7th Sunday in Ordinary time
Luke 6:27-38
The climate in which Jesus grew up and in which began his public ministry was a very negative and adversarial one. The Jews were a very legalistic race, motivated and governed by strict rules and laws of every kind. How often do we hear Jesus confronted with phrases such as, “It is against the Law”: “should be condemned”: “caught in the act of breaking the law”: “not permitted” etc.
The only slight concession to human nature suggested by their wise men was that “You should never do to another what you would not wish done to yourself.”
When He began his public ministry Jesus went into the synagogue and outlined his mission. “Sent to bring good news to the poor, release captive, bring sight to the blind: let the oppressed go free”, and he proclaimed that these words of Isaiah were fulfilled as he spoke them.
It was once said that Jesus had a ‘dream’. He called it the Kingdom of God. In that ‘dream’ he saw the world as a great mirror reflecting the beauty and the love of God.
The teaching of Jesus might, at times, seem almost impossibly idealistic. He came not to overturn the Law but perfect to it. Jesus, unlike the Scribes and the Pharisees, was not negative and adversarial, but rather positive and compassionate and understanding. He makes our obligations positive and puts them in positive language; “Do to others what you would want them to do to you”
The first big hurdle is the word ‘Love’. For us, it is a very emotional word, implying both affection and intimacy. For us, ‘to love’ is often ‘to be in love with, to ‘be attracted to’.
But Jesus is not telling us ‘to be in love’ with our enemies. He is not even telling us to like them. The Greek word for Love which the Gospel uses is Agape. It is a special kind of love. It is not the physically-expressed love of lovers. Nor is it the love of close friends. It is, rather, an attitude of positive regard towards other people, by which I wish for their well-being.
So, who are our ‘enemies’? First of all, they are not enemies in the sense that we hate them or want to harm them. In that sense, Christians should have no enemies. Rather, they are people who are hostile to us. They want to harm us, to take revenge on us, even destroy us.
There are two ways we can deal with such people. We can set out to do more harm to them, to take revenge on them, to try to wipe them out completely. Or we can try and work to turn them round.
Jesus calls us to follow the model of God Himself; ”Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate”. In Matthew’s Gospel it is “Be perfect as ….” The meaning is the same: our perfection is doing what we are called to do to the best of our ability. And, through us, the compassion of God can then be experienced by other people
So, the teaching of Jesus in today’s Gospel is relevant to us today. If we live it as best we can, the ‘dream’ of Jesus will come true, the Kingdom of God will be among us.