Love Your Enemies, Even Though It's Not Easy
A homily for the 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time
1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23
1 Corinthians 15:45-49
Luke 6:27-38
In today's Gospel Jesus, as part of what Luke describes as a Sermon on the Plain, tells his followers and potential followers to conduct themselves in a way that they would understand to be completely contrary to Human Nature. He tells them to love their enemies, do good to those who hate them, pray for those who persecute them (some translations here use the word in the Greek which roughly translates to columniate, which means that the Lord is literally telling people in this passage and context to do good to those who spread falsehoods and lies about them.) Some scholars believe that what Luke describes as the Sermon on the Plain was the same sermon which Matthew tells us was a Sermon on the Mount. Other scholars believe that these were actually separate but similar sermons. I tend to be of the latter School of thought, simply because what Jesus is teaching here is so important to the Christian life that I don't believe he intended to give only one major sermon about these things. Not only do I think he preached about this more than once, but he probably talked about the way people should conduct themselves toward others quite a lot more than the Scriptures record. Indeed, St. John tells us that if everything Jesus said and did was written down, the number of books written couldn't be contained.
Whether you are of the mind that this discussion took place in one major sermon from Jesus, or more than one, Jesus' discussion of how we should conduct ourselves toward those who wish us ill in this life is so important that the Gospels mention it multiple times. There seems to be little doubt that this is certainly not how most people treated one another in the time of Christ, just as most people don't treat each other that way today. Yet Jesus calls us to do exactly the opposite of what the world does, even when that way seems to be contrary to our very instincts.
Yet Our Lord is extremely insistent here, he is in fact the most insistent in these Gospel passages where he talks about love for one's enemies and love for one's neighbors as he is on any other moral topic that either he or the Apostles discuss anywhere in the New Testament (and we know that Jesus and the Apostles discuss some very heavy moral and doctrinal topics in the New Testament). “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you and are trying to undermine you” is a message you just don't see once in the new Testament, it is repeated. I have been a regular Bible reader my entire life, and there's one thing I can tell you with some certainty about the Word of God, and that is that when the Bible repeats something, this is God's way of telling us that he means business, and whatever the admonition might be, it not to be taken as some secondary thing. When we understand that reality, it is important to remember the meaning of love in the most base sense of the word. To love someone, including to love one's enemy, means to will the good, indeed to wish the good for that person, even if it means to sacrifice some benefit for oneself.
Jesus never said that loving our enemies or trying to do good for them or wishing well even on those who would wish us harm was an easy thing. In our own humanity, we think of this and a very just and righteous question comes to mind: For many of us, there are or have been people in our lives who have been toxic people, or have the potential to be toxic people to us, meaning that when these individuals are around bad things tend to happen whether we wish it or not, and some of those people don't do anything to stop that, because perhaps they wish us ill. Are we to ignore this? Not necessarily. Jesus asked us to love our enemies, and to do good to those people who hate us, but he did not specifically ask us to trust them. God always wishes and wills reconciliation between us and those who we perceive as our enemies or those who have wronged us, but there are times when that isn't possible. That's why when mandating that we love our enemies, Jesus doesn't mandate trust. Some people are untrustworthy, so God doesn't ask us to trust them. He does, however, ask us to wish and will and pray for the good for them, and not only not to wish them harm or not do them harm, but to do them good, and do so even when they do not do us good in return.
The atmosphere in any relationship which has deteriorated or which traditionally is not a good relationship between persons or even between groups of people can change dramatically when someone decides to follow the example of Christ and not to seek retribution. Sometimes trust can be rebuilt when someone decides to do good for someone who doesn't wish them well, perhaps someone they don't trust. If the opportunity doesn't come along to do some physical act of good for our enemies, one of the best things we can do for them is to sincerely pray for them and those they love. If we believe they are in the wrong, we should pray for their conversion, or pray that we are shown what is right.
This request of Jesus for how it is that his followers must live and conduct themselves toward others is completely contrary to the norms of human behavior not only in the time of Christ but even today. It is a natural human desire, often rooted in sincere Justice, to seek vengeance and retribution when we feel we are wronged. But the Lord reminds us that vengeance belongs to him, that he sees when we are wrong then he will repay, sometimes now, but most certainly in the Life to come. Jesus calls on us to live lives of peace amongst ourselves, and with our neighbors. To be able to live those lives of peace- a real peace that the world cannot give us, then we cannot let our hatred for others take away that peace.
Our Lord explains very well why it is that he expects us to live out this radical and difficult commandment, which is really an extension of his new commandment to love one another as he loved us. He says that if we only love those who love us, we are no better than the pagans and the unbelievers, they know how to love those who love them. Most of us can probably speak to that in our own life experience. Many of us might have friends or even family members who themselves are simply not believers in Christ, but they certainly know how to show us love and hospitality. Of course they do, even unbelievers know how to love those who love them, as we all should. Jesus calls us to take it further, love those who don't love you, or who can't love you in return. That is the ultimate test of a person's Christian faith.
The Lord knows that it is not easy for us, in our fallen humanity, to love those who do not love us, or who might even wish ill upon us. One way that we can begin to show this love is to sincerely pray for those people, and to pray for their good- and if need be their conversion as well as our own continuing conversion. If we find doing this to be difficult, we can start simply when we pray our intentions each day. “For our enemies, for those who might wish us ill, let us pray to the Lord.”