The heart of the matter

The love of one's enemy is at the heart of the Christian message. Jesus today says forcefully: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly". This is very demanding, spiritually and humanly speaking. But it is also a question of growing up.

When faced with real facts, it is never easy for us to leave judgments for God. We always like to make judgments ourselves and, if and when possible, prosecute, condemn, execute at the same time. It can give comfort and peace, it seems. But is it so?

Taking Jesus' words into context, he was speaking in Galilee, near Lake Tiberias. For many centuries the Jewish people had been overrun by foreign powers: first by the Babylonians, then by the Persians, later by the Greeks, and then by the Romans. Naturally, they hated these foreign dominators. So Jesus' words could seem like a provocation. But he was not speaking politics; he was speaking about inner liberation.

'Enemy' is a very strong word. So strong that many a time we are led to believe that we have no enemies. Let us admit it from the outset: when it's a question of loving one's enemies, that's not just 'love'. To love someone lovable is very natural. But what does it mean to love someone who hates you, who speaks badly of you, who has been trying to make your life hell? It sounds crazy.

But Jesus, who cannot be followed cheaply, says that I should do it in the first place for my own mental, psychological, and spiritual health and well-being. Humanity has been for too long now imprisoned in the chain of violence. We have transmitted too much hatred from one generation to the other. Too many people are imprisoned in their own likes and dislikes.

Now what Jesus, in today's Gospel, is proposing in the form of teaching, is sort of illustrated as a true story in the first reading from the first Book of Samuel. The time of Saul as king was full of corruption. He gave Israel military glory and victory, but he proved to be an evil king. He was also envious of David and sought to murder him. They were declared enemies. What came next is in today's first reading and it recounts how God's anointing in us can produce the fruits of the Spirit. For true reconciliation, in most cases we need a force that transcends both the oppressed and the oppressor.

Somewhere there should be a path to freedom. And Jesus is showing the way. Is it worth it to continue carrying wounds for ages, to multiply pain, to persist in what may seem personal satisfaction but which, at the end of the day, makes people ever more miserable? This is what Jesus is trying to convey today. Because the Gospel message, and this needs to be said and underlined, is basically about being human, in the first place, fully human.

What Jesus is saying today is a call to change, to no longer be controlled by our hurts and fears and pain. It's all about first 'wholeness' and then 'holiness'. It's also about true relationships, about what truly gives us peace within our hearts.

Paul in the second reading speaks of the first man, Adam, and the last Adam who became a life-giving spirit. The first is earthly by nature; the second man is from heaven. It is worth asking ourselves at this point what profit is there to be 'earthly' from the beginning to the end, missing out every opportunity to grow up. To love one's enemies is not a commandment; it is an invitation. To arrive at it, there is never an imposing God. But there is always the gentle power of God.