Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

The Logic Of The Son Of God

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, February 20, 2022

After giving the beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus demands that his followers do something that is quite frankly counter-intuitive, counter-cultural and unconventional: love your enemies. I assume that people’s immediate reaction back then and today is probably the same: how can I love someone who has hurt me? Lots of modern people will find the Lord’s injunction particularly difficult because in modern interpretation, the word “love” is wrapped up with our emotions, passions and feelings towards another person. So, when we say we love someone, we mean we have good feelings towards a person who makes us happy. We delight in their presence and company. In the modern interpretation, there is emphasis on feelings when we talk about love. Love is frequently associated with romantic love, hence the common expression you hear is, ‘I am in love with him or her.’ So, when a modern person reads or hears Jesus’ command to love your enemies, the question that quickly comes to their mind is ‘how can I have romantic love with my enemy?’ It will most likely sound like a ridiculous command. 

But Jesus is not using the word “love” in the way it is being used today. For Jesus, love is more than a feeling. With specific instructions, he teaches that loving your enemies requires three concrete things. First, Jesus says, “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…” Even though they hate you, you don’t return an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Even though they despise you, give you something evil, you return it with good actions. Second, Jesus says, “…bless those who curse you…” If someone curses you, you are to bless them. So, the command here is not only to do good to your enemies, but to speak good to them. You do good with your actions and bless them with your words. Jesus wants the words of our mouth and actions of our life towards our enemies to be good. He does not want pretentiousness, a situation where we say one thing and do another or we do one thing and say another. He wants our overall attitude towards our enemies to be in tandem—to be good. Third, Jesus says, “…pray for those who mistreat (or abuse) you.” The third command is quite crucial because whereas the other two— good actions and blessing require certain amount of interaction and contact, the third command doesn’t require direct contact. So, even if you don’t come into contact with someone who is an enemy, you can always pray for that person. What kind of prayer? The prayer is for God to bless and do good to that person who wishes harm to you. This is what loving your enemies is all about, and as you can see, it is really counter-intuitive. 

Why must I pray for an enemy? Because prayer is an expression of love. What is love? For St. Thomas Aquinas, to love is to consistently will and choose the good of the other. It is to act in such a way as to bring good to another. This notion of love, which is called agape, is not rooted in emotion. It is rooted in the will. It is rooted in the choices that we make. So, to do good, to say good things, and to pray for your enemies are the three concrete actions that Jesus gives us as he unpacks the meaning of love your enemies. Get this clearly, none of these will come naturally to you. It won’t come naturally to you to spend an hour or thirty minutes or even two minutes praying for an enemy. You won’t find it easy praying the rosary for someone who betrayed you, who stole your job, who got you fired or hurt your family. You need to desire it and then ask the Lord to help you. 

Jesus also gives us a list of commands that are parabolically striking: “To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.” Mark this, everything the Lord said here— that is, the image of non-resistance, the image of prodigal generosity, the idea of lending without expecting payback is quite crazy. On a passing glance and at a surface, they seem irrational. But when looked at the depth, it is not irrational but super-rational. It’s like the blessings and the woes. When you look at St. Luke’s version of the beatitudes at the surface, it looks really irrational for the Lord to say, “Blessed are you who are hungry, blessed are you who are poor.” On the surface, the hungry and the poor are the cursed and punished ones. But the paradox is that they are the blessed ones. Why? Because they are not caught up in an addictive pattern of making earthly goods and values their god. The logic of this world says that if you are wealthy, powerful, famous, honored, and surrounded by sensual pleasures, you are indeed blessed. But the logic of the Kingdom of heaven, the logic of the Son of God is that you are blessed and favored if you not addicted to any earthly goods that could become your god. Jesus comes into this world to be struck on the cheek in his passion and not fight back. He comes to this world poor for our sake so that we might be saved. He gives his life to everyone even the ones he knows will reject him. The logic of the Kingdom and the cross is what Jesus is talking about in this Gospel passage. In the beatitudes, he is teaching us the mystery of the cross and in this passage, he is teaching the same mystery in the command to love your enemy. Why? Because to love one’s enemy is calvary.

In addition, Jesus says what is famously called the Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” How do we usually interpret the Golden Rule? Don’t do this to me so that I don’t do it to you or I will like you to do this for me so that I in return will do it you you. To an extent, it is part of it but it goes way beyond that when you look at it in context. Jesus is calling us to show to others, especially our enemies the kind of gratuitous love he showed us on the cross. In its context, the Golden Rule is really striking. As you would have others do to you, do so to them. Would you want them to pray for you even when you hurt them? Would you want them to do good to you even when you do evil to them? Would you want them to bless you even if you curse them? If you fall into sin, if you struggle with anger, resentment, substance abuse and you want people to love you even when you act like an enemy to them, do likewise if the table were to turn. I think that is the context Jesus is giving us here. He’s calling for a radical love in the Golden Rule, love that is not irrational but super-rational because it is supernatural.