Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 23, 2025: Love your enemies, and do good to them...

Love your enemies and do good to them…
Is it really possible to love one’s enemies? 

   When, in the First Book of Samuel, David spares his king and enemy Saul, David proves by his actions what he believes: if the Lord has appointed a man to be king, then it’s the Lord’s call to remove that individual when necessary. Do not harm him, David says to his nephew and commander Abishai when they have the opportunity to eliminate Saul, for who can lay hands on the Lord’s anointed? By not taking Saul’s life, David shows himself to be a man in relationship with the Lord, a man who trusts in the Lord, knowing that the Lord will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness. Ultimately, it is through David that the Lord spares Saul, because, as Psalm 103 reminds us, The Lord is kind and merciful, and thus it is the Lord who allows David to be merciful and compassionate. 

   In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus will take this lesson to another level as he tells his disciples to love their enemies, and do good to those who hate them. God loves everything he has created, including our enemies; our lives therefore have to be consistent with the God-life given to us. If we are to learn how much God loves us, we are going to have to participate in that life and in that love, with no half-measures possible. Moreover, Jesus encourages his disciples to not even judge others, for the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you. If our measure of one another is the love God has for us, an absolute love with no limitations, then that love should not limit us either – indeed, that love should approach, as closely as possible, the limitless love God has for us, and for all of our world. 

   We bear the image of the heavenly one, Paul tells the Corinthians. We share in the humanity that Christ took to death and hope that we might share in his divine life in the future, if we but put our faith in him, if we trust in his promise, if we open to being transformed by his sacrificial death and resurrection. In this way, step by step, God draws us into eternal life. But today? We can carry paradise with us, right now. We carry the love of God with us at every moment. We must live in the contradiction, knowing that the world that does not know Jesus is steeped in judgment and condemnation, whereas we, assured of his love, must be steeped in all that heals, all that makes whole, all that builds one another up, until there are no enemies, only brothers and sisters in Christ. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 19, 2023: Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy...

Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy…

Are you holy? 

    The blessings that the Lord showers upon us are extraordinary. Psalm 103 reminds us that the Lord is kind and merciful, constantly compassionate toward his people, constantly forgiving our sins and redeeming our life from destruction. At the same time, the Lord asks a great deal from his people: Be holy, Moses tells the whole Israelite community in the Book of Leviticus: eschew hatred, sin, revenge and grudges. We are holy when we do God’s will, when we work for harmony and justice, when we love our neighbor as ourself. We create the world in which we exist by the way in which we treat others. If we want to be holy, we must treat others the way God would have us treat them, with extraordinary love. 

   Jesus knows this passage from Leviticus. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus will take the law one step further: Love not only your neighbor, but your enemies, he tells his disciples, and pray for those who persecute you. We may still hold fast to the law of retribution in our hearts – the idea that revenge is warranted, for example – but Jesus calls us instead to liberality: if you are asked for your tunic, hand over your cloak as well; if you are asked to go one mile, go for two. Be generous in all you share in life, in everything you do. Everything Jesus asks us to do is extraordinary, unusual, surpassing the norm, that we might be holy. 

   The Corinthians still had not integrated this lesson fully at the time of Paul’s Letter. They have embraced division rather than unity, discord rather than harmony. They cannot see that the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God for human wisdom cannot conceive of the depth of God’s love for all humankind. Their focus, Paul insists, should be on Christ, and on union as the Body of Christ. We may often be tempted to division, to divisiveness. Our challenge is to be fully invested in the extraordinary love God has for us, and to let our love for God be as extraordinary as is humanly possible. If we love our neighbor and our enemies, then we can fully open to God. Then and only then will we be holy in the eyes of the Lord. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class. 
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 20, 2022: Love your enemies...

Love your enemies…

What does it take to love extravagantly? 

    God loves God’s creation extravagantly, in spite of our sin. Psalm 103 reminds us of all his benefits, not the least of which are his kindness and compassion, mercy and graciousness. But are human beings capable of loving so extravagantly? In the First Book of Samuel, King Saul seeks to harm his son-in-law David, picking three thousand men to search for him in the desert. But when night falls, and Saul and his men fall asleep, David has the opportunity to get rid of Saul, yet he refuses to do so. He will later tell Saul, Today, though the Lord delivered you into my grasp, I would not harm the Lord’s anointed. By showing mercy to his adversary, David demonstrates that he can love extravagantly, striving to love as God loves. 

    In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus will make his request clear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. It’s not enough to refrain from harm; Jesus calls upon us to love actively, renouncing enmity, and demonstrating that we too are capable of loving extravagantly if we strive to love as God loves. If such love requires transformation, so be it, for only by loving our enemies—tangibly revealing God’s love by acts of mercy—can we be children of the Most High. We must, as Paul tells the Corinthians, bear the image of the heavenly one, Jesus, who extravagantly showed his love for us all when he died on the cross, loving those who mistreated him and put him to death. That we love extravagantly is a big ask, but one the Lord clearly believes we are capable of, so long as we possess the Spirit of the risen Christ. 

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 23, 2020: Love your enemies...

Love your enemies…

How do we live out holiness in the context of community?

  Already in the Torah, God is preoccupied with the holiness of community.  In the Book of Leviticus, God instructs Moses to tell the whole Israelite community that they shall not bear hatred for their brother or their sister in their heart.  Instead, he says, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  To follow the precepts of the Lord, to participate in the life he calls you to, is to be holy, and these particular precepts tie us to our community in the most significant of ways.  God calls us to a holiness firmly grounded in the context of community.  In Psalm 103, the psalmist understands all of the blessings he has received – pardon, healing, redemption, kindness, compassion, mercy and more – within the context of community.  To know that God loves us and blesses us allows us to love God and to love all:  this is the essence of community.

  If Leviticus says we are to find holiness in the context of each other, then Paul’s statement to the Corinthians – you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you – explicitly equates the people with the body as a whole; to destroy the temple would be to destroy the bonds of community.  And our identity comes from that context of community:  community belongs to Christ and Christ to God.  It’s not up to one or the other to consider himself wise, but for all to belong to each other, even those who seem to fall outside the limits of what we define as our community.  If we follow the dictums of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, we are to love our neighbors but also our enemies!  We must bring grace where there isn’t any; we must bring good where there’s evil, rather than increase the evil in the world.  In the context of community, such attention to grace is absolutely necessary.  If we are, as Jesus states, children of our heavenly Father, we know the infinite love that is ours; to know that infinite love should engender the same love in us for others – all others.  If God cares about our enemies so much, loving them as he loves us, who are we to do anything differently?  Community, Jesus is saying, is always bigger, greater, larger than our narrow confines – and in it, we are called to be holy, perfect, just as our heavenly Father is perfect, in love. 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 24, 2019: Love your enemies...

Love your enemies…

How do we rise above enmity and promote justice?

  In the First Book of Samuel, David has more than one opportunity to kill his enemy Saul.  On one occasion, David enters Saul’s camp and finds Saul lying asleep with his spear thrust into the ground at his head.  Rather than act on this opportunity, however, David merely takes Saul’s spear and water jug, demonstrating his justice and faithfulness to God while yet asserting his superior position over Saul.  Knowing that Saul is the Lord’s anointed, David chooses not to have Saul’s blood on his hands, opting to remain in right relationship with God instead.  Psalm 103 tells us that merciful and gracious is the Lord; David likewise elects to be merciful, demonstrating forbearance and remaining open to God’s will.

  David may spare Saul out of concern for the Lord’s anointed, but in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus suggests a posture toward our enemies that is even more radical:  Jesus calls upon his disciples not just to love each other, but to love their enemies, and to pray for those who persecute them.  For Jesus’ audience, the disciples, the word enemies brings to mind first and foremost their Roman oppressors.  Jesus is thus challenging the disciples to love and pray for the very people who occupy their land, tax them heavily, treat them with violence & injustice; the disciples are to meet injustice with justice and faithfulness.  It is a challenge we continue to face today whenever we are confronted with injustice in our world.

  In effect, Jesus’ teaching calls us to work to break through our own limitations, to take down any walls we erect separating those we love from those we don’t, so that love can flow from us to all people.  We are to be merciful in the model and image of the heavenly one, as Paul calls Jesus in his letter to the Corinthians, conforming to Jesus’ teaching of love and mercy in ways that are life-giving.  In essence, Jesus is calling us to allow God’s power in us to help us rise above any insult, injury, or persecution, embracing even those who seek to harm us, trying to match our love to God’s love, trying to enter into the depth of God’s love for all.  Only that love can banish all enmity, as it brings the world into one community, united in mercy and compassion, with justice as its goal.

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, February 19, 2017: The temple of God, which you are, is holy...

 The temple of God, which you are, is holy… 

What does it mean to be holy? 

   In the Book of Leviticus, several chapters are devoted to the Holiness Code, a set of rules meant to help humankind live in the context of God’s holiness.  Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy is the message Moses is to convey to the Israelite community.  But what does it mean to be holy?  God explains to Moses that holiness will be found in their relationship with others in their community:  they must not bear hatred in their hearts for one another, but rather, must love their neighbor as themselves.  Every interaction should be patterned after God’s mercy and love; every gesture should bring the identity of God, who is love, to bear on civilization.  The Holiness Code enumerates the many ways that God is manifested through humankind; as we strive to live it, we call others to that same relationship, with God and with one another.  As in Psalm 108, every time we bless God’s holy name, we are increasing our awareness of God’s presence, claiming that presence, that love, as essential to our lives, bringing that love to bear upon our relationship with God and with all.  We are, in other words, striving for holiness.

   Jesus revisits the Holiness Code in Matthew’s Gospel when he exhorts his listeners to Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.  To reach for perfection is to embrace a process, to strive for the holiness of God by manifesting that holiness in what we live, challenging others to holiness in the process, giving to the one who asks of us, ever generous in our relationships with others.  This also means we must love – not just our family, not just our neighbors or our fellow countrymen, but, Jesus tells us, our enemies themselves.  There is no holiness in hatred; we must love all as God loves all God’s children, allowing God’s love for us to dictate our love for other.  As Paul tells the Corinthians, we are the temple of God, and that temple is holy for the Spirit of God dwells in us.  God was thus meant to be revealed through us as we work for community, giving witness to the power of God’s love in our lives. 

   This is what Paul means when he tells each to become a fool, so as to become wise:  we are to embrace that kingdom of inversion in which the only true power is God’s power, the power of love.  If we do so, subjecting ourselves to all so that God can be present through us, then we will indeed be holy, a revelation of God’s love and mercy in the world.

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source:  Wordle