Monday in the Second Week of Lent, February 26, 2024

Luke 6, 36-38

Jesus said to his disciples: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”

In the Gospel reading for today’s Mass, the Lord is giving commandments in a way that reminds us of how Moses gave the Law to the Hebrews.  He goes from one law to the next, accepting no questions, and not relying on previous authorities.  The Lord gives these on his own authority.  Very often, when laws are made they seem to primarily benefit the ones who make them.  Here, the laws do not benefit the Lord at all, but greatly benefit the ones for whom he made them.  First, there is the great benefit of having his law.  Before the Lord came into our world the human race stumbled about in a dark maze, unable to find its way out, or, indeed, if it was supposed to find its way out.  The light provided by the laws of Christ provide a way to see and his grace provided a means of following that light.  Second, these laws that he gives show his love for all of us since they are made for all of us, and not for a subset of people.  Third, his laws guide us safely through this life into eternal life.

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”  This law can be retranslated as “Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate to you.”  We do not earn his compassion nor does he owe it to us.  We cannot buy it, demand it, or expect it.  He gives it to us not because of who we are but because of who he is.  Therefore we give it to others not because of who they are, but who we are.  Now, we cannot be compassionate to the extent that the Father is because we are not infinite.  We are limited in what we can do.  But we do what we can for others even when we recognize the reality that we often cannot do as much as we want. 

“Stop judging and you will not be judged.”  The Lord does not command us here not to form informed opinions or not to go by our own experience when we encounter others whom we do not know.  He is saying for us to wait until the facts come out in a situation before making up our minds as to someone’s innocence or guilt.  We are not to jump to conclusions or to look for reasons to hate someone.  “You will not be judged”, that is, we will all be judged at the end of our lives, and on the last day when Jesus comes again, but that judgment will be entirely fair and it will be rendered by God, who knows all things.  He will not act aggressively, he will not frame evidence against us, he will not listen to lies uttered against us.  In short, he will not judge in the way that people usually judge each other.

“Forgive and you will be forgiven.”  We show our desire to be forgiven in our forgiveness of others.  As with compassion, we bestow forgiveness not because of who those who have harmed us are, but because of who we are: the adopted sons and daughters of Almighty God.  In fact, we give proof of who we are by forgiving, imitating our God who is much more anxious to forgive us than we are to ask for forgiveness.

“Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.”  How often we see this in the Scriptures and in our lives!  The Lord Jesus does not merely make wine from water for the wedding couple at Cana, he makes the best possible wine.  He does not merely make just enough food for the crowds which he feeds in the wilderness, he makes a great deal more than enough.  He does not merely stop storms threatening to capsize Peter’s ship, he completely and in an instant  calms the sea and dispels the clouds.  He does not merely die for us to set us free from sin, he dies the hideous and grievous death of the cross.  This bountiful giving brings to mind the Lord’s words in Matthew 10, 8: “Freely you have received: freely give.”  The Lord has given so much to us that we can share it and not miss any of it.  

“For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”  This rule helps us to tell how much we have done and how much we still have to do.  In giving our whole self to Christ, we receive his whole self in the Kingdom of Heaven.