1989 was a year when the nations of Eastern Europe one by one overthrew communist regimes, dependent on the Soviet Union, and recovered their countries for themselves. The downfall of communism started in Poland, although the best known sign of that process was the fall of the Berlin Wall. I remember the parliamentary election in Poland in 1989; the first free election since World War II and incidentally the first one in which I was allowed to vote. I can\u2019t describe the feeling of triumph that everyone felt when the result was announced. The anti-communist opposition had won overwhelmingly. What\u2019s more the process was virtually without bloodshed; the horrible exception was the Balkans, when the collapse of the former Yugoslavia led to a cruel war and genocide.<\/p>\n
So, as I witnessed and participated in the changes of 1989 and the following years, I can\u2019t look at the revolution in the Arab world without admiration and support for their desire for freedom. I understand that we might have many political and economic problems as a result of their revolutions. But we have to accept that, because our prosperity must not be built on their misery. The most striking factor in all these protests is the peaceful attitude of the people taking part. It\u2019s even more striking in comparison with the brutality and the ruthlessness of the police. Despite the killings unarmed and peaceful people stood up to hostile authorities and won.<\/p>\n
These events of recent weeks are an excellent comment on and illustration of today\u2019s gospel. When we read this passage it sounds completely unrealistic. It sounds like an invitation to exploit and abuse our good will. But it\u2019s not as unrealistic as it might sound.<\/p>\n
\u2018You have learnt how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth; […] you must […] hate your enemy\u2019<\/em>. Jesus refers to the old law, supposedly written by Moses, and to the traditional teaching. Sometimes the Ten Commandments, especially those concerning other people, are called \u2018the natural law\u2019<\/em>. We think of them as somehow written deep in the human heart. It is obvious even when it is not expressed in a formal way. We can agree that when people are attacked revenge is a \u2018natural\u2019<\/em> reaction. We certainly understand a person\u2019s demand for justice when he or she is touched by another\u2019s evil behaviour. We also understand the idea of justice as \u2018eye for eye and tooth for tooth\u2019<\/em>. That\u2019s \u2018natural justice\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n As Christians we are called to rise above it. Our problem is that we tend to misunderstand and confuse two ideas: emotion and will. We have to understand that the ability to control our emotions is very limited \u2013 they are the way our mind reacts to things that happen. On the other hand we certainly are able to make decisions despite our emotions, using our free will. If we are utterly furious we can decide not to hurt anybody. What\u2019s more everybody has the right to feel emotions \u2013 but the emotions must not be stronger than our good will.<\/p>\n So, Jesus doesn\u2019t appeal to our emotions, but to our good will. This is not unrealistic appeal if we understand \u2018love\u2019<\/em> as doing good and avoiding evil. Jesus doesn\u2019t call us to like everybody \u2013 because that\u2019s hardly possible. Jesus wants us to love everybody \u2013 even those we don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1989 was a year when the nations of Eastern Europe one by one overthrew communist regimes, dependent on the Soviet Union, and recovered their countries for themselves. The downfall of communism started in Poland, although the best known sign of that process was the fall of the Berlin Wall. I remember the parliamentary election in Poland in 1989; the first free election since World War II and incidentally the first one in which I was allowed to vote. I can\u2019t describe the feeling of triumph that everyone felt when the result was announced. The anti-communist opposition had won overwhelmingly. What\u2019s more the process was virtually without bloodshed; the horrible exception was the Balkans, when the collapse of the former Yugoslavia led to a cruel war and genocide. So, as I witnessed and participated in the changes of 1989 and the following years, I can\u2019t look at the revolution in the Arab world without admiration and support for their desire for freedom. I understand that we might have many political and economic problems as a result of their revolutions. But we have to accept that, because our prosperity must not be built on their misery. The most striking factor in all these protests is the peaceful attitude of the people taking part. It\u2019s even more striking in comparison with the brutality and the ruthlessness of the police. Despite the killings unarmed and peaceful people stood up to hostile authorities and won. These events of recent weeks are an excellent comment on and illustration of today\u2019s gospel. When we read this passage it sounds completely unrealistic. It sounds like an invitation to exploit and abuse our good will. But it\u2019s not as unrealistic as it might sound. \u2018You have learnt how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth; […] you must […] hate your enemy\u2019. Jesus refers to the old law, supposedly written by Moses, and to the traditional teaching. Sometimes the Ten Commandments, especially those concerning other people, are called \u2018the natural law\u2019. We think of them as somehow written deep in the human heart. It is obvious even when it is not expressed in a formal way. We can agree that when people are attacked revenge is a \u2018natural\u2019 reaction. We certainly understand a person\u2019s demand for justice when he or she is touched by another\u2019s evil behaviour. We also understand the idea of justice as \u2018eye for eye and tooth for tooth\u2019. That\u2019s \u2018natural justice\u2019. As Christians we are called to rise above it. Our problem is that we tend to misunderstand and confuse two ideas: emotion and will. We have to understand that the ability to control our emotions is very limited \u2013 they are the way our mind reacts to things that happen. On the other hand we certainly are able to make decisions despite our emotions, using our free will. If we are utterly furious we can decide not to hurt anybody. What\u2019s more everybody has the right to feel emotions \u2013 but the emotions must not be stronger than our good will. So, Jesus doesn\u2019t appeal to our emotions, but to our good will. This is not unrealistic appeal if we understand \u2018love\u2019 as doing good and avoiding evil. Jesus doesn\u2019t call us to like everybody \u2013 because that\u2019s hardly possible. Jesus wants us to love everybody \u2013 even those we don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-year-a"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tad.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}