Luke 6:27 - 38
Many years ago when we lived in
Buffalo, I was a young physician and we only had four children. Joan
and I went on a little Sunday afternoon car trip along the south
shore of Lake Ontario. We were enjoying the countryside when our
Rambler American decided to die, and we didn't have cell phones in
those days, so I went across the road and knocked on someone's door.
I explained that my family and I were stranded and could I use the
phone to call the American Automobile Association? I was invited in
and told to invite may family as well. While I was calling triple A
our hostess offered my kids something to drink and handed out a few
cookies. As we waited for the AAA to arrive, I got into a
conversation with my host who was a retired judge. The triple A
truck arrived, checked out the car, and told me that they could only
bring it to a local mechanic, but this being Sunday, nothing more
could be done. As I was trying to figure out what to do next, the
retired judge told me that I could borrow his car. He wouldn't allow
me to leave my credit card with him; he told me he trusted me. With
gratitude I loaded my family into the car and drove home. The next
afternoon, having learned that my car was fixed, my wife and I went
to pick up the car and drop the judge's car off. I sent him a
thank-you note and never saw him again.
Today Jesus gives us a list of
commands and admonitions. Love your enemies; bless those who curse
you; give to everyone who begs from you; lend, expecting nothing in
return. In other words, Jesus is saying, live so everyone will think
you are a crazy person. And you don't do that and I don't do that
and I'm pretty sure that the Pope doesn't live this way either. It
isn't practical; if anyone were to follow Jesus' advice, he or she
would end up pushing a stolen shopping cart full of their belongings
around downtown Springfield. Unless of course one's relatives
decided to commit you to a psychiatric hospital.
And Jesus reminds us that there is no
credit in loving those who love you, or doing good to those who do
good to you, because, he tells us, even sinners do that.
So how do we deal with this very
troubling gospel? I'm not saying that living this way is difficult;
I'm saying that it's impossible. Why would Jesus ask the impossible
of us?
I think the clue is the statement He
makes: “Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the
Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be
merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” When you think about
it, Jesus is describing God the Father. When the actor Christian
Baile thanked Satan for winning a Golden Globe award, the Father did
not turn him into a pile of ash. When Governor Cuomo lights up the
World Trade Center to celebrate the abortion law that allows
non-physicians to do partial birth abortions on teenagers, the Father
does not smite him with leprosy. And when Cardinal McCarrick is
punished for his lifetime of preying on seminarians and other young
men, he is given ample opportunity to repent and be open to the mercy
of God.
When you and I were baptized, we
became sons and daughters of the Father of Jesus Christ. Our
Buddhist and Muslim and Jewish friends are children of God, no
question. But we have a special relationship to Jesus, who invites
us into the special relationship he has with the Father. And if we
are brothers and sisters of Jesus by adoption through baptism, we,
like Jesus, are called to show the Father to our brothers and
sisters. Jesus did this. He told Philip, “If you have seen me,
you have seen the Father.” And he gave himself up on the cross as
an offering to the Father, as he spoke those words, “Father,
forgive them for they know not what they are doing.”
The Father gives, expecting nothing in
return. He gives because he is pure and infinite love. His gifts
are not related to our goodness or our badness, for that matter. And
he pours out his love without expecting anything in return, even to
Satan and the poor damned souls who would rather spend eternity alone
and proud rather than to surrender to his all-embracing love.
So, should we be doormats? Should we
allow other people to steal us blind? Should we turn the other
cheek? Maybe so, maybe not. But underneath all of what Jesus is
saying is that we need to cultivate in ourselves an attitude of
detachment – so that nothing anyone does to us causes us to hate,
to desire revenge, to become angry and bitter. All of those emotions
distract us from our real goal, which is to become more and more sons
and daughters of the most High, people who have a family resemblance
to their Father and their elder brother, Jesus. And the way we
respond to those who are our enemies, those who hate us, those who
want to treat us as something less than human, will be what makes us
more or less sons and daughters of the Most High.
I told you about a retired judge who
offered his car to a young family who were stranded on a country
road, no questions asked. He didn't ask for identification; he
didn't ask to hold on to my credit card. He didn't ask to keep one
of my children as collateral even though my wife offered. And I'm
not sure I could have done that, could you? But that's the kind of
God we have, one who gives, expecting nothing in return; one who
gives, despite the fact that we slap him in the face; one who gives
and gives, and loves and loves, and dies for us, simply out of his
great love for the creatures he has made and hold in existence.
I don't think I can consistently live
the way Jesus is describing. Sometimes there are rare moments when I
can, but most of the time, no. But when I feel that I am being
slighted, when I feel that I am being taken advantage of, when I am
disrespected, I remember that our Father in Heaven continues to love
me unreservedly and give me all good things. And maybe there will be
moments when I can be like my heavenly father – like the retired
judge who gave his car to a stranger, asking nothing in return. And
it is in those moments that I am most a child of my heavenly father.
