February 18, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
1 Samuel 26:2, -9,12-13,22-23 + Psalm 103 + 1 Corinthians 15: 45-49 + Luke 6:27-38
This Gospel will thin the ranks of disciples. It goes against common sense.
Doing good to those who hate you is codependency at its best. It is masochism at worst. Giving to everyone who begs will eventually means that you’ll be begging and find out that most people don’t give to those who beg. In the end, you begin to wonder if Jesus skipped Playground 101? What happened to that God who was going to make my enemies my foot stool? Where is the God of Moses and Elijah who slaughtered enemies? What we are hearing today is a parody on that saying: “Do unto others before they do unto you.”
Jesus has seen the never-ending nature of violence and the never-ending nature of God. The two are incompatible. Our relationship to that God of love must be stronger than our relationship to anything else, and eventually we will have to make a choice. They are incompatible.
In other words: circumstances do not control us. Enemies, persecutors, haters do not make us into themselves infecting us with their toxicity, but that is always their power. They make returning evil seem necessary, a matter of survival. In that thinking, we decide that we didn’t start it, but we can end it…………. No, we can’t. It has never been so.
We always have the option to choose between a reaction and a response. The difference between the two is only a matter of a pause. There is no pause before a reaction. It is simply knee-jerk and mindless. After a pause however, there can be a response that is mindful and more in touch with who we really are. In the choice between reaction and response lies growth and happiness. Our ability to take that pause – to stand in the space of time is the measure of our spiritual development.
We make a choice in that space between slavery to compulsive reaction or liberation from reactivity.
The truth here is simple: our personal actions create the world in which we live. When we get bone-dead honest with ourselves, we know the connection between how we act toward others and our own destiny.
If we are judgmental and condemning of others, we end up swallowed in negative fury. When we are fiercely righteous, we never see it, but our own inner state of self-condemnation targets others while it really brings us to judgment. What we think is harmful to others is really harmful to us.
It also works in reverse. The way of forgiveness in Jesus may first seem to benefit others, but it is ultimately our way to fulfillment and freedom. The generosity we bestow on others always overflows into our lives. We find ourselves, so often the recipient of our own generosity. How we treat others becomes how we are treated.
This truth is not put before us as an article of belief. We are not asked today to say “Yes” because this is the inspired word of God, but because if we look deeply enough what is revealed here is human experience illuminated by the Word of God. It takes a little practice, but in time we realize that what Jesus proposes is really the truth, and as Flannery O’Connor said: “The truth will make us odd.”
It takes a little practice to enjoy that pause and be comfortable in choosing a response rooted in our true identity rather than be trapped in one reaction after another.