Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
There is a great deal of conflict in our world. We are very aware of how much violence people inflict on others. We have all been disturbed by the conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine and by the level of violence leading to the injury and death of completely innocent men, women and children. We are aware of conflict and violence closer to home, in our own country, our own neighbourhood, even our own families. Great hatred and anger often lie behind the conflict and violence that pervades our world.
Jesus was well aware that he and his disciples would meet with conflict and violence, with hatred and anger. Speaking to his disciples in today’s gospel reading, he refers to their enemies, those who hate them, curse them and treat them badly. Jesus himself would end up at the receiving end of terrible violence and hatred, resulting in his being crucified. The issue of how to respond to violence, conflict and hatred was a live one for Jesus and his disciples. It is not surprising that he addresses this issue head on. His way of addressing it has often seemed unrealistic and unreasonable to many. He calls on his disciples to love their enemies, to do good to those who hate them, to bless those who curse them, to pray for those who treat them badly. This is a call that is addressed to us all. We are all very aware of how difficult it is to answer this call. Jesus is calling us to a way of life that doesn’t come naturally to us, that goes against the grain.
We often refer to people who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. On this issue, Jesus not only talked the talk but he walked the walk. He loved those who treated him badly. He refused the request of his disciples to call fire down from heaven on a Samaritan village that had rejected him. He healed the injured ear of a member of the group who came to arrest him. As he hung from the cross, he prayed for his executioners, asking God to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing. When his own disciples abandoned him at the hour of his passion and death, he did not abandon them. As risen Lord, he appeared to them and renewed his love for them and his call to follow him. Wherever he encountered rejection, betrayal, disloyalty, hatred, Jesus responded with love, goodness and forgiveness. He couldn’t respond in any other way. It was who he was. It was who God was and Jesus was Emmanuel, God-with-us. He revealed a God who, in the words the gospel reading, is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus is calling on us to be like him, to be God-like. We can be forgiven for thinking that this is a step too far. How can we be God-like, we who are all too human? How can we be kind to the ungrateful and wicked? How can we love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who treat us badly? Yet, Jesus does not ask us to do the impossible. He knew that, with his help, we can live in this extraordinarily generous way. Indeed, he would have said that we are created to live in this way, to love others unconditionally. Saint Paul had never met Jesus during Jesus’ public ministry. However, he met the risen Lord, and he had a deep understanding of the life, death, resurrection and message of Jesus. In his letter to the church in Rome, he says to them, ‘If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink… Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good’. This is very much in keeping with the call of Jesus in today’s gospel reading. We would have a very different world if people took that calling to heart.
Paul knew, as Jesus did, that it is very tempting to return evil for evil, to give as good as we get, as we say nowadays. Yet, when evil is returned for evil it just increases the measure of evil in the world. When hatred is returned for hatred, the power of hatred grows. When an eye is taken for an eye, everyone ends us blind. Throughout his life, and especially as he hung from the cross, Jesus overcame evil with good, in the words of Paul. Just as Jesus’ enemies were doing their worst evil to him, nailing him to a cross, Jesus was powerfully revealing God’s unconditional love for all humanity. On the cross, when hatred seemed to have triumphed, love was at its strongest. When Jesus rose from the dead, he poured the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God’s love, upon his disciples and he continues to pour that Spirit upon us all, so that, in the power of the Spirit, we too can overcome evil with good. Overcoming evil with good continues to be the Lord’s work today, in and through all of us who are temples of his Spirit and members of his body. At the end of the day, evil can only ever be overcome by goodness. That is what we are praying for, when we say in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Thy kingdom come’.