7th Sunday Year C - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2022

I believe that today’s brief Gospel passage takes us right down, down, down to the very heart of the Gospel message — but at the same time, it is, perhaps, the hardest really to take on board. God knows that it is hard to come to terms with. That is why God eventually sent his Son to come among as one of us — in the hope of convincing us, of encouraging us.

The passage starts off: “Love your enemies …” and concludes: “Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate”. And in between are a whole lot of practical points teasing out the consequences, some relevant, some irrelevant — not surprisingly. Jesus was, after all, talking to Galilean peasants of a now ancient culture. So we need to get beyond some of those practicalities, and learn to apply Jesus’ message to today’s reality.

Jesus didn’t say much about the ‘why’ — why love our enemies? other than to remind us that our God is a “compassionate” God, and that loving our enemies will, over time, transform our experience of life into God’s experience of divine life: “you will be sons and daughters of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked”.

The fascinating thing is that we half know already that Jesus is right. After all, is life now in our world the way you would like it to be? And if not, what would you prefer it to be like? And, I might add, don’t sell yourself short with half-solutions. Perhaps too many of us have already persuaded ourselves that a world where everyone loves everyone is an impossible dream. I wonder what Jesus was thinking, and feeling, as he talked to his Galilean audience?

Jesus was mature enough, plugged in enough, to realise that an attitude like love is not a matter of “either/or” — “either you love, or you don’t”. We know from our personal experience that our loving has grown and deepened across life, and we also know that it can still grow and deepen. We also know that our world will not change all that much if we don’t broaden our range and improve our motivation. If we do, we still mightn’t achieve much; we might not witness any obvious improvement in our world.

Had Jesus witnessed the change that he had hoped for when he launched his mission a few short years before? All he saw from his cross was failure — failure with the leadership, failure with the general population, failure even with his carefully chosen disciples. Yet the Epistle to the Hebrews insisted that Jesus “became perfect through suffering” — he loved to the end, convinced that eventually people might change and come on board. And here are we, two thousand years later!

How do we grow even to the extent of “loving our enemies” — no exceptions? Today’s short Gospel passage contained some of Jesus’ suggestions, that are still relevant: “Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly… Treat others as you would like them to treat you… Do not judge; do not condemn; grant pardon”.

How did Jesus manage it? Today’s passage does not tell us. But the Gospel shows us everywhere that Jesus saw people through the eyes of God. He saw, not just their presenting needs [realised and unrealised], but he saw everyone’s radical dignity as unique expressions of God’s image, beloved daughters and sons, fashioned by God who loved them.

Each of us could do worse than deliberately working at recognising, accepting and rejoicing in our own human dignity — quite undeserved but wonderful gift! Let us pray then, not just for our enemies, but also for ourselves!