My dear friends,
Today we are asked to reflect upon perhaps what is the most challenging of all the mandates the Lord Jesus gave His disciples, and gives you and me: we ought to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. Perhaps the one question, and only question we could ask ourselves today is, how? How do you and I actually (can) love our enemies?
To say that that was shocking to the hearers of Jesus would have been an understatement. Remember, in the first reading Leviticus it says to ‘love your neighbor as yourselves’. For devout Jews that meant something very specific; that my neighbor was a fellow devout Jew, one to whom I could expect reciprocity, good rapport and friendship. And so to love your neighbor was easy.
As you know in the Good Samaritan, Jesus challenged his listeners to say, well, your neighbor is more than just someone who shares your faith or observes the law. But it is those outside the law, the samaritan. And that was hard to hear. But nonetheless it was to love someone who, presumably, wished you good.
So now Jesus takes it to the very extreme, to love those who have no interest in us, do not wish us ill, do not wish us good, but, not even ill, but hate us, wish to harm us. How do you love them?
Well perhaps the tradition of the Church can help us to understand it and answer the question. Because you know my friends, in English we use the word ‘love’. But it means many different things. In the ancient languages they use different words to describe the different aspects of what love really means.
So for example, in Greek there are three forms of Love. There is first and foremost ‘eros’. (Eros) is the love that is the passionate love that a man and a woman can have for each other. Usually the basis of marriage is that deep, abiding passionate attraction. And of course love involves emotion.
And then this ‘agape’ which is the love that God has for Him in Himself and for the world. Total, complete, self-empting and self-giving. Something we can strive for, but because of our sins in this world we will not fully achieve.
And then there’s a third love, you have heard me often speak of it. It provides the clue. In Greek it is called ‘philia’ which in English we would simply say ‘friendship’. And we all have them in our lives. Those are the individuals that we don’t have necessarily an emotional attraction to, but one we choose to walk with. We choose to do their good, we choose to open our lives to, we choose to become transparent with despite their faults and failings, for none of us are perfect. And it is in that, that the key lies.
For my friends when, we think of those who have harmed us, deeply harmed us, deeply wounded us, the emotions we feel may never fully pass away. When we think of those individuals, what the Lord is asking is not to forget what they did to us, not to condone what they did for us, but to begin by choosing to forgive them. Which means to choose to give them another opportunity, to give them another chance, and to will to give them what they need so that they will not do again what they did the first time.
To love one’s enemy is to choose to do what is good for them, no matter what that good may be.
Those of you who are parents and grandparents know what I mean because when your children misbehave, you choose to correct them because you love them, even though your children don’t like it. You’re not harming them, you’re willing their good.
So consider those who have harmed us in an analogous way. That we choose to do their good which means we may choose to give them another opportunity. When the opportunity arise, we choose to tell them the truth of how they have hurt us. We give them, by choosing the opportunity to learn the qualities that they possess, or do not possess, so that they will not repeat it again. We choose to help them when they are in need even though our heart may tell us ‘keep going’. They are choices, choices. And choices to do their good.
That, my friends, is how you and I can love our enemy and do good to those who hate us. It’s not pleasant. It’s not easy. And at times we may fail. But the truth is, it is a command of God. And we heard in Leviticus that we are called to be holy. And the fullness of holiness cannot be achieved unless we love all, including those who have harmed us and wounded us.
And so we come here, to the altar of God. Because I know I can speak for myself when I say, when I take the heart, the very words I offer to you, I find it awfully difficult at times to love those who have betrayed me. But what you and I cannot do in love, He who is Love can do in you and me. And that is why we come here, to eat His body and drink His blood, so that God can do in *us*, in our will, what you and I cannot do alone.
Allow me to conclude by offering you a challenge. It is hard to believe, is it not, that Lent begins on Wednesday? We were just chatting in the Sacristy, it seems like we were just putting away our Christmas trees and now we are at the beginning of Lent. And I am sure, my dear friends, you have much already on your mind as to what you wish to do in Lent; the things you wish to give up, and the things you wish to do. Allow me to offer you one suggestion, in this Lent, in the category of things to do.
Is there somebody in your life, and mine, who has hurt you deeply? Is there someone in your life, or mine, that we have had real difficulty forgiving? How can you and I do their good this Lent? What is it that you and I can do for them, for their good? So that they might know
that we are on the road to forgiving them. And that they have another chance. For if you’re looking for a great challenge in Lent, perhaps that is the challenge for you and me.
