From the Sunday Note, with additional thoughts…
But rather, love your enemies and do good to them,
and lend expecting nothing back;
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.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give, and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you.”
Luke 6:35-38 from Sunday’s Gospel reading
Consider that last line and apply it to yourself: “The measure with which I measure will in return be measured out to me.” In other words, Jesus is saying that you and I can (and do) establish the criteria by which God will judge us. We “establish the criteria” by showing God in our acts, speech, and thoughts how we evaluate our fellow human beings.
Well, surely, we are on solid ground with that kind of set-up: the commandments and their elaboration in the Sermon on the Mount give us plenty of direction in that regard, do they not? And Jesus himself goes far beyond the strictures of the original commandments when he warns us against “adultery of the eyes” or of calling someone a “fool” etc.
Yet, that is to miss Jesus’ point here entirely. The criteria he instructs us with are correct, but they rest on an even more fundamental point. Who gave us these commandments? God. Jesus says the Most High wants us to be His children. In other words, we are created to become like him, our Creator, as embodied in his Son, Jesus the Christ. And what does Jesus point to as the most salient, striking attribute of his Father? It is this: his Father “is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” (v. 35) Consider that! Like his Son, we must be willing to forgive and even die for those who might nail us to a cross. Who do we have on our ungrateful and wicked list? Individuals? Groups? Parties? Peoples?
Once we have actually become “kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” we may be able to speak with them, convincingly, of the Father’s hopes for them along with His expectations of them, too.
Given how easily we deceive ourselves about our own righteousness, that is the just the kind of judge you and I need handling our Last Judgement. O Lord, help us to become kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
For further reflection:
God’s plan in Christ is not to hand out a new set of rules for daily living, but to recreate human beings in his own image. Our re-creation in his image will result in a life lived in a different way. Israel discovered (and discovered, and re-discovered) that we cannot consistently live by a set of rules. Even Christ’s formal teaching and example of how to live cannot be lived by anyone else, but only by Christ himself. That is why we must give up our lives and be baptized into Christ. When we are “in Christ”–a living cell in his Body the Church–it finally becomes possible. With practice, penance, patience and the Holy Eucharist, we slowly approach the holiness of our Head.