Please click here for a printable PDF version of this document.    

Well, I have no statistics to go on, but I would say that this is possibly the least observed text in the whole New Testament. There has been more spin-doctoring done on this passage than perhaps on any other. Because of the weakness of our human condition, we keep watering it down and accommodating it to the norms of society as it exists at any particular time. So, do we just skip over the entire passage as something impossible? I don’t think so. I believe that we have to take a good hard look at it and, more importantly, a good hard look at ourselves and our values.

“Turn the other cheek.” Total, non-violence, pacificist. Impossibly idealistic? For me, yes, perhaps, but not for many Christians. Thursday evening, here, we had a Jesuit priest talking to us, Father John Dear, who does practice total non-violence. It is practiced by many Christians, the Society of Friends, or Quakers, as they are known, the Amish people.... It was not impossible for the greatest exponent of non-violence in the last century, Mahatma Ghandi, a non-Christian. He puts us to shame. When attacked and beaten up by police, he just stood there and accepted it. So, it is possible to live by the word of Christ. If it was possible for a non-Christian, surely it should at least be possible for those who profess to follow Christ.

Having said that, Christian theologians have always taught that an individual or a society or a country has a right to self-defense and a right to defend others in the face of aggression, but that the force we use must be in proportion to the force used against us. I believe that Jesus would concede that right of self-defense, but that He and many of His Christian followers and a non-Christian Ghandi chose, chose not to exercise that right. Do you remember when Peter cut off the ear of the servant of the High Priest, Jesus said, “Put your sword back in its sheath.” He chose not to resist. He chose not to resort to violence in response to violence.

I think that the intent of the gospel passage today is to urge us to adopt new attitudes towards others, new ways of thinking about others.... Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Be compassionate. Do not judge. Do not condemn. Pardon. This, of course, is contrary to all the accepted norms of our society. But Jesus teaches that accepted norms are just not good enough. He is urging us to something higher, something more noble, something more generous. And why? Because we are all God’s children, He who makes the sun rise on the just and the unjust. “Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

“Love your enemies.” What a concept! It does not mean approval of evil, acceptance of evil. It doesn’t even mean that we have to like everybody. Hey, there are some people I don’t like, present company excluded of course. It’s reality. There are some people who are just not likeable. Let’s face it. But we are asked to love everybody. And that’s a very, very different thing. It goes way beyond liking. It means for a start, that we wish them no harm. Indeed that we wish them good, in the sense that we wish them repentance and a change of heart. We pray for them. Why? Because that is how God loves them and how God loves us. It’s as simple as that.

This is the very heart of the Bible. It’s the very heart of what this whole passage is about. That is how God loves them and loves us. It is not easy for us to do that, certainly not. We know that from our own personal experience, sad experience. But then, there is no Christian life without struggle, without effort, without sacrifice. Christian norms go beyond societal norms. Indeed they are constantly challenging societal norms. Anger, bitterness of spirit, hatred.... They only just corrode and corrupt ourselves from within. There can be no peace of soul where they rule because God is not there. Hatred can only be defeated by love. Evil can only be controlled by goodness. Injury can be healed only by forgiveness. This is a lesson that the people in South Africa learned. After the terrible evils and oppression of apartheid, they set up a whole commission of reconciliation, of forgiveness, and they are striving to do that.

Love creates its own reality, its own force for goodness. That is the lesson of God’s love for us. That is the lesson that Jesus is teaching in this gospel passage. That is the lesson that we hope will be the lesson of our lives as well. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give and it shall be given to you. Amen.