The Great Challenge

Gospel: Matthew 5: 43-48

The commandment of love applies to all people without exception, including our enemies.  It is a shocking teaching for Jesus' time as well as our own.  We struggle with the commandment of love even for those we claim to like; how often is our love fickle and self-centered even in these relationships.  But now imagine the idea of loving our enemies when we are consumed with our murderous thoughts and things we say about other people.

Consider the modern Christian and his active to do list regarding the treatment of enemies: the constant drum of war justified at all times; the execution of prisoners and their maltreatment in a retributive inhumane system; the animus toward foreigners, immigrants, refugees, and migrants; the vitriol leveled against Muslims, Jews, non-Christians, other Christians not of our tribe, and anyone else who crosses our nativist theology.  The teaching of Jesus regarding our enemies is not one we remotely try to abide.  

This teaching of Jesus is one he lived in his own life.  He healed, liberated, and fed people of all backgrounds.  He ate with his friends and his enemies.  He ate at table with his betrayer, denier, and abandoners.  He forgave those who executed him, offering a general absolution to all.  Jesus practiced  this love and showed us the way in concrete terms.  This Lent let us imitate the Lord and walk away from the false Christianity of the day.   

The Killing Fields

Gospel: Matthew 5: 20-26

On the surface of things, the commandment against killing and murder seems easy.  Just don't violently murder someone and you're good with this commandment, right?  Well, not so fast.  Jesus tells us that we may not be angry with others, and we ought not speak ill of others.  And if we have a dispute with our neighbor to resolve it amicably, to be forgiving and seek mutual understanding so as to avoid any ill feelings and conflict.  Now the commandment is much harder.

Yet there is great depth of wisdom to what Jesus says here.  Consider all the many excuses and "exceptions" we create to this commandment against killing.  We justify war every time we engage in it.  We do the same for capital punishment and other state violence.  We have even justified genocide, slavery, and other horrid practices that kill our neighbor in body and soul.  The commandment is one we have really ignored and debased.  

We come to these atrocities because we have not attended to these smaller matters Jesus enjoins upon us in this Gospel portion.  When we look upon others as less than us, as objects and inhuman.  Jesus reminds us that every single human being is an image and likeness of God, as a son or daughter of God, a temple of the Holy Spirit.  If we fail to do so, then the murder in our heart lurks, leading to the bloodshed we claim is so easy to avoid.   

Asking and Receiving

Gospel: Matthew 7: 7-12

As self-interested beings we see this Gospel passage as about ourselves and what we can obtain from God in prayer.  We bring our petitions before God like a child bringing her list of toy requests to Santa: we want material things, relief from problems, healing from ailments, and mercy for our sins.  Our lists and demands are endless and incessant, and we believe we will receive these things because this passage tells us so, or the part that we choose for our focus.  

But perhaps this passage isnt' about prayer or our own self-interested pursuits therein.  Perhaps it is more about how we treat others.  We want God to give us all these things noted above, but are we willing to grant similar things to others?  We want material things - are we sharing such with others? We want relief and healing and mercy, but are we extending those things to other people? We cannot expect to receive such things if we ourselves are engrossed in a selfish suburban lifestyle.

Jesus went about providing healing, liberation, and nourishment to all sorts of people - friend and foe, native and foreigner, neighbor and stranger.  Jesus received nothing in return for such care for others.  He calls us to live such a life of mercy as well, a life not governed by self-intesrest but one animated by solidarity and the common good.  When we go to God with these requests for ourselves, let us remember how we are called to provide such to others in their need.