“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you.” Jesus is not calling the disciples to become “door mats” but rather, he is attempting to make a key paradigm shift from violence to nonviolence.
He is challenging his disciples to be willing to go beyond what the law allowed -- such as “an eye for and eye” -- and embrace something much more difficult; to embrace “the other”!
Jesus is calling them -- calling us -- to embrace the one who is not on our side, the one who actively hates us and injures us. This paradigm shift he is calling them to is a shift that will turn their world upside down and inside out!
Love your enemies? Imagine being hearers of that for the very first time…it must have sounded like Jesus had “lost it”. How could he expect that his disciples would love their enemies and pray for those who mistreated them? And yet this is what he was asking of them…and asking of us as his disciples!
Jesus knows that love has the power to change an individual; that love is transformative. Jesus knew that in loving our enemies we would be transformed…and that…being loved holds the power to transform the one who is loved.
And it seems to just keep getting tougher…Jesus calls us to be merciful as God is merciful! Now he wants his disciples “to be like God”! How are we supposed to be able to live up to that challenge? It can overwhelm us and lead us to feel rather defeated.
How is all of this humanly possible? It seems too much! God’s goodness and mercy is so great, how can any human act be as good and merciful as an act of God? Some theologians say that God’s goodness and mercy comes down to “generosity” -- a generosity so grand that it created all known reality.
Our theology sees the incarnation as a self-giving act of God, to and for the sake of the world. And Jesus’ death as his resurrection are both acts of “Divine generosity” as is our salvation. So then this “generosity”, this “out pouring” of God’s self into the world empowers us, fills us, emboldens us and ultimately changes us to become our best self -- more generous, less violent, less bent on getting more and more for ourselves…it changes us into being kinder and more
loving to “the other”.
So, we work for racial justice and for ways in which our society makes room for the marginalized and for the immigrant and the refugee, rather than looking for ways to keep them out. This spirit of generosity calls us to let go of racist, misogynist, and other bigoted attitudes towards others and to work for true justice and peace in our homes, our communities, our nation and in our world.
Perhaps this generosity of spirit grows from first finding our own gratitude for being loved so deeply and passionately by
God, just as we are. And from this gratitude then grows our ability to be generous and merciful towards “the other,” who in truth is my sister, my brother.
So, at the beginning I spoke about Jesus ushering in a paradigm shift; moving us from a way of violence to a way of non-violence. But not laying down and becoming door mats because he is still calling us to stand with and for the poor and marginalized. And to respond to injustice by demanding and working for justice here and now, calling out hatred and cruelty for what it is.
So we continue to resist, we will not hate and act like bigots, racists and misogynist, nor be among those who refuse to welcome the stranger, as Christ has demanded we do! We will continue to boldly live our discipleship…aware, as Jesus reminded us of last week, there are those who will come after us precisely for living out our discipleship. But it will not deter us. We will stand together as disciples, emboldened and guided by the Holy Spirit that dwells within each one of
us, and we will overcome, and we will continue to build the “peaceable kingdom”; to build God’s dream for our world – not a project that’s main goal is to exclude and demean people’s human dignity, seeking to further marginalize those on the periphery of society, whose ultimate aim is to increase the power and wealth of the few at the cost of the many.
Let us respond to this time of national crisis by boldly living our discipleship and resisting that which we know is ethically
and morally wrong, keeping front and center the quest for building a more peaceful and just society.
So, let us ask ourselves this week: In the midst of all the chaos and turmoil swirling around us, for what am I grateful for in my life? From the Spirit of Generosity that dwells within me, to whom will I be generous and merciful towards this week?
Blessings,
Fr. Tim
He is challenging his disciples to be willing to go beyond what the law allowed -- such as “an eye for and eye” -- and embrace something much more difficult; to embrace “the other”!
Jesus is calling them -- calling us -- to embrace the one who is not on our side, the one who actively hates us and injures us. This paradigm shift he is calling them to is a shift that will turn their world upside down and inside out!
Love your enemies? Imagine being hearers of that for the very first time…it must have sounded like Jesus had “lost it”. How could he expect that his disciples would love their enemies and pray for those who mistreated them? And yet this is what he was asking of them…and asking of us as his disciples!
Jesus knows that love has the power to change an individual; that love is transformative. Jesus knew that in loving our enemies we would be transformed…and that…being loved holds the power to transform the one who is loved.
And it seems to just keep getting tougher…Jesus calls us to be merciful as God is merciful! Now he wants his disciples “to be like God”! How are we supposed to be able to live up to that challenge? It can overwhelm us and lead us to feel rather defeated.
How is all of this humanly possible? It seems too much! God’s goodness and mercy is so great, how can any human act be as good and merciful as an act of God? Some theologians say that God’s goodness and mercy comes down to “generosity” -- a generosity so grand that it created all known reality.
Our theology sees the incarnation as a self-giving act of God, to and for the sake of the world. And Jesus’ death as his resurrection are both acts of “Divine generosity” as is our salvation. So then this “generosity”, this “out pouring” of God’s self into the world empowers us, fills us, emboldens us and ultimately changes us to become our best self -- more generous, less violent, less bent on getting more and more for ourselves…it changes us into being kinder and more
loving to “the other”.
So, we work for racial justice and for ways in which our society makes room for the marginalized and for the immigrant and the refugee, rather than looking for ways to keep them out. This spirit of generosity calls us to let go of racist, misogynist, and other bigoted attitudes towards others and to work for true justice and peace in our homes, our communities, our nation and in our world.
Perhaps this generosity of spirit grows from first finding our own gratitude for being loved so deeply and passionately by
God, just as we are. And from this gratitude then grows our ability to be generous and merciful towards “the other,” who in truth is my sister, my brother.
So, at the beginning I spoke about Jesus ushering in a paradigm shift; moving us from a way of violence to a way of non-violence. But not laying down and becoming door mats because he is still calling us to stand with and for the poor and marginalized. And to respond to injustice by demanding and working for justice here and now, calling out hatred and cruelty for what it is.
So we continue to resist, we will not hate and act like bigots, racists and misogynist, nor be among those who refuse to welcome the stranger, as Christ has demanded we do! We will continue to boldly live our discipleship…aware, as Jesus reminded us of last week, there are those who will come after us precisely for living out our discipleship. But it will not deter us. We will stand together as disciples, emboldened and guided by the Holy Spirit that dwells within each one of
us, and we will overcome, and we will continue to build the “peaceable kingdom”; to build God’s dream for our world – not a project that’s main goal is to exclude and demean people’s human dignity, seeking to further marginalize those on the periphery of society, whose ultimate aim is to increase the power and wealth of the few at the cost of the many.
Let us respond to this time of national crisis by boldly living our discipleship and resisting that which we know is ethically
and morally wrong, keeping front and center the quest for building a more peaceful and just society.
So, let us ask ourselves this week: In the midst of all the chaos and turmoil swirling around us, for what am I grateful for in my life? From the Spirit of Generosity that dwells within me, to whom will I be generous and merciful towards this week?
Blessings,
Fr. Tim
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