Most people like a challenge or they like it when they’ve met a challenge and conquered it. I wonder if most people, hearing today’s Gospel passage, realize that in it we’re given one of the most difficult challenges in all of Scripture. It’s also a most basic Christian challenge because it calls on each of us to be like Christ. And it goes even further: it calls us to be “perfect like the Father is perfect.”
If we take these words seriously, I can’t imagine a greater, more life-encompass...
Most people like a challenge or they like it when they’ve met a challenge and conquered it. I wonder if most people, hearing today’s Gospel passage, realize that in it we’re given one of the most difficult challenges in all of Scripture. It’s also a most basic Christian challenge because it calls on each of us to be like Christ. And it goes even further: it calls us to be “perfect like the Father is perfect.”
If we take these words seriously, I can’t imagine a greater, more life-encompassing challenge. It entails incredible expectations: turning the other cheek; giving away our cloak; and here’s the “Biggie:” loving our enemies and praying for our persecutors.
When we listen to these words somewhat casually, they sound wonderful and uplifting. But do we really know what they mean? Do we really approach the challenge of living these words – in their truest meaning – in our daily lives?
If you would, reflect on your own life and think about all the people who have hurt you: those who have lied to you, stabbed you in the back, took advantage of your kindness, spread untrue rumors about you, gossiped about you, or judged you.
Think about the friend, coworker, or family member that you trusted yet betrayed you, wounded you, and disrespected you. Look back on all the people in your life who have left hurts and scars, with a word, a look, or a touch.
Now, imagine yourself doing what Jesus commands us to do: Love them. Pray for them. Pray for their good. Pray that grace will come into their hearts. Pray that their eyes may be opened and their hearts may be healed. Because chances are, if someone has hurt you or persecuted you, it’s probably because someone once did the same to them.
Psychologists tell us that this is a vicious cycle. It’s a basic truth of our humanity that the hurts we cause one another are – almost always – a part of a vicious cycle that goes on from one generation to another. It is why Jesus, in this gospel passage, essentially says: “Stop! Enough. Break the cycle. Let it go!”
“Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors.”
In really reflecting on these words this past week, I admit that I know that this indeed a tough challenge. Like everyone here today, I, too, struggle with hurts, betrayals, lies, and rumors, and how to respond to them.
I struggle with the desire for revenge, to hurt those who’ve hurt me, and yet, I know that to act that way is self-destructive and goes against what it truly means to be Christian.
And Jesus certainly knows the struggle that we face.
Sometimes we focus so much on Jesus divinity that we forget that he was fully human in all things but sin; that he experienced hurts in his life and, as we know from the story of his temptation in the desert, that he would have experienced the same urges we feel when we’re hurt.
He also knows that we can achieve something much greater. He says, “Be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And in the midst of his being fully human, He showed us that perfection.
In the final moments of His life, after He had been betrayed, lied about, ridiculed, taunted, reviled, beaten, spat upon, and brutally nailed to and suspended from a wooden cross, he gave us the truest example of Christian perfection. At that moment, Jesus looked with pity on those who did these horrible things to Him and mercifully prayed for their redemption and healing, saying, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”
Each one of us has been, to some extent, in the same position: suspended on our own cross, feeling helpless or hopeless, facing cruelty or injustice, angry at what life has done to us.
How do we pray for – and love - those responsible?
The answer starts with a first step and that is to pray for the ability to forgive, to be open to forgiveness, to truly want to forgive. Notice that I didn’t say, “forgive and forget.” None of us really forgets and, there are times and situations when we would be foolish to “forget.” Some people will continue to be abusive and forgiveness never means opening ourselves up to that kind of behavior. But we are still called to forgive and to pray for the people we need to forgive. It’s a fine line in these situations but one that we, as Christians, must walk.
We are fast approaching the season of Lent, a time when we focus on what we should do every day of the year: to recognize our sins and ask for forgiveness. It is a time, too, to pay special attention to those who need our forgiveness (whether they think they need it or not), and to be freed from the wounds of sin and division.
May our celebration of this coming season and of the commemoration of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus, bring about the forgiveness of heart that will free us to help to imitate Jesus and thus to truly live as God’s holy people. +
