Word to the Wise
Saturday, February 24, 2024 - 1st Week of Lent - Sat
[Deut 26:16-19 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 your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father.....For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers and sisters only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect. [Matthew]
The Sermon on the Mount is a kind of catechism of Jesus' fundamental teachings. It tells us what should be the essential characteristics of a Christian. What is it that should set Christians apart from others so that our lives proclaim our faith? Already we have heard the difficult command to forgive those who have hurt us, but now Jesus tells us we must not only forgive them, we must also love them!! This is when the squirming begins!
It is a well-known psychological strategy in an adversarial situation from war to football that one must not think of the adversary as human but as an object to be destroyed - i.e. "the enemy!" So, we can fool ourselves into thinking that our "enemy" is some kind of impersonal object or "force" to be removed and made non-existent, or, at least avoided! Violence has its roots in this kind of thinking. Another way of putting this is to use the word, "labeling." Once we put a "label" on someone or something, that becomes their identity to us. When it is another human being, Jesus tells us we are straying from his path to holiness or "perfection:" "Perfection" in today's gospel scripture means "whole and complete." If we love only those who love us, we are less than complete Christians. Lent offers us an opportunity to ponder Jesus' words from the cross: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Those words include us! AMEN