Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)
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. And maybe add to that opinion: 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 what you own. And the most radical and counter-cultural of all: Loving your enemies and praying for your persecutors.
Take a moment to 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.
But the words of Jesus cannot become mere slogans that we put on the bumpers of our cars or embroider and hang up on the walls of our homes. Jesus asks us to do that which may seem to be unreasonable and perhaps fanciful, unrealistic and even impossible: to love as God loves . . . not sparingly, not grudgingly - but fully, deeply, robustly; not with strings attached and hope for something in return - but freely, selflessly and generously; not with hidden pockets of resentment - but with peace and forgiveness.
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 and are unforgiving? 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.
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 – keeping our hands folded and following all the rules. But holy in the truest sense of that word, which means, "set apart to God."
He 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. 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 we’re treated – 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 way of Jesus. That which is upside down, inside out and topsy-turvy becomes upright, correct-way-round, ordered.
One day several years ago, when I taught theology at Bergen Catholic, I finished one of my classes early and told my students that they could talk quietly with each other until the bell rang. Instead, they spent the time asking me questions . . . personal questions. One of the students asked me this: “Deacon, what’s your greatest ambition in life?” Hmmm . . . It was a question I didn’t expect and one that I really never considered before. But somehow, the answer came to me immediately: “My greatest ambition is to become a saint.” They all laughed, as many of you are now. But I couldn’t have been more serious. And MY ambition, should be YOUR ambition too. Impossible? No. Because Jesus told us exactly how to achieve it: LOVE your enemies. DO GOOD to those who hate you. BLESS those who curse you. PRAY for those who mistreat you. GIVE to everyone who asks of you. Be PERFECT . . . as your Heavenly Father is PERFECT.
