Matthew 5:38-48
Dear Friends, I have a friend who Is always on the lookout for a blind man with only one leg and one arm. For him, this will be the true believer who accepts the consequences of his commitment to the literal interpretation of the Bible.In today’s passage from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses prophetic and shocking language to draw his listeners and us out of the common-sense view of reality. These harsh commands are not meant to be followed literally. This does not water down the challenge. They are still overwhelming in their practical demands for us. The majority of evil in the world comes from our failure to live this practical wisdom.
When we look at Jesus’ life as a whole we get a clear picture of how radical the results of this message are for us. On the Cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them.” (Lk 23:34) Then in the evening of the first Easter, Jesus’ “Peace be with you” (Jn 20:20) to the flawed disciples shows the depth of mercy that engulfs us. However, we also have in John’s Pasion narrative this incident. In the time before Annas and Caiaphas Jesus is slapped in the face by a soldier. Jesus says, “If there is something wrong in what I said point it out; but if there is no offense in it, why do you strike me?” (Jn 18:23)
In all of the Gospels, Jesus is continually calling us to expand the horizons of our love. In today’s text the challenge is addressing retaliation and love of enemies: the root of so much violence and all wars. Here we have the high point of this task: avoiding retaliation and loving our enemies.
Jesus reveals that we are all sons and daughters of a loving and merciful Father. This great dignity calls us to share the Father’s love for all. Jesus’ life, teachings, Passion, Death and Resurrection disclose the way to this transforming love. Jesus exposed the Father’s love as an unmistakable reality. He revealed a gracious God whose love and mercy know no limits. We are called to grow into this great mystery of love in the footsteps of Jesus.
We are summoned to always be expanding our inclusion of “the other” whether it is our enemy or the seemingly countless ways we tend to divide and exclude in ordinary human relationships. In my lifetime, I have been called to conversion to include women, Protestants, divorced, African Americans, immigrants, Hispanics, gays, Muslims and many others. Likewise, we have begun to see the exclusion of so much of the world through unjust economic structures that hide gross injustice and expand world poverty. There is no end to how the human heart creates division and separation. Jesus calls us today to embrace the journey of inclusion, reconciliation and peace especially for “our enemy.”
