Readings: Lev 9:1-2, 17-18; Ps 103; 1 Cor 3:16-23; Mt 5:38-48
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Interesting isn’t it? In our first reading from Leviticus, Mosaic Law teaches us: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” [Lv 19:18]. And then in our Gospel passage from Matthew, Jesus, in the midst of His Sermon on the Mount, tells us “love your enemies” [Mt 5:44].
Love your neighbor and love your enemy…who’s left? Actually, the great G. K. Chesterton once wrote:
"We are commanded to love our neighbors and our enemies; they are generally the same people."There’s a lot of truth in that; and loving those we’re with every day can be a bit of a challenge.
As a Christian it’s easy for me to say, “Yes, I love that Jihadist terrorist who’s been led by others or by a hateful ideology to do such horrible things over there in Afghanistan, or Syria, or Iraq...” And it’s pretty easy to express Christian love for the murderer on death row. After all, I really don’t really know any of these people, do I? That makes them a lot easier to love.
But when you know someone well, someone who isn’t all that nice, love doesn’t come quite so easy, does it? It’s a lot easier to despise someone up close and personal, someone who has treated you abominably, one of those neighbors we turn into enemies.
When I was just a boy in suburban New York, we neighborhood kids would often play stickball and other games in our street.
Now there was one neighbor…I suppose I can use her name now since she long ago went to her eternal reward. It was Mrs. Counts, whose front yard happened to be our right field. It was surrounded by a hedge, and the only break in the hedge was the gate that led to her front walk.
Now Mrs. Counts was very, very old, probably about sixty. And whenever a ball would go over that hedge, we’d open the gate and run into her yard to retrieve it. The gate squeaked, and that would bring her to the front door, from which she would scream at us for daring to hit a ball onto her lawn. We, of course, retaliated as only children can, by taunting her, calling her names.
It was not a good relationship.
To the children of the neighborhood, Mrs. Counts was more than a neighbor; she was the enemy. We neither liked nor loved her. She was a grumpy old woman, and we were equally grumpy little brats.
Trivial events you may argue, and yet through them, we all demonstrated a singular lack of charity. Of course, at that age, it’s unlikely we children had made a connection between our judgment of Mrs. Counts and the Sermon on the Mount.
Indeed, it would be decades, in a different neighborhood, this one on Cape Cod, before I made that connection.
One summer afternoon a soccer ball flew over the fence into our yard and rolled onto a patch of Lilies of the Valley. In an instant our neighbor’s two grandsons jumped the fence and ran through the flowers, trampling as they went, to retrieve the ball. I stood there in the yard, watching them, and was about to let them have it with both barrels of indignation, when suddenly I thought, Heavens! I’ve become Mrs. Counts!
And so, I simply waved to them; and oblivious to their path of minor destruction, they said, “Hi!” jumped the fence, and were gone.
Yes, every so often, I do what is right in God’s eyes. Every so often I am slapped on one cheek and actually turn the other. You see, brothers and sisters, we are all called by Jesus, by the Gospel, and every so often we experience the tension arising from our imperfect lives.
The world, of course, tells us to ignore that tension, to fight violence with violence, to respond to evil with evil. But deep down we know it’s all just a mask to cover our selfishness, to hide our self-righteousness.
We're tempted to stand out in our battles with evil, to win, to shine; whereas Jesus instructs us to offer no resistance to one who is evil. Forget about man's justice, He tells us. Don't worry about just compensation. We are instead called to overwhelm the wrongdoer with incredible generosity.
Is that even possible?
Well, yes, it is. For that’s exactly what Jesus did -- this incredible act of redemption in which he spread His arms wide on the Cross. He offered no resistance and seemed to allow evil to triumph. This remarkable act, this self-sacrificial act of redemption gives us a glimpse into God's holiness, the holiness He wants us to imitate and attain.
"Take up your cross," Jesus tells us, "Do as I do."
"Love your enemies…pray for those who persecute you.”
"I do not seek revenge, and neither should you."
"Forgive...seventy times seven times."We hear all this and are almost overwhelmed, but then Jesus adds another:
"So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” [Mt 5:48]And to that, we reply, in all honesty, "How can we be perfect, Lord? Perfection is what You are, imperfection is what we are."
Strictly speaking it’s impossible, for even the most faithful of us, to achieve the perfection of God. We know this and we sense the distance, the infinite distance, between God and us.
Still the command is there: Be perfect!
But it’s not the perfection of God’s infinite power, love, and wisdom, the unapproachable divine perfection, to which God calls us.
No, He calls us to the perfection of the Beatitudes: to be poor in spirit; to hunger and thirst for righteousness, for justice; to seek meekness and purity of heart; to be merciful, a peacemaker… These are all attainable, for the Father gives us His Son, who shows the way. He became one of us to remind us what is possible in our own lives. Piling gift upon gift, Father and Son also give us the Holy Spirit, the giver of grace.
Addressing this very thing, St. Cyprian of Carthage, an early Church Father and martyr, wrote:
“We do not have to toil and sweat to achieve our own perfection…to obtain the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is freely given by God, always available for us to use.”Come to me, Jesus pleads, and you will receive an abundance of grace. I will help you on this remarkable journey of conversion.
On Wednesday, as we begin our Lenten journey, Jesus will tell us how to begin:
“Repent,” he commands, “and believe in the Gospel” [Mk 1:15], for with God repentance always brings forgiveness and is just a moment away through Reconciliation.
Recall the words of today’s Psalm:
“He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities…as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” [Ps 103:10,12]Yes, God forgives, but we must forgive in turn.
In a few moments, as we prepare to receive the Real Presence of our Lord in Holy Communion, we will join together with Fr. Cromwell and pray the Our Father. And as we pray those words given to us by the Son, we make a kind of bargain with the Father, don’t we?
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” [Mt 6:12].Let’s use this moment today to tell the Father that we have indeed forgiven all those neighbors, all those enemies, and all those neighborly enemies who have offended us.
I forgave grumpy Mrs. Counts years ago. I pray only that she forgave me.
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