The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, February 19, 2023

Matthew 5, 38–48

Jesus said to his disciples: “You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one as well. If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand over your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow. “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

The Lord Jesus speaks many hard words to us and gives us many hard commandments to obey.  His calling “lust” a sin as deadly as adultery places a serious burden on us, and not just on the young.  Now, at the beginning of today’s Gospel Reading, he issues commandments such as these: “Offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one as well.”  On their face, these words seem impossible to follow.  They run completely contrary to the most basic  instinct of any living thing, that of self-preservation.  But let us see what they really mean, for just as the Lord does not mean for us to cut off our hands and eyes lest we sin with them, he does not command us to refuse to protect ourselves and those in our care.  The Lord is saying that if someone commits an evil act against us — he assaults or robs us — we are not free to reply with evil of the same level or kind.  As an example, the Russians have evidently committed terrible crimes against humanity in their war against the Ukrainians.  The Ukrainians are free to defend themselves and to seek just for these crimes, but they are not free to commit similar crimes against the Russians.  In the case of the Lord Jesus himself, when he was struck by the guard for speaking to the high priest, he rebuked him, but he did not destroy him, as he could have.  And divine justice was enacted at the end of that guard’s life.  So we are not to act as our enemies act, and this is the sense of the quote of the Law with which Jesus begins this section of his Sermon: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”  The follower of Jesus does not exact revenge.  St. Paul explains this simply for the Gentile Christians in Rome: “To no man rendering evil for evil, providing good things, not only in the sight of God but also in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as is in you, have peace with all men. Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but leave wrath to God, for it is written: Revenge is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12, 17-29).

“If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand over your cloak as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go for two miles. Give to the one who asks of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow.”  The Lord here speaks about how a fundamental disposition of the Christian is generosity.  He is not making hard and fast rules, for according to the Law, a Jew could not take the cloak of another Jew if that was all he had to sleep in, and a Jew could walk a mile on the Sabbath, but that was the limit.  “Give to the one who asks of you” does not mean necessarily to give what the person is asking for, for as the Lord will point out, “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?” (Luke 11, 11-12).  So if a person asks us to give him that which will not be good for him, the person should give something that will be, such as food instead the means for buying drugs or alcohol.  

“He makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”  The Lord repeats his principle of not treating the wicked with wickedness, and grounds it in the justice of the Father.

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  We should be careful when we come to this word “perfect”.  The Greek word from which this word is translated has the sense of “completeness”, especially a completeness in all one’s parts.  The word implies a growth and a fullness to the growth so that the person or thing is complete: it is what it is meant to be.  The Lord is telling us to be complete so that the following of his Law comes easily and naturally to us.  He is also speaking of our growth in grace so that we are as filled with grace as we can be, for our beings are finite unlike his.  The saints are thus “perfect” because they are complete in grace and holiness.  They have carried on their vocations in obedience.  They had been given five talents and they then traded with them and received five back — that is to say, they achieved all that they were able to achieve, with the help of God.

And so can we, by loving others, praying for them, seeking their good, imitating the Lord Jesus as best we can.