Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle A)

Agapan 

Isaiah 49:14-15; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:24-34 

Today’s Gospel begins as so many Gospel readings do: with the words, “Jesus said to his disciples.” Those words invite us to get into that audience; to think of ourselves as disciples, as students, as followers of Jesus; and his words invite us to put ourselves into an attentive mode, a listening mode, so that we can pay attention to what the Master wants to say to us; to listen to what our Teacher wants to teach; to benefit from what our Friend, our Brother, has to share with us. We can always count on wisdom being associated with what Jesus has to say. We can always count on what he has to say being in some way relevant to our daily lives. 

Today’s Gospel is a continuation of the one we heard last week. It should sound familiar. It uses the same device, the same pattern that we heard last week. “You have heard it said . . . But I say to you . . .”

“You’ve heard it said….” And they had heard it said — over and over — in the synagogue, in their homes or wherever they found themselves. They had been born and raised on things said to them in the commands and prescriptions of the law. For the people of Judah, the law was their faith. From the greatest to the smallest, the law would be their reverence, their honor, and their devotion to the God of Israel.

“But I say to you…” Something new is happening. More than interpretation, or added information, Jesus’ saving word would reveal new life, new hope, and a new springtime in the history of salvation.

“You have heard it said . . . But I say to you . . .” His listeners in Palestine heard one thing, but the question for us is: what do we hear? Is it a message of mercy, of undying faithfulness, and boundless compassion – or is it simply rhetoric?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says to his disciples, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you . . . Give to the one who asks of you . . . Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” Well that should have gotten their attention! . . . As indeed it should get ours today. 

Of all of the teachings of Jesus, the mandate to love our enemies is the one most far reaching and difficult to live. Jesus gives us a commandment, not a suggestion. Love for our enemies is not an ideal but rather a way of life. We cannot consider ourselves authentic disciples of Jesus unless we truly live out this commandment.

As you probably know, the four Gospels were originally written in Greek. The Greek language has different words for our English word love. Each of the Greek words defines a particular meaning and nuance for our word love. In today’s Gospel passage, the Greek word agapan is used to describe the kind of love that Jesus is commanding us to live.

Agapan means that no matter what others do to us, we will never allow ourselves to desire anything but their greatest good. Agapan tells us that we will actively go out of our way to be kind to those who are our enemies. The commandment to love our enemies goes deep into our hearts. Jesus commands us to live a totally different way of life, because agapan necessitates forgiveness.

Jesus turns the law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” the law of revenge, on its ear—in fact, he obliterates it. There is to be no retaliation of any kind, not even measured or proportionate. When someone harms you or tries to take advantage of you, return it with a blessing. Instead of physical retribution to someone who slaps you on the cheek with the back of their hand, offer them the other cheek so that they can strike you with the full force of an open hand. We are to go beyond what is minimally asked of us and generously go further and do more and give more. And we are to love our neighbor. And by neighbor Jesus is not talking about the people who live down the street. He means our families, our friends, our fellow citizens, the strangers, the illegal immigrants, the panhandlers, those we can’t bear to look at or be with, and . . . yes our enemies. All of them. 

Author Lewis Smedes wrote, “Forgiveness is the most difficult chord to play in the human concerto.” Yet when we play it, even if we don't play it well, it is the most beautiful chord in the concerto of life. As you know, a musical chord consists of three notes played simultaneously. The first note of the forgiveness chord is letting go of our right to hurt back, refusing to exact payment, rejecting the impulse to get revenge on the person who has hurt us. Forgiveness is the flip side of revenge. Forgiveness is complete when we become the instruments of God's blessings in the life of the one who has betrayed us, when we love our enemies and bless those who persecute us.

The second note of the forgiveness chord is seeing the one who has wronged us as a whole person with bad, but also with good qualities, refusing to define that person by what they have done to us. Forgiveness is more than reactive, it is proactive. It is more than simply not moving toward the person in such a way as to hurt them. It is more than simply keeping your distance. It is moving toward them in such a way as to bring them blessings, even though they have done the opposite to us.

And the third note in the forgiveness chord is praying for, earnestly desiring blessings, even being a blessing to the person who has hurt you. Forgiveness is taking the hand that hurt you, and as you hold it in yours, praying that its owner might receive God's full blessing of eternal life, even though that hand scarred you for life.

Jesus calls us to the level of love and to the degree of forgiveness that is God-like, “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” It is a call to holiness. Few of us think of ourselves as being holy. Oh, we strive for holiness, pray for holiness, and occasionally do holy things. But to be holy? 

We can’t simply convince ourselves that Jesus has gone too far and is asking the impossible. To behave as he is asking, is to reveal not only something of God, but also what it means to be truly human. We can all do better; we can all do more. It means that we will be more compassionate; more forgiving. It means going beyond justice and standing not on rights but responsibility; it means giving more, maybe even so much that it hurts; it means walking away from confrontation even when the blame is someone else’s; it means responding in silence when to utter even a single word would be to escalate an argument; it means not having to win; not having to get the better of another in any circumstance; and it means re-thinking our basic attitudes about who is our neighbor. It is all about being holy.

“Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” It is a call to the perfect love and forgiveness that Jesus demonstrated on the cross when he said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Some of us shrug off perfect love and forgives as something possible for Jesus, yet impossible for us mere mortals. Yet it is the love and forgiveness that Assunta Goretti demonstrated at the canonization of her daughter Maria to the man who sat next to her, Alessandro Serenelli, who had mercilessly bludgeoned the twelve year old girl to death after she rejected his sexual advances; the kind that Pope John Paul II offered his would-be assassin; the kind that Nelson Mandela extended to those who imprisoned him for twenty-seven years.

Impossible, beyond our abilities?—No! Holy and Christ-like?—YES! Christ is calling us to this change in behavior as disciples, as Christians, as citizens of this country, as inhabitants of planet Earth. It has to start with us. It’s important, it’s difficult and it’s risky. And we can’t do it without his help.

We have plenty of evidence of the effects of life lived according to the eye for an eye law in our personal lives and on the world stage.

Tell me . . . who’s winning?

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle A)

Salt and Light for the World

Isaiah 58: 7-10; 1Corintheans 2: 1-5; Matthew 5: 13-16 

In this week’s gospel, Jesus compared his followers to salt and light. He said to his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth….You are the light of the world.”

Now, the light comparison makes sense. Jesus explained that people don’t light a lamp and then hide it under a bushel basket. Just as the light illuminates the whole room, Christians need to “illuminate” the world. The light of God’s truth must shine out from us so that a lost and sinful world can see that there is a way to be saved.

The salt metaphor, however, has always caused me to scratch my head and say, “Huh?” What in the world did Jesus mean when he said, “You are the salt of the earth”? To me, salt is the stuff in those little shakers that are on virtually every kitchen table, right next to the matching pepper shaker. The main purpose of salt is to give well-meaning relatives the opportunity to warn, “Don’t use so much salt! You’ll get high blood pressure and have a stroke! . .  . I read it in a magazine.”

But I recently read a story that helped me understand just what Jesus might have been getting at when he said we must be the salt of the earth. It was about a guest who was asked to give a toast at a friend's wedding. At the reception, as the glasses were raised, the guest presented the couple with a beautifully decorated gift box. Inside the box was salt - common table salt. The guest then offered this toast to the couple:

"It's hard to keep house without salt. It adds flavor and taste to just about every dish.
And if you run out of toothpaste, you can brush with a mixture of soda and salt because of salt's cleansing qualities.
If you develop a sore throat, you can gargle with salt because of its healing properties.
If you're hungry, you can cure a ham or other meat with salt because of its preserving qualities.
You can use salt to melt the ice that builds up in the winter cold; salt can also be used to put out fires that flare up.
So if you'll bring to your marriage the qualities found in salt - the cleansing qualities, the healing quality, the preserving quality -
If you use it to enhance the flavor of your life together; to melt the ice that will build up and put out the fires that will occasionally flare up between you; and, of course, if you take everything with a grain of salt, you will have a long and happy life together."

And the same can be said when we are “the salt of the earth.” Jesus’ disciples are to spread the Gospel as if it were salt, preserving and saving mankind (to keep mankind from “rotting” or “decaying” because of our sinfulness). The disciples are to spread the “flavor” of the Good News to everyone we meet. And with this Gospel salt, we don’t have to worry about getting high blood pressure and having a stroke. This salt is so healthy it gives people eternal life.

"You are the salt of the earth." "You are the light of the world," Jesus says. Today it is we who are the disciples whom Christ gives these instructions. It is we who take these images to heart and be salt and light for the world. Through you, in you, because of you, the "light" enters the world; life is given meaning. You are the light of the world, you are the salt of the earth. The building of the Kingdom of God is dependent on the warmth of the individual heart, the courage of the faithful spirit, the generosity of the disciple's soul. You are the salt of the earth because you enter into the world and make a difference. You are the light of the world because what you do, what you say, how you live, who you are, is a witness for all to see. God makes us an essential part of his plan of salvation. The Kingdom is to be built in us, by us, and through us.

Easier said than done. In 1973, world-renowned psychologist Karl Menninger made headlines by writing the book Whatever Became of Sin. In his book, Dr. Menninger decried our modern tendency to deny the existence of sin and to avoid even speaking about sin. He pointed out two dangers to this tendency. For one, if we lose our sense of sin, then we run the risk of losing authority over our lives. In other words, if we blame our parents or our culture for all of our actions, then we eliminate accountability for our decisions. Secondly, without a sense of sin, any choices that we make are valueless. If nothing is wrong, then it doesn’t matter what we do.

I fear that what Dr. Menninger wrote over thirty years ago is still the mindset of our society today. It seems that everyone can find a psychologist who can relieve them of the burden of taking responsibility for their actions. Individuals no longer recognize that they can choose to sin. Sin, instead, is presented as a result of environmental conditions, or of bad genes, or, most often, the fault of other people.

But there are people in the world who stand up for what is right, and who take responsibility for their actions and seek forgiveness. These people are Christian. Many of these people are Catholic. And they are Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World.

There are people in the world who say that marriage as civilization has known it no longer exists. They say that the current divorce rate demonstrates that people are incapable of making a lifetime commitment to one person. They talk about open relationships where fidelity is no longer a necessary element of marriage. For them the word “commitment” goes the way of the word “responsibility.”

But there are people who believe that marriage is to one person. They work on their marriages, relegating divorce as the last possible alternative. They want their children to grow up with a healthy respect for marriage. These people are Christian. Many of these people are Catholic. And they are Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World.

There are people in the world who believe that hurting other people is just part of life. They believe that the only way you can gain in any area of the world, be it business or even just social status, is to knock others down. They are convinced that it is a dog eat dog world and they would rather eat than be eaten. So they take advantage of others.

But there are people in the world who believe that a bad gain is a loss. These are people who aren’t willing to accept a promotion in business or status unless they earn this position honestly. These people are Christian. Many of these people are Catholic. And they are Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World.

The fact of the matter is, that if we want to be faithful to the challenge of the gospel, we cannot simply listen to Jesus and store his words in our heart; we have to go out and proclaim them to the world. It is not enough to have his light shining within us, unless we take that light and let the world see Him shining through us. It is not enough to realize that Jesus provides the flavor and the salt for our own lives. We must go out into the world and share that salt with others whose lives are flat and tasteless because they have not come to know Jesus, our Lord.

The extent to which we center our lives around values, around what is right, and act on that, simply because it is right, quite apart from whether or not it is comfortable, fun, profitable or popular, to that extent we will truly be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. In any relationship, in any setting – at home, at work, at recreation, at school, in casual contacts – our role is the same . . . to preserve, to strengthen, to encourage goodness, to enlighten, to dispel darkness and shadows. That is what salt and light do. And we are the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World.