Readings - http://www.usccb.org/nab/022011.shtml
During these past several Sundays we have been following Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (and we will continue for one more). Those of us certainly of my age and above will know these passages well. Still every time we encounter them, we hear them a little differently.
This year, I have been struck by a message, perhaps even an insistence within Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that we have a right to lead a simple, uncomplicated, tranquil life.
I say this because while we hear today Jesus calling us nominally to do _more_ than what the “Old Law” required – “You have heard, ... but I say to you ...” But if we reflect on what Jesus asks of us, it’s actually to do follow what Jesus tells us, than to continue to insist on ‘just retribution” and so forth.
Consider the first part of today’s Gospel Reading. Jesus instructs his disciples: “You have heard an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, but I say to you do not render opposition to evil....” Why does he say this? Because it’s actually quite burdensome to hate someone or some group. Those of us, I nominally say “my age and above” but I really mean “of some experience in life” know that hating someone or some group generally doesn’t make a single thing better and can actually be quite exhausting both in terms of maintaining a requisite level of hurt/anger and then worrying about the more or less inevitable consequences (retribution) for the hurt/anger that we express.
To be sure, Jesus was _not_ naive. He offered three very quick examples to express one’s frustration/anger at the injustice rendered to allow us then to quickly get on with life
“If someone strikes you on the left cheek offer him the right one as well...” In our language, “okay bit shot, you hit me, strike me again, again, what does that prove? That you’re tough. Great ... You’re a tough guy, so what...?”
“If someone wishes to take you to court over your tunic, offer your cloak as well.” Israel was a 2 garment society at the time of Jesus. The tunic was one’s overcoat if one got cold. One’s cloak (basically a long shirt extending to one’s feets. The people of the middle east wear such garments to this day). Jesus was telling the people, “Oh, yeah you really want to take even my tunic. This so important to you that you’d leave me to freeze. Great, why not finish the job, take my cloak (leave me completely naked) as well.” Even the most hard hearted oppressor would understand the message. (Today one could say ... ‘Oh, you want to take my table, fine take it. Want the chair’s as well? How about the bed? The TV?”
Finally my favorite is the last one “If someone presses you into service to carry a load for one mile, carry it for two.” This commandment is actually funny because if one understands it correctly, the oppressed one could claim “Hey, I did what you commanded me to do. I even did _double_ what you asked me to do.” But the result would be that the oppressor would be stuck having to find a way to carry the load back that one extra mile. Hence by disrespecting the oppressed, the oppressor is stuck at the same point that he started with.
Why would Jesus talk in this way? Well,. Israel in his time _was oppressed_, under the Romans. He didn’t want to ignor this fact, but rather to allow his disciples to (as he says elsewhere) “Render onto Caesar what is Caesar, and onto God what is God’s...” Doing what Jesus says above, not letting those who mistreat us dominate us, even in our thoughts, actually helps set us free.
This then is seen even more clearly in the second part of the Gospel Reading today, where Jesus says: “You have heard it said, ‘you shall love your friends and hate your enemies,’ but I say to you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you ...”
He reminds us that if we just “love those who love us” that we’re no better than anybody really. Even sinners to the same. And he reminds us in a beautiful way that God “lets the sun shine on the good and the bad, and lets it rain on the just and unjust.”
We’re asked to do the same. Why? Well, as I’ve been saying above, hate, refusing to forgive, refusing to let go, just burdens _us_. The evil doers (and they could well be evil doers) go on happily without us, first probably not understanding that they ever did anything wrong to us, AND EVEN IF AFTER A GREAT EXPENDITURE OF _OUR_ ENERGY THEY MAY COME TO UNDERSTAND THAT IN SOME WAY THEY HURT US, they’ll be the first to _forgive themselves_ and happily go on with their lives while we carry the burden of our past hurts for much much longer. SO IT'S TO OUR OWN BENEFIT to “just let go.”
Finally, so long as we hate someone (or some group, faction, nationality, etc) there’s no hope of moving forward. Instead, if we bring ourselves to compliment someone who in the past may have caused us problems, IT OFFERS SOMETHING NEW a new possibility to get over the past conflicts, misunderstandings. And it may even invite the other person (or faction) to re-evaluate his or her opinion of us (“Hey, this person or group isn’t as perhaps as bad as I thought they were...”) In anycase if _we choose_ to do nothing, nothing will ever change. And if we start being nice even to those who haven’t been exactly nice to us, we may discover just how “light” our previous “load” has become.
So this year I’ve certainly become more convinced that Jesus really came here to tell us that God’s “yoke really is easy and burden light.” And this is Good News, if one ever heard some.
So the Readings this Sunday and really during all these recent Sundays do give us a lot to think about and an opportunity (as they always do) to change our lives.
Let’s seek to take Jesus’ invitation and relieve our burden of past hurts and hatreds and make our lives a bit lighter as a result ...
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