Love...? Love!

WE heard last sunday the paradoxical beatitude, “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude and insult you ... Rejoice ... your reward will be great in heaven.” Now the gospel reading (Luke 6:27-38) continues that line of thought and tells us how to conduct ourselves and to love even as we live in affliction and in the face of evil.

Love your enemies CONTRADICTING the common mode of behavior, Jesus calls his disciples to love their enemies. In the world’s view of enmity, to do harm to one’s enemies is expected, just as doing good to one’s friends only is normal. Living in this sinful world, the believer is to conduct himself in a very specific manner according to his faith. First of all, he is to return good for evil and love his enemies. Revenge is totally out. Evil for evil (“an eye for an eye”) propagates evil. The only way to really stop evil is by doing what is good.

How is this love of enemies, this being good and doing good

concretely practiced? The vicious cycle of maliciousness is only broken by a non-violent and positive choice of goodness. “To the one who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well...Do to others as you would have them do to you.” This golden rule applies always and everywhere. Without being solicited, we act accordingly toward everyone, offering friendship and pardon. This must be our “whole day habit”. This is what identifies us as children of the Father who is kind to all even to the wicked.

Because you are children of your father

BASICALLy, Jesus is asking his followers to be different from the children of the world. Comparing his disciples to sinners, he points out that even sinners love, do what is good and lend to those who would do the same to them. What credit is that for Christians if they only manage to do as much? They must be more and do more by expanding the scope of their love. They should include everyone and exclude no one. The motive of Jesus’ disciples is not something derived from their antagonists, but from God. It is no longer merely the world’s law of reciprocity but the compassion and mercy of God that should move the faithful.

Our human relationship must go beyond the narrow limits of “you scratch my back; I scratch your back.” People expect a similar return to what they do to others; favors are reciprocated, compliments returned, thus balance and measures are clear. Challenging his followers to defy this way of the world, Jesus promises us the great reward in being children of the Most High. Like Father, like children: loving, merciful. Concretely this means being non-judgmental, non-condemnatory and forgiving. Judging and condemning are divine prerogatives; engaging in them invites God’s judgment on us. If we would be forgiven, we must forgive. A forgiving, merciful spirit reveals that we actually have been forgiven and are responding to that grace by our commitment to forgive.

Alálaong bagá, our human conduct must now be modeled on God as definitively revealed to us in Jesus Christ, the God who is compassionate and good to all, even to the wicked and the ungrateful. We look at Jesus and we know we must learn to love as he does, without measure, even our enemies, loving therefore like our heavenly Father—His kapuso, kadiwa! Jesus who said he was sent to bring freedom to prisoners and the oppressed (Luke 4:14-21) is evidently not pushing for passivity and inaction, or for resignation when confronted with violence and injustice, resulting in passive complicity to evil and encouraging more abuse. He is teaching us that the only way out of the mess of sin is actively God’s way, the positive way of divine love and compassion.

Join me in meditating on the Word of God every Sunday, from 5 to 6 a.m. on DWIZ 882, or by audio streaming on www.dwiz882.com.