22.02.2004 Sunday 7th Ordinary Season - Year C
First Reading: I Samuel 26,2.7-9,12-13,22-23
Psalm 102
Second Reading: I Corinthians 15, 45-49
Gospel Reading: Luke 6,27-38
Today Jesus opens our eyes to the consequences of our faith in him, those fruits that come with acceptance of him and listening to his word. Those who do not love Jesus and do not accept him in their lives will not appreciate today's teaching, will find it difficult to accept and impossible to live with. It is necessary to convert and trust in Jesus before listening to him: then his teachings will be rich in wisdom and life. Jesus had to say to Peter, when he would not let him wash his feet, "you will understand later" and so it is with ourselves. We will understand the beauty and value of his rules after believing him, after trusting fully in him! Before listening to Jesus' Word let us take a glance at the story in the first book of Samuel. David is being hunted by Saul's army for Saul has become his mortal enemy on account of his envy and jealousy of David. David was given the opportunity to defend himself, he could even have killed the king, his enemy. His councillors incited him to do so, but David respected the life of someone "consecrated to the Lord"; he knew that to kill someone whom God had consecrated was to go against God Himself.
Jesus teaches us that every man is made in the "image of God" and that the life of every man is consecrated by his love! In particular his disciples, who were listening to him, were to become bearers of that love which the Father has for every single person: there is no room for the punishment of insults. Jesus shows us the true face of God, the face of a merciful Father and those who know him must also reveal him in their lives. We do not reveal him through discussions, but through the example of our lives.
Twice Jesus repeats: "Love thine enemies"! Loving our enemies is not normal. I can succeed only if I see them as victims of someone who is also my enemy. He who would ruin me, has managed to ruin the life of a brother to the point of setting him against me. I must save this brother from our common enemy, I must help him: I can do this with the wine and oil of my love. The Enemy curses, hates, maltreats, strikes our cheeks, tears our clothes: we must defend ourselves from his evil. If I respond in the same way, I will become like him, any goodness will turn to badness, I will be influenced negatively.! If I am good, why should I become bad? Goodness, true love and generosity must be tested to see if they are authentic, and above all divine and worthy of the Father who "is kind to the ungrateful and selfish". How can I be called the son of God, if I do not love like the Father?
I defend myself from an enemy by putting love in front of him, God's love. In this way I will not be involved in evil and perhaps I will even be able to help a brother caught in evil's trap.
Jesus' instructions are strong, surprising and wonderful. We need to read them several times to be able to appreciate their beauty and to be able to assimilate them. He also says that those who begin to love beyond the norms established by men, will be rewarded. "Your reward will be great and you will be son of the Most High"! Love becomes pardon even in a preventive sense; it will not judge or condemn. Love with prayer brings our enemy before God: we are all loved, consoled, strengthened, restored and renewed to the same extent.
There, before God, we will become not only living beings like the first Adam, but also like the last, spirit and giver of life! In God's heart, both ourselves and our so-called enemies, become spiritual, celestial. It is easy to be of the earth, to be as we are, to busy ourselves with earthly things, to be full of that egoism that thinks of material well-being, full of reactions to those actions which hurt us! God, however, wants us to be like Him, new, different. Through Jesus He gives us the chance and the joy to respond with good to evil, so as not to be terrestrial, but celestial!
If someone says that in obeying Jesus, your feet are not touching earth, tell them it is true and that you are walking in heaven. Have you accepted Jesus? Then you are celestial and it can be, must be seen. To begin with St Paul, Christians have never been offended by the accusation that they are not of this world; quite the opposite! We are proud to be recognised as being different! We do not need Martians in the world, but people who give an example of how to live in a different way with a love that is different to the love that the world knows and which is limited to relatives, benefactors and to those from whom you hope to receive something.
Lord Jesus, give me the opportunity to live in a way that your love is present
in mine! Fill me with your Spirit, strengthen my faith in you, make me an instrument
of the merciful love of the Father!