UPSIDE DOWN, INSIDE OUT
TOPSY-TURVY
1 Samuel 26: 2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; 1 Corinthians 15: 45-49; Luke 6:27-38
The poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated, the excluded, the insulted, those falsely accused are blessed?
Upside down, inside out, topsy-turvy.
The rich, the well-satisfied, those who are joy-filled and praised are cursed?
Upside down, inside out, topsy-turvy.
Love those who hate you? Do good things for those who harm you? Take no revenge for harm done to you? Give more than you are asked to give and expect nothing in return?
Upside down, inside out, topsy-turvy.
I guess that’s how most of society views today’s gospel, as well as the one we heard last week: upside down, inside out, topsy-turvy. And maybe add to that: naïve, absurd, impractical and unattainable. Maybe we feel the same way, at least sometimes. If you wanted to find the most challenging, most difficult, most confounding passage in all of the gospels, this just might be it. It’s also the most fundamentally Christian – because it’s the passage that calls on each of us to be the most like Christ.
That’s a tall order: And look at what it entails. Turning the other cheek. Giving away your cloak. And the most radical and counter-cultural of all: Loving your enemies and praying for your persecutors. It sounds so nice and reassuring. But do you know what that means? Do any of us? Take a moment to think and reflect on your own life.
Consider all the people who have hurt you. Those who have lied to you. Stabbed you in the back. Remember the ones who spread rumors about you that were untrue. Those who have gossiped about you, or judged you, or mocked you, or bullied you.
Consider the friend that you trusted, who betrayed you. The co-worker who broke a confidence. The person whose name you’d rather forget who wounded you, or disrespected you, or took advantage of you or even abused you. Look back on all the people in your life who have left bruises and scars, with a word or a look or a touch.
Now, imagine doing what Jesus commands – LOVE THEM. Love them and PRAY FOR THEM. Love them, and pray for them, and FORGIVE THEM.
If you’re like me, that can be hard to do. Sometimes it’s actually pleasurable to do the opposite—to hate your enemies and to wish the worst on your persecutors, to enjoy their setbacks and suffering.
Today’s Gospel speaks about the impact of our actions of love or hate. Jesus asks us to do that which may seem to be unreasonable and perhaps fanciful, unrealistic and even impossible. But the words of Jesus have to be more than mere slogans that we put on the bumpers of our cars or have framed to hang up on the walls of our homes.
Christians are called to bring an experience of God to the world, to BE an experience of God to the world. To live a 'normal' life, all we have to do are the things that the world does. But Jesus calls us to a much higher standard. We are called by Jesus, not to live 'normal' lives, but to share in the divine life, to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. And we pray for that at every Mass. During the offertory, as the deacon pours a drop of water into the chalice to become one with the wine, he prays, “By the mystery of this water and wine may WE come to share in the DIVINITY of Christ, who humbled HIMSELF to share in our HUMANITY.”
But how can we be that experience of God to the world if we behave in a manner that is a total antithesis to God? God is Love. How can we proclaim God if we hate? Some may say “Get real Jesus. It just can’t be done.” But he did it. In the final moments of his life, surrounded by his enemies and his persecutors, he hung on the cross, stripped, bleeding, gasping, as they gambled for his clothes and waited for him to die. And in that moment, Jesus pleaded and prayed: “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” Here is Christian perfection – our model for living, captured at the moment of death. Here is love beyond measure: a prayer for a broken and unknowing world.
But I know what you’re thinking . . . Easy for him, Deacon Bruce. Jesus was God. How can mere human beings, like you and me, be expected to live out such radical love and mercy. But the thing is, others have done it. Before being beheaded, from his cell, St. Thomas More, forgave King Henry VIII for destroying his reputation and his life. On her deathbed, twelve-year-old Maria Goretti forgave Alessandro Serenelli, the twenty-year-old man who stabbed her fourteen times when she refused to give in to his sexual advances, and prayed that someday he would be with her in heaven. And in January 1984, in Rome's Rebibbia prison, St. John Paul II tenderly held the hand that had held the gun that was meant to kill him. For 21 minutes, the Pope sat face to face with his would-be-killer and forgave him for the shooting.
Jesus proposes a holy life. Not in the common sense of holiness – following all the rules and keeping our noses clean. But holy in the truest sense of that word, which means, "set apart to God." He is proposing we consider ourselves more members of God’s Kingdom than of earthly kingdoms; living under his rule rather than by the world’s rules and influence. Jesus prescribes a new ethic for us – a new way of living.
The cornerstone of the world’s ethic is me and what’s best for me. We work to survive, to be comfortable, to meet our needs and desires. But the ethic Jesus proclaims, the ethic of the kingdom, is far different. The kingdom’s ethic is love - love that begins in God and flows from Him to us, and then out toward others. It’s a proactive and positive ethic – it doesn’t wait to see what the other guy is going to do, and then react based on how threatened we feel – rather it goes ahead and acts, based on who God is and what He does.
We live in a world that itself often seems upside down, inside out and topsy-turvy. A world in which might makes right, the consensus of the majority trumps the will of God, human intellect is deified and supernatural faith is mocked and dismissed. A world in which gender is no longer something that you’re born with, but something that you choose. A world in which life outside the womb is respected and protected, but that same life inside the womb, mere seconds before, is considered non-human and disposable. A world in which becoming high is now sanctioned by our government as a way to increase tax revenue. Upside down, inside out, topsy-turvy.
But something spectacular happens when the upside down, inside out, topsy-turvy world meets the radical, counter-cultural, upside down, inside out, topsy-turvy way of Jesus. That which is upside down, inside out and topsy-turvy becomes upright, correct-way-round, ordered. Author G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” Maybe it’s time we did. The alternative just doesn’t seem to be working, don’t you think? And let’s stop fretting that the ethic of Jesus is an impossible dream that will never be embraced by the world. Let’s just worry about living it out ourselves and let God transform the world one person at a time.
