How often have you greeted a stranger, and received the muted response of either a blank stare or a diverted glance? In traffic, have you ever let someone in front of you and they don’t even acknowledge it? That can be fairly off-putting to say the least. But even more so, what about when you intentionally do something for someone you do know, and perhaps don’t receive the anticipated response. Going even one step further, have you ever spoken kindly to or done a gratuitous deed for someone that either you do not like, or are aware does not like you?
These are some of the challenging everyday situations that come to my mind, when I read through today’s Gospel (Lk 6: 27-38) and hear Jesus’ command to:
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you” HOLD UP !!! – THIS IS TOUGH STUFF!!!
Where do we draw the line for injury and insult? Theft, murder, rape, terrorism? Are there any exemptions, and if so what would they look like?
It appears to me that Jesus here is describing how we treat each other many times when we react from the experience of the clash of “egos.” If you love only those who love you and who show you that love, what real “credit” is there in that? If we only give to those who can and will give back to us, we are basically involved in a “business transaction.” The “turn” in the Gospel seems to come when Jesus says to “love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back…and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” It’s the turn from the environment of “judging” based on egoistic reaction to a space or place where something unexpectedly beautiful can happen, or at least begin to happen. And it takes the Intervention of God, or Love Itself, to effect this change.
One of the key lines for me in the Gospel is “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” This is a Holy Spirit of love and reconciliation that does not blindly look away from the pain and suffering that we inflict upon one another, but instead looks directly into it without reaction and confronts it with the only reality that can overcome it – love, mercy and forgiveness. It seems that unless we try to go beyond our sometimes “small” ego-self that reacts to everything in a quid pro quo manner (this for that), and “give” love over to the “other” then nothing changes, the pattern of mutual hurting continues.
So how would this look? I think it would depend on the situation, but I believe it can be applied to any and all situations. And the reason I say this is because I do believe that it is absolutely true that we only receive by giving, and trying to keep expectations of reciprocity at bay somehow. I’m not talking about being a doormat or a victim. In a way, it is similar to the old “kill them with kindness” saying. Although, it is not the other person (or people, or country, or religion, or race, etc.) that is being “killed”, but rather it is the preconceived biases many times that we have about ourselves and our others. Could this be one way of looking at “dying to self?”
As much as this Gospel story may speak about judgment and Justice ( i.e., God’s Mercy as Justice), it’s also Jesus’ lament over how we hurt each other because we mistake a gift as something we take rather than receive! In the “bumper-car” game of egos, we get so banged up that we never realize that we are NOT the bumper-car. The Gift is our true self that can only be received through giving. I know that this sounds a bit odd, but I think the last line of today’s Gospel captures the idea of this “no-way-to-measure” quality of abundance which is the heart and soul of Who we really are in God’s eye – God’s own image! Can we begin to see this?
“Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.”
Peace,
Thomas