of retaliation, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

This ancient law has a long cherished pedigree in the Old Testament, which imposed the infliction on wrongdoers a punishment equivalent to the damage they caused: death for those who murdered, amputation for those who stole, and so on. These prescriptions compliment our basic instincts for revenge and retribution for those who have harmed us. When they hurt us, we push back. What’s wrong with that? Why couldn’t Jesus just well enough alone? Why can’t we put people in our psychological cross-hairs when they offend us?

We can’t because God lives in each and everyone of us, including our enemies. We can’t because the Lord instructed Moses that we are called to be holy as God is holy (Lv 19:2b) which we heard in the first reading. What does that mean? We are to mirror God’s magnanimous love, justice, and mercy because we are made in the image of God who is love. Therefore, “You shall not bear hatred for our brother in your heart…Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord”

(v. 17-18). While the meaning of divine holiness is mysterious, we know exactly what it is like as we see it lived out by our Lord Jesus. We are called to imitate Christ, both individually and communally—because we are members of his mystical Body, the Church. That means we live as God does: we live out of God’s for-giving love in all our relationships, including our enemies.

Keep in mind that Jesus does not ask his disciples to abide evil, but to react in a revolutionary way. Rather than respond to evil with another evil action, he calls us to respond with good. Since Jesus is Immanuel, God among us, he is a realist: he knows that the only way to break the chain of evil—one evil leads to another which leads to another evil…–is to live how God operates us, which is self-giving love. That is the Law of Grace, that’s how the universe is grounded and sustained. This chain of evil can only be broken and things will only truly change through God’s love and mercy. To be sure, evil, in fact, is a “void”—it’s the absence of good. Ontologically, it has no being, though its effects are very grim and real. It is not possible to fill this void with more evil—it simply can’t work because it’s based on an illusion. The only way this void can be filled is with the “fullness” of God’s being, namely, the good.

Brothers and sisters, revenge never leads to conflict resolution. We’ve all been there, done that—and it doesn’t work!   Yet we keep going down that same well-trodden path which Neil Young once said leads to “no where.”

At her trial, St. Joan of Arc said that one thing I know for sure is that “the Risen Christ and the Church are one and the same.” As such, Jesus is challenging us to live a life patterned after the holiness of God; it is to life a life radically dependent upon grace, Such a life can only be lived in community because it is just too difficult to do by ourselves. We need models of Christian living that embody integrity, honesty, and faithfulness to one another as interconnected members of Jesus’ mystical Body. If we see someone doing wrong, we will rebuke them—we won’t enable or condone bad behavior. But, we are forbidden to entertain any kind of vengeance; we are told to love them, including our enemy, as we love ourselves because that is the Way of Jesus! If we want to abide in Him, now and forever, we have to live like him. Let us embrace this Christian revolution! Amen.