Gospel Reflection
There are a lot of great and important passages on love in the Bible, and one of them is found right at the beginning of this Sunday’s gospel reading (Luke 6:27-38).
Love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, pray for those who mistreat us. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.
The Gospel is asking a lot right?
When I think of this passage, I think of people who have shown us what this looks like in extreme circumstances. People who have endured real hatred and abuse, and who still have managed to love. And one in particular is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He died just a couple of years ago, of cancer, but his legacy certainly lives on, because he was a Christian who taught us and showed us how to love even our enemies.
Bishop Tutu served as a leader in South Africa during the struggle to dismantle apartheid and he certainly earned a lot of enemies along the way. What makes him such a great example of what Sunday’s gospel reading looks like is how he treated those enemies. Bishop Tutu never became bitter or hateful. He never deviated from what the Bible taught him – to love and forgive one’s enemies. He managed to go through his entire life with this focus. He was asked his secret to doing this. How was he able to live by these challenging teachings of Jesus? Bishop Tutu’s answer was both complicated and simple:
“I hold on, and often only by the skin of my teeth, to believe that God is in charge of his world, in spite of all appearances to the contrary.” (Bishop Tutu’s Hopes and Fears)
When you truly believe that you can love even your enemies. You can pray for those who mistreat you. You can turn the other cheek and you can forgive. You can do all of this because of this deep inner conviction that God is in charge of his world, no matter how bad things look. It is a simple but life-changing belief. That was his simple answer.
The more complicated answer is found in several of his books, including his memoir, “No Future without Forgiveness.” In this book, he talks about forgiveness as a process that is not simple, and not quick. As he puts it so eloquently:
“Forgiving, is not forgetting; it’s actually remembering – remembering and not using your right to hit back. It’s a second chance for a new beginning.”
Now, I suspect that if Bishop Tutu were still alive today, he would remind us that there is a much better role model than him, and that is Jesus. When you think about it, Jesus lived by his own teaching in an incredible way. He did that because he himself believed that his Heavenly Father was in charge of his world, no matter what was happening in his life. He chose to love his enemies even when they mocked him and spat upon him. He was determined to do good to those who hated him even when they cried out for his crucifixion. He opted to bless them when they cursed him and he prayed for them when they abused him. Even when hanging from the cross, he forgave those who put him there:
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
Filled with the faith and conviction that God was in charge of his world, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, Jesus lived fearlessly, loved courageously, and forgave endlessly. And aren’t we thankful for that? We are certainly thankful that Jesus did what he taught us to do, later in this same reading, when he went on to say:
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37).
Jesus did exactly that for us all. Jesus didn’t come to judge us or to condemn the world, but to save this world and to love us. In the same way, Jesus sends us out into the world not to condemn it or to judge it, but to bless it and to love it. To do all this trusting in the one who is truly in charge, even when the evidence might suggest otherwise.
“God’s dream,” Bishop Tutu once said, “is that you and I, and all of us, will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.”
God’s dream for us starts with God’s love for us. God’s dream for us becomes real because of God’s son, who loved us enough to die for us. God’s dream for us is shown to us through people like Bishop Tutu and also through everyday people like us.
The world will know we are followers of Jesus by our love for one another. The world will become convinced of this love when we love even our enemies, just as Jesus taught us to do. Let us love God, love ourselves and love one another. Finally, let us follow our College theme this year “Together we rise” and do this in unity – together.
Prayer
Lord, loving our enemies is contrary to our human nature. But now You are asking us to love them. We always fail You. Lord, change our heart and transform it to become like Your merciful heart especially during sacramental celebrations.
Allow us to spend time pondering how You have been merciful to us even when we are sinful and ungrateful.
In this way, we learn the way of the gospel. This we ask in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
