Word to the Wise
Tuesday, June 17, 2014 - Tuesday in the 11th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Kgs 21:17-29 and Matt 5:43-48]"You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love you enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.....So be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."
The Law of Moses nowhere commands that one must hate one's enemies, but the very survival of Judaism throughout history [like any other group with a claim to uniqueness] depended on an "Us against Them" ethos! Tribal solidarity was necessary to survive under harsh conditions. This kind of solidarity is easily observable around the world today and explains much of the violence we see in the Middle East and Africa. It also explains much of the violence we see in our own city streets or the fears expressed in the current immigration debate in our own country. What Jesus proposes is that we "love our enemy and pray for those who persecute us!" The Sermon on the Mount definitely reaches into the innermost fears of our hearts!
The "enemy" need not be remote. The enemy might be our next door "neighbor." In the Gospel of Luke, when the "scholar of the law" tries to narrow the definition of those whom he might have to love, Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan. [Luke 10:29-37]. We don't know if the actions of the Good Samaritan changed the attitude of the Jew he helped, or for that matter changed the way the Samaritan felt! But compassion won out over prejudice about the "Other" when even the "Other's" own wouldn't help.
The last line in today's passage about being perfect means to be like Jesus, who loved his enemies from the cross! If we can love our enemies and pray for them, we are truly children of our Heavenly Father. Nobody ever said this would be easy! AMEN