The passage from the Book of Samuel selected for the first reading this Sunday recalls how David spared Saul in his mercy. Mercy seems to be the theme of today’s Gospel and conveys to us a very important message. To avenge oneself, when wronged on an evildoer, or at least to exact an equal punishment, is a fairly spontaneous reaction. To renounce punishment is not so. The Bible thus testifies to the long and patient efforts that were necessary to gradually educate the individual and collective conscience. The Bible urges everyone to renounce personal retribution against those who have wronged them: ‘Say not, ‘I will repay evil.’ Trust in the Lord and he will help you.’ (Proverbs 20:22). Of course, the just often invoke the ‘vengeance’ of God. But one must understand this reaction is inspired by passionate devotion to God and his will. It is intolerable that the impious should impudently offer affront to the Lord!
Other texts in these older books go even further: ‘If your enemy be hungry, give him food to eat, if he be thirsty, give him to drink, for live coals you will heap on his head, and the Lord will vindicate you.’ (Proverbs 25:21-22) ‘You shall not bear hatred for your brother in your heart….. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countryman. You shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.’ (Lev19:17-18). And even: ‘Forgive your neighbour’s injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.’ (Sir 28:2) David almost forgot this when he surprised Saul while he was sleeping. But, calling God to mind, he did not wish to lay hands on the king who had received the Lord’s anointing. David placed his trust in the Lord. Thus could he say to Saul: ‘As I valued your life highly today, so may the Lord value my life highly and deliver me from all difficulties.’ For as the Psalm reminds us: ‘The Lord is compassion and love.’
Last Sunday’s Gospel spoke of the paradoxical happiness of the disciples of Jesus. Luke — our text this Sunday— immediately recounts what Jesus declares to the multitude that came to hear him. He teaches how those who are paradoxically called ‘blessed’ must behave, while they ‘now’ live in poverty, destitution, affliction, scorned by all, and are objects of hate and persecution. Drawing out the implications of the fourth beatitude: ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice….’ Here, as can be clearly seen, Jesus says that one should bear hate, insults and scorn, patiently, without seeking to be avenged or even to enact justice oneself. He teaches that one must ‘love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from the one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.’ In short,, one must always and everywhere return good for evil.
Ignoring for the moment the extraordinary, even heroic, effort this can entail we should look at some of the immediate, obvious objections to such a radical teaching. It will ultimately happen, of course, that goodwill will vanquish evil. But Jesus goes beyond authorizing that we not seek to exact equal retribution, praying for our enemies, giving to those who ask of us, indeed, going so far as to ordain that we suffer aggression without retaliation, that we give to those who steal from us and give the other cheek to those who strike us! Isn’t this passive complicity and indeed positive encouragement to violence? And what implication would this have for a third person? Must they refrain from acting and abandon victims to the power of their aggressors?
It would not be fair to make a mockery of Jesus’ very serious words, to dismiss them after presenting them as a defence of a kind of pacifism that would endanger peace, justice and freedom of individuals and groups, indeed even of whole nations. Jesus’ words absolutely do not authorize inaction, passivity, still less an attitude of personal or collective resignation in the face of injustice, violence, and extortion; the whole Gospel testifies to the way in which the tradition has understood this. We cannot forget that in the Synagogue at Nazareth Jesus proclaimed that he was sent to bring freedom to prisoners and the oppressed, those who he is now calling ‘Blessed.’ Clearly, he healed the sick and consoled the afflicted; he ‘went about doing good.’In the attempt to correctly understand the Beatitudes and what they entail for believers, for Christian communities, and the Church, endless discussions have proved more contentious than useful; history, not only that of the distant past, indicates this all too clearly! We have seen too much complacency when there was a need for action. Occasionally, whether it is intended or not — and it is sometimes intended — the Beatitudes become alibis for non-involvement and lack of commitment to the ‘Son of Man.’ Nowadays, the poor and oppressed are not only left to their oppressors. They are told that their oppression is part of the nature of things, that their power to better their situation is vitiated, even in their own minds. This is not what Jesus’ teaching intended.
The Gospel says quite clearly: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you.’ This is a general rule — ‘the golden rule’ — which is to be applied always and everywhere, without exception. It demands that we act towards others without being solicited, that we offer friendship and pardon constantly, without asking or hoping for anything in return, even simple recognition. Mustn’t this always be the way that Christians should act? They have heard Jesus proclaim: ‘Then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.’ We as Christians, are called to be, in this world, the witness of God.
A tenth century Syrian monk Rabban Youssef Bousnaya had this to say:
‘Mercy is the image of God, and the merciful are, in fact, a God dwelling on earth. As God is merciful to all, without distinction, so the merciful must share benefits equally. My son, be merciful and share your goods with all, so that you may be elevated to divinity: for, as I have told you, the merciful person is another God on earth.’
Do we not say in the ‘Our Father?’ Taught us by the Lord himself, in Lukes Gospel — ‘Forgive and you will be forgiven,’ And, what do we also say in the same prayer? ‘Forgive us our offences as we forgive those who have offended us.’ What then? When an enemy begs mercy of you, forgive him immediately, and when your enemy besets you most strongly, lift your eyes to the Lord your God and his word: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!’ (Luke 23:34).
It is certainly not without credence that kindness and mercy shown in return for injustice and the like, very often deflates a situation and peace reigns, whereas like for like, antagonizes the situation and often worsens it. It is a tall order, and perhaps we might say to ourselves Jesus was able to forgive easily because he is the Christ, the only Son of God, the Word made Flesh! How can I, a weak and sinful person, imitate him? Is our Lord’s example too lofty for us? Consider: they stoned Stephen, and on his knees in the midst of the stones, he prayed for his enemies and said: ‘Lord do not hold this sin against them!’ This is what the Lord wishes for us: that we elevate our hearts and love our enemies! For God will never ask of us, that which we are unable to do.
The Gospel this Sunday ends with the order to give without measure, ‘for with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.’——’Give, and it will be given back to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap.’ What astonishing disproportion! How incommensurate the gift of a person, even when one has given his or her own life, compared with the infinite gift of God! This paradox is certainly the greatest and most provocative passage in today’s Gospel.
The Bible is not a collection of doctrines or moral teachings. It is God’s self-revelation: his person, his action in and for the world, his plan of salvation and its fulfilment. In Jesus, this revelation has not simply taken a decisive turn; it has been manifested by this ‘Second Adam’ ‘from heaven,’ by his person, teaching and behaviour.
Human conduct has always been based and modelled on God, as he is in himself — the Holy One — and as he is revealed. After all we are made in God’s image. The Bible speaks of God: in this sense it is ‘theology’ The morality it tries to inculcate is likewise ‘theological.’ Christ’s ‘life-giving Spirit,’ though guarantees not only that we will, at the resurrection ‘bear likeness of the man from heaven.’ He shows us, in his person, how, both today and in the promised future, we are to act like God, ‘good to the ungrateful and wicked,’ ‘Compassionate.’ He is not content to teach this merely with the voice of authority. He displays it in every moment of his life.
‘….though he was in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross! Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above all names….’ We need not look elsewhere, beyond him, for justification of what he asks all his disciples (us included) to love without measure, without reckoning, even their enemies.
‘Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate…..’ for ‘The Lord is compassionate and gracious.’
