“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) These words were uttered by Jesus while He was hanging on the cross at the behest of His opponents. Jesus prayed for those who had sentenced Him to such cruel torture, those who had pushed for it and those who were carrying out the execution. It was His final “word made flesh” – doing exactly what He had taught: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Today’s gospel reading is one of the most demanding and challenging passages, a call for impossible patience, impossible forgiveness and impossible love. To make it harder, there are no clauses or exceptions or exemptions to soften the demand. The opposite seems to be the case: “if you love those who love you, what right have you to claim any credit? Even the tax collectors do as much, do they not?” This passage of the gospel leaves us between a rock and a hard place; if we do as it says, we expose ourselves to the possibility of exploitation or abuse; if we don’t, we effectively forfeit our Christian call by skipping over its moral code. However, there’s no need to fall into despair. Jesus might have set the bar high but never beyond our reach.
This passage is part of the larger speech by Jesus called “the Sermon on the Mount.” We have been reading and studying it in parts over the last few Sundays; today’s is the fourth instalment. By default, we ought to interpret each part in connection with the others and in the wider context of the entire speech and the gospel of St Matthew. Consequently, looking closer at today’s reading inevitably leads me to partially repeat myself; I’ll do it for the benefit of those who were spared my ramblings last Sunday. On the other hand, repetition is the mother of knowledge, so it’s a win-win situation…
Firstly, the language and imagery used by Jesus were literary devices to keep His audience’s attention; good public speakers do so, otherwise, bored people’s minds quickly drift away. Jesus often used exaggeration to stir or even shock his audience; effectively, He entered into a dialogue with the listeners, who were asking themselves what He was saying. Sometimes such internal dialogue spilt out into the open and Jesus was directly challenged to explain what He had meant. Secondly, the high bar set by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount was the target to hit, the destination to travel to spiritually, not the starting point. In other words, Jesus didn’t show us who or what we are here and now, but who and what we are to become: “in this way, you will be sons of your Father in heaven.” We can achieve the desired attitude by practising it daily, learning from our mistakes and gathering experience that will help us avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. Practice makes perfect!
Today’s part of the Sermon on the Mount addressed two issues of social or communal life. The first one is more specific and it’s called the law of retaliation: “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.” It was a legal expression of the so-called “natural justice”, a rule of the Mosaic law protecting people from bodily harm. However, it wasn’t a prescription for individuals to take justice into their own hands but an indication for the legal court, a bit like in our legal system, where various specific crimes have their respective ranges of incarceration. Jesus didn’t reject that rule but insisted on making efforts to resolve a problem without going to court. The main instrument to achieve such a result is the ability to seek a compromise, to go the extra mile in order to do so. Every now and again I read stories about neighbours who argued over small issues, went to court over it and spent a crazy amount of money in legal fees to sort out something that could have been worked out cost-free if only both involved parties had left their entrenched positions. Of course, in an ideal world compromise is always achievable. But in our imperfect world that’s not always the case; it takes two to tango. Sometimes we have to persevere or even suffer a bit as Jesus did. That leads us to the second issue addressed in today’s gospel: how to treat our enemies…
First of all, we are not called to make enemies – that was the whole point of the first part of today’s gospel. Jesus talked about those who made themselves our enemies. Let’s remind ourselves of the actual demand: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” This is a tough but not impossible call. What makes it look like an infeasible task is the common misconception that “love” equals “like”. These are in fact two separate things. To like someone is an emotional, mainly instinctive reaction, usually out of my control. To love someone is an act of will, a reasonable decision made by me. I can act out of love for someone who is unlikeable, unpleasant or even downright nasty. It’s great when positive emotions accompany such acts, but they are false gauges to measure my commitment to love. For Christians to “pray for those who persecute you” is a natural consequence of such charitable love. “This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4-5)
Today’s gospel reading challenges us to build our relationships with other people based on compromise or to persevere when that is impossible to achieve for the time being. In order to make it work, perhaps we can adopt the prayer of serenity as our own: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
