“That’s stupid! That’s the reaction I had one time to that particular reading that we just heard about turning the other cheek that it sounds humanly stupid. Why would I turn the other cheek? In those days the Romans could force a person to carry something one mile. Why should I go two miles? It really kind of goes against our grain and there’s no question about that. It goes against the human inclinations that we have. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth started out as a very positive thing. Instead of both eyes, when one was put out it was reduce it to one and so it was an act of mercy in the code of law at the time and now we use it almost as an act of justice as punishment rather than mercy, so there’s something really against the grain that Jesus is talking about in these readings and it’s hard for us to I think get our head around them at least it is for me, but it is a great challenge because what Jesus is saying first of all is, ‘Don’t step down. Don’t reduce yourself in your behavior to that of the lowest, but rather act above that.’ I think that’s the first message because it’s temptation for us to lower ourselves if somebody does something violent to me, yes that natural response is to go down to their level, where I think Jesus is saying, ‘No, take the higher road. Stay up on the top. Don’t go down to that level. Don’t reduce yourself because of the evil of someone else and in fact, go beyond that and kill them with kindness.’ Kill them with kindness that’s the other part of that. Kill them with that generosity. Kill them with that awareness of your care and your generous self-giving even when there is no reciprocation to that. Those are hard messages, but I think they are important for us and that we are called truly to love those who are our enemies. That’s always difficult. During the course of war it’s always hard to pray for the enemy because we think we are praying to approve. No, we are praying that God’s grace will somehow touch the heart of all and Jesus was the first religious leader that ever preached to pray for your enemies and so that is a radically new thing with Christ is to pray for those who are seen as opposing us, but once again in prayer enemies can begin to speak to one another and maybe reconciliation and peace can take place. To pray for our enemies to pray for those with whom we have some challenges or difficulties is one of the best ways to move forward in a true human and divine spirit and that very last line of Jesus in the Gospel, ‘Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.’ Wow! That’s a tough one. We’re called to be perfect as God is perfect? Maybe what we are really called to do is to keep striving to be perfect as God is perfect.
Jesus challenges us to be our very best self. By reason of our baptisms we are truly sons and daughters of God. We share in the very life of God himself and that is the reason why we are called to be ever more God like within our lives that that is the challenge that is there and what is Heaven except as being perfect as God is perfect? That’s what Heaven is about and we are called to begin to experience the reality of Heaven today as we seek to a welcome and to reflect ever more fully that reflection of God within our own lives. These are challenging words, but they certainly are words that enable us to become our very best self to realize the dignity that we have and to continue to strive to live out that dignity each day.
This Wednesday we begin Lent. It’s a great opportunity for us to stop and think about our spiritual life about how am I becoming more God-like within my own life? What quality of virtue is the Lord calling me to grow in maybe particularly this Lenten season? To take the time over the next couple of days to reflect upon those questions of what is God’s grace inviting me to? Maybe it’s a deeper time of prayer? Maybe it’s a greater relationship with the scriptures. Maybe it’s reaching out in reconciliation to someone who has hurt us or whom I have hurt? Maybe it is just taking time to be more generous in sharing my time, my finances with those in need. Those are some of the practices of Lent that are so important, but Lent is a very personal time. It’s a time of conversion. It’s a time of change and most of all it’s a time of growth, of growth in the spirit of Jesus. Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Always strive after the perfection that is God because that is our call for all eternity.”