The Unauthorized Homily

By Bill Dunn

A commentary on the Scripture readings from the Sunday Lectionary

(Scripture readings for Sunday, February 18th: 1 Samuel 26: 2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38)

WE’RE COMMANDED TO LOVE OUR ENEMIES

This week’s gospel reading picks up where the gospel reading left off last week. Jesus continues to give us important lessons on how to live, from His “Sermon on the Plain” in Luke’s gospel. In the very beginning of this week’s passage, Jesus offers some startling instructions: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

When these words of Christ are proclaimed in church, Christians respond in one of four different ways:

1. They don’t even hear it. Since these words come at the very beginning of the reading, many people, having just stood up, are either flipping through the Missalette to find the reading, moving the kneeler out of the way, looking around to see who is in church today, telling their kids to hush up, or generally just kind of spacing out.

2. They hear it, but immediately dismiss the idea as an unrealistic platitude. Our culture is filled with greeting card-style slogans: “And like a good neighbor State Farm is there.” Sound nice, but we all know it’s just an insurance company trying to make money. “I’d like the teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…” Sweet jingle, but it’s just a soft drink company trying to sell more cans of soda pop. Certain statements sound nice, but no one really takes them seriously. That’s the way many people respond when they hear these words from Jesus. “Love your enemies? Do good to those who hate you?” they say with a smirk, “Yeah right. Sounds nice, pal, but it just doesn’t work in the REAL world.”

3. They hear it and apply it, but in a general, impersonal sense. Folks who have been in a faith relationship with Jesus for a while understand that it is possible to love others without necessarily liking them. When Jesus uses the word love, He does not mean warm and fuzzy feelings of affection. His definition of love is to genuinely desire the best for someone else. So certain people will hear these words and say, “Yes, I genuinely love Islamic terrorists and greedy corporate moguls and racist skinheads and even Ted Kennedy—as long as ‘love’ means wanting them to put their faith in Christ, renounce their evil ways, and completely change their lives.” So the people in this third category really love their enemies—enemies who are impersonal and distant and who have not hurt them directly.

4. They hear it and apply it in an up-close-and-personal way. These people love their enemies—not just the impersonal enemies in, say, al-Qaeda terrorist training camps 10,000 miles away, but  the personal enemies 10 feet away: the abusive spouse who slaps them around every Saturday night; the nasty co-worker who spreads false gossip about them each week; the sadistic teenage neighbor who killed their cat and then laughed about it; or the unrepentant drunk who maimed their only child in a car crash and still continues to drive while plastered.

Let’s face it, genuinely loving someone who has hurt you personally is the most difficult thing in the world. In fact, in “the world” it is impossible, if we define “the world” with a common biblical definition: the condition of our fallen, sinful, human nature.

If we follow our natural worldly instincts, we want revenge on our enemies. We want to repay evil for evil. If they made us suffer, we want to make them suffer. It’s the way of the world.

But this worldly attitude is the exact opposite of what Jesus is teaching us this week. He is telling us not to have a simplistic greeting card or long distance understanding of “love your enemies.” He is telling us to love and to forgive and to show compassion toward those people who have hurt us personally: family, friends, co-workers, neighbors.

The only way this can even remotely be possible is if we have, as St. Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians, “the mind of Christ.” We have to elevate our way of thinking from the usual low, worldly plane to a higher, spiritual plane. We have to think as Jesus thinks, see other people as Jesus sees them, to be able to love them in the same way that He loves them.

To do this is actually very easy. Of course, I’m using the definition of the word easy that means: “the most difficult thing ever.” To be honest, I was trying to think of people I know who genuinely love their enemies in the way Jesus commands, and I could only think of a couple people who do it occasionally. (And trust me, I personally didn’t even make the “occasional” list.)

In this week’s second reading, from the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, St. Paul explains that the first human, Adam, was earthly and natural, while Christ, the divine God-man, is heavenly and spiritual. Paul tells us, “Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.”

So the good news is we can have Christ’s heavenly, spiritual mind, but for now it’s kind of a work in progress. Which explains why even the best among us only do it occasionally.

Jesus asks a lot from us. And although it’s pretty much impossible for us to love others as intensely and perfectly as Jesus loves them, we must at least try. The first thing we have to do, however, is realize that His command to love our enemies is not a silly greeting card platitude or a sappy soft drink jingle that we can immediately dismiss.

Jesus’ command to love our enemies is real, and He expects us to do it to the best of our ability, not only regarding impersonal enemies far away, but also with those royal pains-in-the-butt we have to deal with day in and day out.

If we put on the mind of Christ and let His spirit guide us from within, it can be done. And when we do so, we’ll find that our lives become much more serene and peaceful…or at least so I’ve heard. Unfortunately I can’t speak from personal experience. But I tell you what: if I give it a try, will you give it a try too?

©2007