Tuesday in the 11th Week of Ordinary Time, June 18, 2024

Matthew 5, 43-48

Jesus said to his disciples: “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.”

Why did the people go out into the wilderness to listen to Jesus?  Not uncommonly, they would stay with him through more than one day, even going without meals, and sleeping on the ground.  What did the Lord offer them?  He he received no official recognition from either the Pharisees in Galilee or the priests and the elders in Judea.  To the contrary, these made no secret of their opposition to him.  To answer the question, we might quote the Lord’s own words regarding John the Baptist: “What went you out into the desert to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what went you out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold those who are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings. But what went you out to see? A prophet? Yea I tell you, and more than a prophet” (Matthew 11, 7-9).  John the Baptist was “more than a prophet” because he had been cleansed of original sin in his mother’s womb, and because the prophets of old, particularly Malachi, had spoken of him.  But most of all because he spoke of the imminent arrival of the Redeemer, and lived in expectation of his coming.  But if John indeed was “more than a prophet” and greater than any man born of woman (cf. Matthew 7, 11) until the Birth of Christ, the people knew that Jesus surpassed him in word and in power: “John indeed did no sign. But all things whatsoever John said of this man were true”, and so “Many believed in him” (John 10, 41). 

“You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”  While the Old Law insists on certain practices, such as the dietary and marriage laws, that in practice separate the Jews from the Gentiles, it never required that the Jews hate their enemy.  Jesus, therefore, is not quoting from the Old Testament in saying this, nor does he claim to do so.  On the other hand, hatred for certain groups had arisen over time, and was made a sort of addendum to the Law.  One example is the animosity borne by the Jews, at least those from Judea, towards the Samaritans.  The tax collectors were also hated and ostracized, as well as prostitutes and others simply known as “sinners”.  Jesus, then, is speaking not of a dictate of the Law, but of something all the same taught by the Pharisees.  He counters this by telling his disciples, “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  While Jesus often used hyperbole to make his points, he does not do so here.  We detect hyperbole when the Lord speaks of the impossible; but praying for one’s enemies and persecutors is something that can be done, hard though it may be.  But for what does one pray when it comes to one’s enemies?  For their conversion.  And why do we do this?  “That you may be children of your Heavenly Father.”  That is, the children do what they see their Father doing, and he “makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”  The Lord beautifully speaks of the infinite and unstoppable love of God in this way.  That is not to say that the wicked benefit from God’s love: the lazy waste the sunshine of the day and curse the rain as though it existed only to inconvenience them.  But Almighty God does not allow anyone’s behavior to prevent him from loving them, of changing who he is.  You must love like this, Jesus says to us.  In this way we love not like mere humans but like God: “For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?”  We must become like him if we are to share our Master’s joy (cf. Matthew 25, 21).  And we can become like him.  Indeed, Christ commands it: “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  

It would seem that the commandment to be perfect is beyond our abilities.  A common saying — or, excuse — among us humans is, “No one is perfect.”  We also say, “To err is human.”  But with the grace of God we can become perfect in the one thing in which we are commanded to be perfect: in loving.  We can love perfectly, and if we doubt this we only need to look at the lives of the saints and to realize that these were not demigods destined not to fail, but our fellow humans who could have directed their lives in any way they chose, but they chose to direct them to God.  As for “To err is human”, G.K. Chesterton marvelously observed that in fact “to err” is inhuman; it is not what we were made for.  So let us love, keeping in mind that love is a sacrifice which we make — ultimately for the sake of the love God has for us.