From the Sunday Note, with additional thoughts–
Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
I am the LORD.”
Leviticus 18:19 from our first reading
“You have heard that it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father,
for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?
Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only,
what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:43-48 from our Gospel reading
“Be perfect”?? We will get back to that but let us begin with another difficulty in what Jesus says.
When he says “You shall love your neighbor” he is quoting from Leviticus as we see above, a key line in Jewish moral instruction, a positive imperative built atop the list of “Thou shalt nots” concerning neighbors in the 10 commandments. But where does “hate your enemy” come from? We look in vain for such a statement in the Law, for it is not there.
Rather, outside the Law, in other parts of the Old Testament, we do find excoriations of enemies to satisfy the emotions of an often defeated and abused people. Psalm 109:6-14 gives us an enthusiastic sample. When we are wronged, we all have these kinds of emotions, immediately. Some clever Jewish teachers attempted to square this circle by noticing that the Law said they were to “Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against “your people.” That is “the people” you and your family lived among, shared life with, etc. Naturally, that did not include the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the desert raiding tribes, etc. No, you should preserve in-house peace and solidarity, taking care of “your own people.” The application of this, however, proved ambiguous and slippery. Sometimes it did not even include other Jewish tribes. “Who is my neighbor?” was a question that remained up for grabs, a handy loophole available most any time.
Jesus’ teaching does not try to banish emotions. He does insist we can master them. And this we can also find in the Jewish Scriptures. A note from Proverbs, for instance: the wise person is advised “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.” (25:21) It is an implicit call for the enemy to repent, but it is primarily an act of mercy.
Jesus’ instruction to pray for enemies here is quite clear. He modeled it during his own way of the Cross. We see it honored in the practice of the early Church, when Stephen prays for those who are stoning him. (Acts 7:58-60) Chief Apostle Peter teaches it. “Do not return evil for evil, or insult for insult, but, on the contrary, a blessing… .” (1 Peter 3:9) Paul instructs the Romans the same way: “Bless those who persecute you, bless, and do not curse them.” (Romans 12:14)
God is perfect. For each of us perfection is a goal. “Become perfect” might better catch the sense of what Jesus says. But he expects us to begin trying today.
For further reflection:
Our astonishment at what Jesus reveals as God’s goal for each one of us (perfection!) sounds wonderful enough. We need to remember that wonderful goal in light of what Scripture instructs us about out true situation. And our true situation is this: we (human beings) are, from our very beginnings, wounded and imperfect beings. No just sloppy or inconsistent but wounded in a way that narrows our focus to our own well-being. And never mind the difficulties and sufferings this causes others of our brothers and sisters. Another indication of this woundedness is how careful we are to avert our eyes and suspend our judgement of our own thoughts, words, and actions with regard to others. We do our best to dodge facing up to our responsibility. The distance between what I am right now and that goal of perfection Jesus calls us to is a long one. It involves God’s re-shaping and re-making us in the image of his Son. Plenty of reason, then, for us to be humble.