Eliminate Your Enemies

 

We know the great commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. We heard it in our first reading today from Leviticus. Jesus didn’t make up that law, he was just restating it. Today we hear the admonition from Jesus to love our enemies, too. I think the easiest way to love our neighbors is to eliminate them. That’s not as violent as it sounds. It’s actually quite simple. Just see your enemies as your neighbors.

Jesus defined who our neighbor is with the parable of the Good Samaritan, but he doesn’t really ever define what an enemy is. Is that because we all know what an enemy is? Probably not.

The Good Samaritan and the Jew were technically enemies, even though they didn’t know one another. Their societies hated one another going back hundreds of years. Jesus turned this parable on its head. He began it as a response to the arrogant lawyer’s question, “But who is my neighbor”. And the Jews listening expected that the person who would be the neighbor would be the Jew, but it was the person who showed compassion to the enemy who was the neighbor to him. We always think the enemy is the other guy. We never see the enemy as our neighbor.

The neighbor was the one who showed compassion. Jesus didn’t say that the Samaritan and the Jew became friends, or if they ever even met again. Loving your enemies is simply being compassionate in the moment. It is putting aside any prejudices and fears and enmity and just acting in the moment. We don’t know the Samaritan’s motivation. He just acted. Jesus doesn’t say why the enemy acted the way he did; he just acted.

It all boils down to how you view others, how you treat others, no matter who they are, no matter if you think they deserve to be treated badly or not. Like the Good Samaritan, we are called to act with compassion as our motivation and our intention. Don’t worry about the rest.

Wouldn’t that be a simpler way to live? Instead of seeing people as groups or stereotypes or whatever the way you want to classify them, just show them compassion in the moment. Just act as you will. Just go with your gut. Run into the burning building no matter who lives there. In the heat of the moment I think we would all act correctly. It’s those slow burning issues and the things we have to think through that give us fits.

The term neighbor is naturally local. We all live in neighborhoods and our neighbors are those who live close to us. Enemies I think we view from a more distant perspective. I am a history buff, especially military history. To me, the enemies are the Germans or the Japanese or the Russians. They don’t have faces or names. But for most of us our enemies really are those closest to us.

It is said that you can know a lot about a person by knowing who their enemies are. Who are your enemies? You will always have people who disagree with your ideas and positions, who hold prejudice against you just because of your race or religion or social status. You will have people who actually hate you for something you did or said. Many of these you will be unaware of. Most enemies don’t openly attack you or even have a relationship with you. Others are much more vocal and public. Either way, it hurts us to think that people don’t like us. But some enemies are worth having.

Enemies spring up whenever we do something controversial, or good, or these days, just about anything will make someone your enemy it seems. The only people who have no enemies are those who do nothing, say nothing, or stand for nothing. You will have enemies whether you like it or not, whether you choose to have them or not. People will choose to be your enemies and there may be nothing you will ever be able to do to change their minds or win them to your side. As long as there is sin there will be enemies. As long as you are a Christian you will have enemies. It goes with the territory.

You can choose not to view people as enemies. Why not think of them as opponents instead? The term enemy has an undercurrent of violence to it. An enemy doesn’t just oppose you they wish you harm. It has an undercurrent of hatred attached to it. We don’t hate our opponents. Often they can cause us to step up our game, to try to persuade rather than attack and hurt. We can have and can be worthy opponents.

Do you really hate anyone? Loving your enemies does not mean you have to give in to them when they hurt you. It doesn’t mean we are to roll over and play dead. Loving your enemies when they are in the wrong often means opposing them and their positions forcefully and publicly. Admonishing the sinner is one of the spiritual works of mercy. Admonishing isn’t attacking but is a sign of love.

What if they held a war and nobody showed up. Is it still a war? Doesn’t it take two to have a conflict? And how many of those enemies are we allowing to live rent free in our heads, when they probably are not even thinking about us? How many enemies do we make up in our minds? Let it go. What sins you forgive are forgiven them, and what sins you retain are retained. How many sins are you retaining? A grudge hurts you more than them.

But you don’t have to view them as enemies. You do not have to treat them as enemies. However, you don’t have to have a relationship with anyone to love them. Love is much bigger than that. You don’t have to agree with someone to love them, in fact, the bigger love is to love them in spite of your disagreements. You can show great love for an enemy simply by not treating them the way they treat you.

Eliminate your enemies by making them your opponents. But Jesus went even further. He did in fact love his enemies.

Jesus made some very powerful enemies of the religious and political leaders of his day. How did Jesus show love to his enemies? By forgiving them. Even from the cross. Even though they would remain his enemies. Even though they rejected the salvation he offered them. Even though the thought of that caused him just as much, if not more, suffering as the nails in his hands and in his feet. Continue to offer reconciliation. Leave your offering at the altar and go be reconciled to your brother. See your enemy as your brother. Forgive them even if they won’t forgive you, even if they don’t think they need forgiveness. Especially forgive those who have no awareness that they ever hurt you, or even that you consider them an enemy. Maybe they really aren’t. And take the time this lent to think how you are an enemy to others, an enemy vs. just an opponent. Pray for everyone, especially those who persecute you.

Pray for your enemies. I guess you could pray that they start to see things like you do, or that they will stop bothering you, but your enemies may never agree with you or leave you alone, so pray instead for their happiness, for their family, for the problems they are having in their life. Everyone has problems. The Good Samaritan didn’t try to win his enemy over, he just helped him with his problems.

We Boomers remember the famous comic strip, Pogo, with the famous saying, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” Oftentimes we are our own worst enemy, aren’t we? Don’t be an enemy to anyone. Forgive everyone. Show compassion for everyone, especially for yourself.

But why do this? What is the benefit of loving your enemies?

There are many times that Jesus tells his disciples to do things because by doing so it will gain them a place in heaven, will store up treasures in heaven, who will be the least in the kingdom of heaven and who will be the greatest. But is that why we should love one another? Is it just for our own benefit? Yes, we are to work out our own salvation in fear and trembling, but we are also called to lead others to salvation. We are all about saving souls, ours and our neighbors…and our enemies.

Eliminate your enemies by seeing them as your neighbors, treating them as you neighbors, loving them as your neighbors. Ironically, the way we are to gain everything for ourselves is to give everything to others, especially when it is hard.

Behold the Lamb of God

 

2^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time    

Behold the Lamb of God

Jesus’ baptism was one of the defining events of his life and his public ministry. We just celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord last Monday, so it is also a major event in the life of the Church. This story is one of the few that are recounted in all four gospels. Mark actually begins his gospel with this story, and Matthew and Luke’s accounts are very similar. And we know the story well. Jesus appears at the Jordan River where John is baptizing and is baptized himself. Upon leaving the water, the Holy Spirit descends upon him in the form of a dove, and a voice from heaven says “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”. And something powerful happened to Jesus at that time. It was as if the Holy Spirit had invaded Jesus and drove him forward in his public ministry. He begins here and does not stop until Calvary.

As usual, John’s account is different than the others. John does not say that Jesus was actually baptized. All we hear today is that Jesus was walking along the banks of the Jordan and John saw him and exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God!” That’s a curious statement, isn’t it? Why didn’t John say something like, “Hey, there’s my cousin Jesus! Look everybody, he’s the one I’ve been telling you about.” Instead, John uses some strange reference to the Lamb of God.

But John’s disciples knew exactly what he was talking about. They had an image and understanding of who the Lamb of God was to be. The Lamb of God referenced the messiah. They had been waiting for him for centuries, and their anticipation of the coming messiah was at a fever pitch at this time in history. At first they thought that John himself might be the one, but he spoke of someone else, someone so great and powerful that he was unfit to even untie his sandals. John’s baptism with water was one of repentance in preparation for the coming of the one who would baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. This coming Messiah would bring forgiveness of sin and salvation to the entire world, not just to the Jews. It was as Isaiah foretold in our first reading today, “I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

We hear constant references to the Lamb of God during every Mass; we know that it refers to the role of Jesus as the sacrificial lamb who died on the cross to take away our sins, but to the Jews of Jesus’ day the Lamb of God meant something different.

We think of lambs as being submissive creatures who are easily led about. We even use the term derisively. Don’t be a sheep, don’t follow blindly, think for yourself. Sheep are weak, sheep are docile, sheep are creatures to be used by the strong. But to the Jews, the Lamb of God was someone strong. Their image of the Lamb of God went back to the prophet Isaiah, who prophesized about the coming messiah, the Suffering Servant. “Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; Like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth.”

To the Jews, the silent strength of the Lamb was to overcome the evil of the world. Even though the Lamb had the ability to overpower the kingdoms of the world he would choose not to. Instead, he would meekly submit to the will of God and his death would be the vehicle used to bring salvation to the world.

Another image the Jews had of the Lamb of God was that of a powerful liberator. During the third century BC, the Jewish liberator Judas Maccabeus, Judas the Hammer, led a rebellion against the Greeks that established the free rule in Judea for over a hundred years. Judas’ symbol was the lamb and he was called the Lamb of God. These two references, in Isaiah and in Maccabees, were to a strong leader who would free Israel from oppression and restore her to her rightful place among the nations. To John’s disciples, the Lamb of God meant the messiah. This lamb is not a docile victim. This lamb is a hammer. This lamb is an active victim.

The role of the lamb was central to Jewish worship and their understanding of their relationship with God. Lambs were used as the primary sacrifice to God in the temple. But not just any lamb. It had to be a pure white lamb, unblemished, with no spot or imperfection, preferably the first born. The lamb had to be given and sacrificed with no reservation; you had to give it willingly and not under duress.

The lamb was slaughtered on the altar of the temple and its blood was collected into bowls, to be sprinkled on the altar and on the people as a sign that their sins were forgiven.  The symbolism of the lamb’s blood was very powerful. The life force of the lamb was in its blood, and when that blood was poured out and sprinkled on the people they shared in its power.

Can you see how John the Evangelist and Jesus’ disciples would view the image of Jesus as the Lamb of God, especially after they had witnessed his passion, death and resurrection? They would look back at Jesus’ life, teachings, and actions and see so many signs pointing to the Lamb of God. Jesus was the first born son, without blemish, perfect, who willingly gave himself up to be sacrificed for the people’s sins on the cross. St. John even places the time of Jesus’ death on the day before the Passover at the hour when all the lambs were slaughtered in the temple. Jesus’ blood was shed on the cross in sight of the temple and sprinkled on all mankind for the forgiveness of sins.

The Lamb entered Christian tradition not bleating but roaring. St. John in the Book of Revelation uses the term in reference to Christ twenty-nine times in twenty-two chapters. We shall speak of Jesus as the Lamb five times in today's Liturgy. See if you can spot each one. Recall the number of canvases, frescoes, stained glass windows, and vestments on which you have seen the Lamb drawn. It is among the most popular symbols in Christendom. 

And the images of shedding blood and baptism are so closely linked in the scriptures and in the life of the church. Jesus himself exclaimed to his disciples when they asked him for positions of honor in the kingdom of heaven, "You don't know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" St. Paul told the Romans, “Don’t you know that when you were baptized you were baptized into his death?” Dying to self and sin is what baptism is all about. Can you see how and why John the Baptist would call Jesus the Lamb of God at the time of his baptism?

Immediately following this passage from John’s gospel is the calling of the first apostles. You could say that John the Baptist was one of the first disciples himself. He himself had been searching for the messiah and had been having a hard time identifying him. When John finally received his sign from heaven that Jesus was the one, the first thing he did was point Jesus out to his own disciples, and told them to follow him instead.

John was a man searching for the messiah and when he found him, he gave him away to others. He was not in it for himself but told his disciples to leave him to follow Jesus. John knew that Jesus had to increase and he had to fade away. As soon as John gave away all his disciples to Jesus he was arrested, imprisoned and then killed. That was John’s role in the plan of salvation, and in a way, it is our role also. We may not be called to suffer as John did, but we too must die to self and give Jesus away to others. As St. Paul said, we must decrease and Christ must increase. And we do this in so many ways in our daily lives.

How many times are you the herald of Jesus to others who are desperately searching for Him?

How many times have you been searching in the wilderness for God and found him only when someone else pointed him out to you?

How many times do you ask for something from God and don’t recognize that your prayers have been answered until someone else points it out to you?

And when you find Jesus, do you hoard him or do you give him away like John did?

Have you found your own personal Jesus and want to keep him to yourself? Jesus is just too big for us to keep all to ourselves.

Can you see Jesus in others, especially in those who suffer?

How many times have you seen someone poor and downtrodden and exclaimed, “Behold the Lamb of God!”

John’s disciples followed Jesus because they trusted John. How many times have people trusted God because of you and your discipleship?

Now we to have seen and testify that He is the Son of God.

 

 

 

The 3 Cs

 

32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

2 Macc 7: 1-2, 9-14

2 Thess 2: 16-3:5

Lk 20: 27-38

 

There are some things worth dying for.

 

We hear a story today of great courage based upon strong faith and conviction. The story of the Maccabees isn’t read very often in our liturgy, and in fact, is not even included in Protestant bibles, so you may not be very aware of it. Our first reading today is pretty gruesome, and we only hear the middle of the story. There were actually seven brothers and their mother, and the mother was forced to watch all of her sons be killed before she herself was killed. Why were these poor people being tortured and killed, and what had led them to make the decision to resist so stubbornly?

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, there was a struggle for control of Israel, Egypt and Syria. Eventually the Seleucids from Syria gained control and began a program of Hellenization that sought to force the Jews to abandon their monotheism for the Greek’s paganism. They erected a shrine to the Greek god Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem, outlawed circumcision, and forced the Jews to either eat pork as a sign of abandoning their law or be tortured and killed. That is the choice that faced the seven brothers in today’s reading.

To the Jews, this was more than just a religious struggle. This was a struggle for their identity as a people. They saw the Law as being both a sign of their fidelity to God and a symbol of themselves as a nation. It is easy to see why they would resist the Greek’s effort to assimilate them. They could not in good conscience go against the Law. They chose death over assimiliation.

They were willing to die for their faith. They had such strong conviction that they were able to withstand horrible pain and suffer death rather than go against the central tenant of their being – faithfulness to God. Do you have such a conviction about anything in your life? Is there anything you would be willing to die for? I think most of us would give our lives for those we love, especially for our family. At least we like to believe we would. But most of us will never be faced with that choice. I know I haven’t and really don’t ever want to be. I have a thing about pain. I can relate with the quote from Flannery O’Connor, “I don’t think I can be a saint, but I think I could be a martyr if they kill me real quick”.

Hopefully we will never face that ultimate choice. Deliver us from evil, we pray. But life is full of thousands of less dire decisions that by themselves probably won’t tip the balance but taken together over our lifetimes actually affect how we will be judged by God. And the driver of all our decisions is our conscience.

When we consider questions of faith and morals, we always refer to the primacy of our conscience. We must follow our conscience. That is true, but that doesn’t absolve us from responsibility, in fact, it increases it. We are each responsible fully for our own decisions and actions. All our actions have consequences and therefore we shouldn’t make decisions, especially important decisions, lightly or without weighing things carefully. All the doctrines and dogmas, rules and regulations of the Church and society are there to inform and guide us, but we are responsible. We are the ones who will be judged by God for what we have done in this life, and so I guess ultimately it is our conscience that is the final arbiter of our decisions. But then our consciences are the final determiner of the consequences, too.

So many people use this reasoning as a rationalization and excuse to do whatever they like, because their conscience tells them it’s ok. You may follow your conscience down the wrong path. And sincerity has little to do with it. You might be very sincere in your beliefs, but you might be sincerely wrong. This is especially the case in today’s society where we believe that there are few or no immutable truths. All is relative to what I believe my conscience is telling me. That is not what we believe as Catholics. While we do believe in the primacy of conscience, that conscience must be formed correctly. It isn’t up to us what is right and what is wrong.

You will form your conscience whether you do it consciously or not. If you don’t do it yourself, it will be done for you by all the outside opinions and pressures of the world.  It is formed by your life experiences, your moral upbringing and belief, and your faith, or lack of faith, in God. As faithful Catholics, we are called to constantly be forming our consciences. It is not that right and wrong are constantly changing, it’s that our understanding of right and wrong develops and grows as we do. As Catholics, we are required to form our consciences within the teachings and guidance of the Church. Not because we blindly follow the law, but because, like the Maccabees, our faith defines who we are. Our relationship with God is central to our lives, because we are all called to build up the kingdom. We can abide by changes in thought and practice in society to a certain extent, but eventually we will be called upon to make a choice. It seems that more and more society’s norms are in direct opposition to our consciences. Some choices are easy and obvious, others are actually between life and death.

Just as conscience is not developed in a vacuum, it does not exist by itself. It should always be accompanied by courage and conviction. Conscience is what we turn to to make decisions, but we are then called to act on those decisions. Many times it is easier to make the decision than to do something about it. Where do we get the courage to act? Remember that decisions have consequences. Courage comes into play when we are aware of what might happen if we act.

Some things are worth fighting for.

There are two consequences to every action. One is the immediate consequence and the other is the eternal consequence. In today’s world, acting morally or in accordance with your faith has a real chance of getting you canceled, banned, ostracized, fired or even killed. There seem to be no more private actions. Everyone seems to be in everybody’s business. Even a simple comment to a social media post can destroy you. It takes courage to speak out and live the calling you received at your baptism to be a prophet, to speak truth to power and stand up for the oppressed. But that is what we are all called to do because of our baptism.

What gives courage its power and purpose is hope. Courage lives or dies based upon hope. We weigh the risks against the benefits and decide to act. Just as there are eternal consequences to our immoral choices, there is hope of eternal life in our moral choices. The thing that gave the Maccabees the courage to resist was their hope in what was to come. They believed that they would be raised again by their God to a glorious future. It was that hope that drove them to resist. It was that hope that gave them their courage. It was their courage that led to their conviction. We share that same hope in the resurrection. But do we share their conviction? Is our hope in eternal life with God enough to guide all our decisions, all our actions, even when faced with hardship and suffering?

Some things are worth living for.

Keep your eye on the prize. Our goal is no less than eternal life. All else in this life pales in comparison. Jesus said, “What does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world but lose his soul? Or what should a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Brothers and Sisters, may the Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father,

Who has loved us and given us lasting encouragement,

And good hope through his grace,

Encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.