Today’s gospel reading comes from Luke’s version of what is called “The Sermon on the Plain.” We heard the opening verses last week in the Beatitudes, the “blest be” teachings of Jesus. The Sermon on the Plain is very much like Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount.” On the other hand, Luke has serval stories you won’t find in Matthew’s gospel. One of the more well-known stories found in Luke’s gospel is the story of the “Good Samaritan.” It’s a story that Jesus told in answer to the question: who is my neighbor? Who is the one I should love?
That might be a good question for me to ask today: Who is my neighbor, who is the one I should love? However, today’s readings prompt me to ask a related question. My question is this: “Who is my enemy?” Who comes immediately into your mind as being your “enemy?” And if you are among those who have no specific enemy, perhaps you might ponder for a moment the general question: “How do I define who an enemy might be?”
There are many reasons why you might conclude someone is an enemy; but I would suggest that one definition is this: “my enemy is someone who has hurt me. Or someone I believe will hurt me, someone whom I fear. A person who will attack me, a person I must avoid in order to be safe.”
Today’s first reading speaks of such enemies. We heard the story of King Saul and his army of three-thousand men who pursued David and his companions. David had every reason to see the pursuing king as his enemy. And Saul certainly thought that David was his enemy, at least now. That had not always been the case; not in the beginning when young David, who had slain the giant Goliath and had saved Saul’s kingdom; David, who would sing his songs in order to ease the troubled mind of his king. But finally, Saul’s great melancholy and paranoia got the better of him. Saul thought David might try to take over his kingdom. And so, David, innocent of any wrong-doing, fled before Saul could kill him.
Now, as we heard in our first reading, Saul pursued David until that night when Saul and his army slept in the desert of Ziph. It was there that David and his nephew crept into the camp and found the king asleep. A night when David could have killed Saul; but instead he proved to the sleeping king that he was not his enemy; that he still believed that his king was the one anointed by God. In effect, David said that he would not harm Saul even though Saul wanted to kill him.
From our first reading we now turn to our gospel reading in which we hear, Jesus, the descendent of David, saying: “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you and pray for those who maltreat you.” And we immediately ask ourselves: how can this be? How can I possibly love my enemy? How can I take these words of Jesus seriously? What does he really mean?
Well, one way to attempt to understand these words is to recall that they are part of a larger teaching, a teaching that is central to why we call Jesus the Savior, the Redeemer. Perhaps we need to focus for a moment on the central gift Jesus brought to us; a gift he wants us to share with others; the gift we call “forgiveness.”
He asks us to love our enemy by first forgiving our enemy; by saying: Although you have hurt me, I will not harm you back. I will not retaliate. Even though you pursue me like Saul pursued David, I will not fight back. I wish to forgive you so that we can go on from here. I wish to heal that which divides us. And to do this, I must first of all forgive you.
To forgive an enemy real or imagined – or for potential hurts – can be difficult. It’s much easier to forgive “nice” people, those who will be grateful when I forgive them, who will make me feel good about having forgiven them. Perhaps I need to ask myself: why do I forgive someone? Do I forgive you in order to feel good about myself or do I forgive you while remembering who you once were and might be again?
Or perhaps I need to ask myself: when do I forgive you? Is it only after you have changed? It’s much easier to forgive those who make concessions to me; those who give in to my demands before I forgive them; who change in order to suit my needs so that I feel justified and righteous about having forgiven them. Do I declare you are no longer my enemy before or after you stop pursuing me?
And if I forgive you, must I also forgive what you have done to me? When Jesus asks me to forgive someone, let alone my enemy, is he asking me to condone those actions that have hurt me? When I forgive, do I automatically approve of all those terrible things that have been done to me or to those I love and care about? Or does my forgiveness say: I acknowledge you have hurt me; you have hurt me very deeply; but even though I have suffered much because of your actions, I do not want to cut you off, banish you. I do not want to retaliate to protect myself and, in the process, destroy myself.
And if I do turn the other cheek in this modern society, do I, in effect, accept the abuse heaped upon me? Am I willing to be an abused spouse, an abused child because Jesus says I should turn the other cheek? Or do I also listen to these same words as reported by Matthew, who first reminds us that the old Law demanded retribution with “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth;” but that the new law – while not condoning mistreatment, while not approving the abuse – does urge us not to pay back abuse with an equal retaliation. Just because I am abused does not give me the right to abuse another person. Just because someone steals from me does not give me the right to steal from someone else.
But all of this is so hard to do. How can I ever forgive my enemy for the hurt that has been done to me; let alone love the one who hurts me? Perhaps, I also need to recall what Saint Paul speaks of in his letter to the Corinthians: the letter we heard in the second reading for today. Paul reminds us that Adam, a name that means “man of earth,” that Adam hurt God and that God’s response was to banish Adam from his company; but he did so with a promise: a promise of forgiveness; a promise met in his own son, who from the cross forgave those who crucified him. Paul reminds us that we, too, bear the likeness of the one who came from heaven. Those who have hurt God, are now forgiven by God. We are not God’s enemy; we have been forgiven.
And so, in the final analysis, the question I began with, “who is my enemy?” now becomes two related questions: “who has hurt me?” And “whom must I forgive even though they have hurt me?”
Is it a spouse who has hurt me? A blood relative, a mother or a father; a son or daughter who has wounded me? Is it someone I called my friend who has harmed me? Is it my boss or someone else at work who is out to get me? Or have I injured myself through my own actions? Am I my own enemy? Must I forgive myself? Or is it God who seems to wish me harm? Have I seen God as my enemy? Must I forgive God?
Jesus certainly did not see God as the enemy, as someone who brought him his suffering. He saw God as “Abba,” as beloved “father.” These, then, were his instructions to those who would follow him, who would also call upon Abba. He said: Do not judge, and you will not be judged; Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Now as we approach the season of Lent, perhaps this is the time to acknowledge the hurts we have suffered and, in response, to offer our own forgiveness. Perhaps in doing so, we can also pray as did Saint Francis some seven centuries ago: “ … for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time; February 22, 1998
1 Sm 26:2,7 -9; 12 – 13,22 -23; 1 Cor 15:45 -49; Lk 6:27 – 38