Homily: Monday, 11th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Kgs 21:1-16; Ps 5; Mt 5:38-42
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Many years ago, while browsing in a used bookstore in Sydney, Australia, I noticed a most unusual map hanging on the wall. It was a map of an alien world, a world of oceans and continents, nations and seas, mountains and deserts, but very different from our world.

I took me a moment to realize what it depicted and when I laughed aloud, the proprietor said, "Not bad, Yank. You figured it out pretty quick."

You see, it was a map of our world, but it had been printed upside-down, with the South Pole at the top and the North Pole at the bottom. Complicating things was the fact that Australia was centered on the map, with Asia and Europe off to the lower right, North America to the lower left.

Our World Turned Upside-Down

The proprietor said most Americans and Europeans got upset when they figured it out, saying, "It's wrong," or "It's not accurate," or other stupid things. Actually, about the only thing you can say is that it's unconventional, because it's certainly no less accurate than any other world map. It's just upside down...well, from our point of view.

Today's Gospel reading is a lot like that map.

For countless centuries the ancients believed in what we might call the Law of Vengeance. It was really a pretty simple concept: if a person or a tribe committed a crime against me or my tribe, we would take vengeance on them and destroy them. Murder, tribal warfare, and constant strife followed, on both a small and a grand scale - not unlike the ethnic cleansing in our own world. It really didn't work very well.

Then, among God's chosen people, there came a new law: the Law of Retaliation -- a significant advance, ethically, socially and legally. It mandated that no punishment should exceed the crime. It satisfied the honor of tribes, clans and families and avoided endless feuds. And this was pretty much how people thought at the time of the Gospel...until Jesus turned the world upside down, just like that Australian map.

"Offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well" [Mt 5:39].

This went counter to thousands of years of ingrained tribal and national culture.

Jesus came into the world to conquer evil, but taught an astounding strategy: defeat evil by surrendering to it! Triumph over evil by allowing it to triumph over you. Imagine what the people thought as they listened to Jesus.

Isn't this cowardly? Shall we let evil rule the world by giving it carte blanche? Doesn't this make us its accomplices?

No. And Jesus followed his teaching with several examples, showing us that it takes far more courage and selflessness to be a disciple than to fight violence with violence, evil with evil.

Let us never forget that Jesus knows the heart of man. He knows our militant idealism against evil is too often just a mask for self-righteousness. to satisfy our craving to win.

"An eye for an eye" [Ex 21:24] was a necessary step in the world's ongoing education to accountability, but it can't be the last word. If I pluck out your eye because you have plucked out mine, eventually we'll have a blind society.

No, Jesus tells us, surprise your adversary with compassion, with love, with forgiveness - with true justice according to the Heart of Jesus.

Put evildoers at the risk of being converted. Change human society by introducing the principle that motivated Jesus: self-giving at all costs.

After my enemy has slapped both my cheeks, he'll have no more to slap. Perhaps he'll be ashamed.

If I give him both my shirt and my coat, perhaps he'll learn to have pity on my nakedness.

Perhaps my open hands and silent mouth will, like an eloquent teacher, win a brother in the Lord.

Perhaps...perhaps...perhaps.

But wrapped up in that perhaps is our willingness to abandon ourselves to God, to trust in Him completely. It's the same trust manifested by 2,000 years of Christian martyrs.

2,000 Years of Martyrs

In our first reading Jezebel used evil for selfish ends, taking the life of the innocent Naboth. But as she and Ahab ultimately discovered, God's will always overcomes evil -- not our will, but God's will, and in God's time, not in ours.

This is the risk we take as disciples of Christ: that my apparent weakness will be seen as an invitation to even greater violence against me.

Yes, this is the risk -- but far less than the risk Our Lord took when He came into our midst.

The risk He took when He handed Himself over to us, to be stripped naked, whipped and mocked.

The risk He took when He opened His arms on the Cross.

How are we to act? Not according to the Law of Vengeance, or the Law of Retaliation, but according to the Law of Christ. We are called to act as He taught, as He acted.

He allowed His blood to be shed, blood that transformed the heart of the man who held the lance. Jesus turned a Roman soldier's world upside down when that Centurion looked up at the cross, and saw Almighty God mocked, beaten and crucified.

And that's what we, as Christians, are called to do.

Can we let God turn the world upside down, and can we let Him do so through us, with love and forgiveness?