7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 19, 2023

Love those who hate you; forgive those who hurt you

Matthew 5: 38–48

You have heard how it was said: Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.

But I say this to you: offer no resistance to the wicked. On the contrary, if anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well; if someone wishes to go to law with you to get your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone requires you to go one mile, go two miles with him. Give to anyone who asks you, and if anyone wants to borrow, do not turn away.

You have heard how it was said, You will love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike.

For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the tax collectors do as much? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Do not even the gentiles do as much? You must therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Music Meditations

• Ubi Caritas—Taizé
• Christ In Me Arise
• Kyrie Eleison—Chris Tomlin, Matt Maher and others
• Our God Is Here
• Come Thou Font of Every Blessing

Opening Prayer

Lord, instill in my heart a desire to know you better each day, to love you more fully each day and live more freely in that love.

Companions for the Journey

From “first Impressions, 2023”, a service of the Southern Dominican Province:

Two weeks ago Jesus called his disciples to be “light for the world.” In the history of our church, right up to the present time, we have had some brilliant lights—people we call “Saints.” I am sure you have your favorites. Like Katharine Drexel, born into a rich family, but she was moved by the plight of Native Americans and African Americans. She used her vast inheritance to open schools to serve them and founded Xavier University in New Orleans for African Americans. In fact, Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Atlanta, staffed by our Dominican friars, was founded in 1912 with money from St. Katharine Drexel. (Parishioners in the parish boast, “Our parish was founded by a saint!”) Or, Maximillian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan Friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz. Or, Dorothy Day, who worked among the poorest in American cities, was a strong advocate for peace and is now on the path to canonization. How about Damien the leper, a 19th-century priest who ministered to people with leprosy on the Hawaiian island of Molokai? After 18 years there he contracted and died of the disease.

When you look at their lives and the lives of other saints, it’s hard to believe that we are all cut from the same cloth—that they were humans like us. We display their portraits and statues in churches, name hospitals and schools after them. They were and still are, bright lights. But their outstanding lives, and public recognition, don’t let us off the hook. We can’t say, “Well, I’m no saint like Damien. I can’t go running off to the jungles to help lepers. Or, I’m no Katherine Drexel, ready to start a religious order and build schools. While we may not be stellar, brilliant lights in the world, nevertheless Jesus still would have us be light in the particular part of the world we inhabit. We cannot make an excuse and be a shrinking-violet Christian.

Some people feel quite content with their lives. They say things like, “I’m a good enough person. I’m nice to everyone. I try to help my neighbors in need.” But Jesus sets a high goal for us. After spelling out what’s expected of his followers he concludes with, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We aren’t going to be like Damien and go off to live and work among lepers. But wherever we find ourselves, at home, in our neighborhood, on our high school playground, at the office, in the shop, each of us has a vocation to reflect God’s perfection/goodness. The goodness of God and the life of Jesus must shine through us in our surroundings. We are followers of Jesus and children of God. We can’t hide who we are. Jesus calls us to live as his followers, not just with friends and in hospitable surroundings, but even with our enemies. By no means does God expect us to be weak and treated as doormats. Quite the contrary: As we heard today—God wants to make us strong enough, so convinced of God’s love for us, that our first response to injury doesn’t have to be revenge. God wants us to be so secure in God’s love, that we can have enough detachment from material things to put relationships first in our lives.

In some families children look so much like a parent, or both parents, that outsiders seeing them together, might say, “Is that your daughter? She looks just like you.” I looked so much like my father, his friends would comment, “Joe, he’s a chip off the old block.” If we are children of our God, whom Jesus calls “perfect,” then some of that perfection should rub off on us. Thus, because we have God’s very life in us, we will show mercy; be forgiving; demonstrate generosity. And surprise of surprises… We will do good even to our enemies, loving them the way God does. Because, as Jesus says today, God makes the sun rise on the bad as well as the good, God causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

We have plenty of evidence that ordinary Christians can live holy lives and do extraordinary things. We probably can name some of them ourselves—people we know and admire. Some even make the news. For example: Remember some years ago, that Amish community in Pennsylvania? A deranged man took several of their daughters hostage at their school and then killed them. Not only did those Amish parents forgive him, but their holiness and convictions led them to reach out to his children and widow in sympathy and support. “Be as perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect.” How can we live up to Jesus’s teachings? On our own, we can’t, no matter how hard we try. But we are not on our own, we are God’s children and are in God’s loving hands. We depend on our God to nourish and shape us more and more into God’s children and disciples of Jesus. That’s why we come here each week to pray for ourselves and one another for the help to live fully the life Jesus calls us to; a life that reflects the presence of God in the world: doing what God has always done, loving, healing and forgiving us. As we pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Weekly Memorization

Taken from the gospel for today’s session…

But I say to you: Offer no resistance to the wicked

Living the Good News

What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?

Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:

Reflection Questions

For this section, thanks go to the Irish Jesuits from “Sacred Space” as well as the famous Jesuit theologian, Walter Burghardt, for the seeds of most of the ideas below:

• When Jesus tells his listeners to go the extra mile, to give to anyone who asks us, is He being unreasonable?
  Have I even been able to act positively on anyone of these commands?
  Was it hard?
• What is the difference between law and duty and the expansiveness Jesus is calling forth here?
  What if we did not think of this gospel as law, but as encouragement to step up our game as Christians?
  Where, in your life, could you do so?
• What does fear and anxiety as well as responsibility play in our reluctance to go all the way as Jesus did?
  What in our culture is counter to Jesus’ teaching?
• Do I use rules (which usually state the minimum we are required to do) to provide security, to protect me from risk, inconvenience, hurt or loss?
  Where do I need more generosity and freedom to respond to Jesus mission for me?
• What are the qualities that help us be more like Jesus in our responses to others?
  For example, generosity, forgiveness, patience, understanding, empathy, fearlessness, energy. Can you think of more?
  Which are the hardest to develop in ourselves?
• How hard is it to turn the other cheek?
• Do I set limits for myself as to my responses to being hurt?
  How hard is it not to retaliate?
  Does our culture despise lack of retaliation as weakness?
• Why is it our tendency to answer violence with violence?
  Can we see this in sports, politics, TV shows, everyday life at home and the workplace?
  How can we counter this?
• Love is not an emotion, it is a decision to desire another’s well-being, even if we don’t like them. Can we pray for these people without compromising our principles?
• Can we feel sorry for someone who is not able to forgive or return our love?
  How hard is it to love someone who does not love you back or who hurts you?
• Does loving and forgiving someone who hurt you mean that we are to enable this bad behavior?
  How do we achieve this first result without having the unintended consequences of the second result?
• We are called to be perfect as the Father is perfect. How possible is this? Are we bad people or cast out by God because we so often fail at this? Is the answer often to give up before we even start because we find the task too daunting or impossible?
• Think of one way to resolve a disagreement amiably … what disciplines are required of us?
• How, exactly, did Jesus love?
• What is holiness? How is this gospel about holiness?

Meditations

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

Adapted from Sacred Space, 2023, a service of the Irish Jesuits:

Jesus is referencing a 3000 year old law, the law of retaliation. It is cited in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. ‘If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth , hand for hand, foot for foot, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.’ Believe it or not, this law was intended to mitigate some of the horrors of unbridled revenge and destruction that some members of one family or tribe felt honor-bound to inflict on those who injured them or theirs. However, some people took this as a matter of honor—that they must claim a life for a life, etc; they must avenge the wrongs done to them or their honor was besmirched. Jesus’ radical new “law” of love and mercy was to supplant the old law of retaliation. So for us, if we are to follow Jesus, we are required to forgive those who hurt us. We are not to “get back” or “get even.” Our honor rests not in retaliation, but in praying for and loving those who have hurt us. When we hate, we actually sink down to the level of those who hate us. We are harmed emotionally and morally by our own inability to get past the hate we have experienced. We are punishing ourselves because we have sunk to their level, and we have let another compromise our own ability to follow Jesus. Whom have I found it hardest to forgive? How did this lack of forgiveness affect the kind of person I strive to be? Do we still live in a sort of zero-sum culture, where one’s honor is compromised if bad deeds go unpunished? Do I use society’s rules to protect myself or to promote justice for others? Do I have some relationships that cause me hurt and pain? How do I deal with them? What happens between me and Jesus if I react badly? Will he forgive me?

A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:

This is one of the shortest meditations, one that can be used often, and without any written guides, but one of the hardest to remember to do: Whenever someone irritates you by, say, cutting in front of you at the deli counter, or doesn’t stop at a stop sign, stop and think that she might be late for an appointment, and PRAY FOR HER. Whenever someone hurts you or fails to listen to you, stop and think that there may be there are stresses or sadness in his life that make him unable to pay attention or to be understanding and kind, and PRAY FOR HIM. It is amazing how saying a simple prayer for someone usually eliminates the need to yell at someone or tell them how affronted you are by their behavior. It is amazing how saying a simple prayer for someone can wipe out a lot of our own retaliatory and angry feelings…

A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:

Read the following two passages describing moments of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion:

John 18: 19-24

The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered, ‘I have spoken openly for all the world to hear; I have always taught in the synagogue and in the Temple where all the Jews meet together; I have said nothing in secret. Why ask me? Ask my hearers what I taught; they know what I said.’ At these words, one of the guards standing by gave Jesus a slap in the face, saying, ‘Is that the way you answer the high priest?’ Jesus replied, ‘If there is some offence in what I said, point it out; but if not, why do you strike me?’ Then Annas sent him, bound, to Caiaphas the high priest.”

Luke 23: 32-43

Now they were also leading out two others, criminals, to be executed with him. When they reached the place called The Skull, there they crucified him and the two criminals, one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.’ Then they cast lots to share out his clothing. The people stayed there watching. As for the leaders, they jeered at him with the words, ‘He saved others, let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.’ The soldiers mocked him too, coming up to him, offering him vinegar, and saying, ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’ Above him there was an inscription: ‘This is the King of the Jews’. One of the criminals hanging there abused him: ‘Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us as well.’ But the other spoke up and rebuked him. ‘Have you no fear of God at all?’ he said. ‘You got the same sentence as he did, but in our case we deserved it: we are paying for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong.’ Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He answered him, ‘In truth I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’

Jesus had several responses to moral evil when it was directed at him. If this evil came through criticism of his actions, or through violence, he maintained his conviction and answered his accusers with dignity and logic, but never through physical retaliation, or even anger. He turned the other cheek. Always. Notice, too, that even at the point of death, he exhibited forgiveness and understanding, healing and inclusion. Query: How have I responded when I have been attacked or unfairly accused? Did I lash out at my accusers? Did I play the martyr? Have I ever needed to forgive someone who hurt me or those I love badly? Do I have someone in mind? How hard was it? I bring this person to mind and pray for the generosity of heart not to demand “an eye for an eye”. (Which our legal system always seems to do).

Now read a recent example of such forgiveness and reconciliation by ordinary people as described in a news article:

On October 2, 2006, a shooting occurred at the West Nickel Mines School, an Amish one-room schoolhouse in the Old Order Amish community of Nickel Mines, a village in Bart Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV took hostages and shot eight out of ten girls (aged 6–13), killing five, before committing suicide in the schoolhouse. The emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation in the Amish community’s response was widely discussed in the national media. The West Nickel Mines School was torn down, and a new one-room schoolhouse, the New Hope School, was built at another location. On the day of the shooting, a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls was heard warning some young relatives not to hate the killer, saying, “We must not think evil of this man. Another Amish father noted, “He had a mother and a wife and a soul and now he’s standing before a just God. Jack Meyer, a member of the Brethren community living near the Amish in Lancaster County, explained: “I don’t think there’s anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts. A Roberts family spokesman said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them. Amish community members visited and comforted Roberts’ widow, parents, and parents-in-law. One Amish man held Roberts’ sobbing father in his arms, reportedly for as long as an hour, to comfort him. The Amish have also set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter. About 30 members of the Amish community attended Roberts’ funeral, and Marie Roberts, the widow of the killer, was one of the few outsiders invited to the funeral of one of the victims.

A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship:

Read Hosea 14:5: “I myself will love them with all my heart, for my anger has turned away from them.”

Change the words so that you can imagine God saying these words directly to you. Pick out the phrases that have particular meaning for you, and write in your own words your response to God’s generosity and forgiveness. THEN:

Think of someone in your life to whom you need to extend this same kind of forgiveness—not a patronizing “I am a better person than you, so I forgive you”—but something more akin to the words uttered in Hosea.

Literary Reflection:

This poem is a beautiful example of how parents love and forgive their children. The question is, can we say this to people who don’t love us or who have damaged us, our careers, our loved ones?

“To My Mother”

I was your rebellious son,
do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
so complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder sometimes if it did not
precede my wrong, and I erred,
safe found, within your love,

prepared ahead of me, the way home,
or my bed at night, so that almost
I should forgive you, who perhaps
saw the worst that I might do,

and forgave me before I could act,
causing me to smile now, looking back,
to see how paltry was my worst,
compared to your forgiveness of it

already given. And this, then,
is the vision of that Heaven of which
we have heard, where those who love
each other have forgiven each other,

where, for that, the leaves are green
the light a music in the air,
and all is unentangled,
and all is undismayed.

—Wendell Berry

Closing Prayer

Lord, I will try to listen to your words today, not as law-giving, but as life-giving—a message that should free me, not bind me. I pray that my words and attitudes change through the freedom you give me to let others be as they are. Let me live in your love without limit.