Today’s readings: Leviticus 19, 1-2.17-18; 1 Cor. 3, 16-23; Mat. 5, 38-48.
Many a time, receiving the other is no joke. Jean Vanier claims that forgiveness is the supreme form of love. Because in loving and accepting the other, there are always things to forgive. It is this attentive regard that makes us empty ourselves of ourselves in order to receive the other. This involves growth, it takes time, it remains always work in progress. Fullness of love is never achieved, it is always a longing.
Today we read from Leviticus: “You must not bear hatred for your brother in your heart.” It sounds like an imperative. Yet it is more a basic truth that we can all personally verify in daily life.
Hatred may have its own justification for offence received or injury incurred. Yet, at the end of the day, with wisdom, we can all come to the conclusion that hatred can eventually provoke bitterness in us, which in turn can be more damaging than the hurt received.
“To love anyone is to hope in him always,” writes Charles de Foucauld. The gospel today challenges us to a quality of relationships far beyond the ordinary. “Are you doing anything exceptional?” asks the Lord.
We can ask that question very often to ourselves when we behave in one way rather than another. The Scriptures speak in terms of the everyday wisdom we all need to manage our interactions with others in a way that can enlighten our minds and lighten our hearts.
God’s temple is sacred, writes St Paul. He is speaking of our own selves and referring to all that we do that can destroy the self and distort God’s image in us.
The love that the gospel evokes is the love that gives inner freedom. Because we can remain enslaved to our own selves even in loving. It happens when we calculate what we give, how we give, and to whom we give.
Of course, the way the Scriptures speak sounds very risky. “Not to resist an evildoer,” as Jesus says, may yield to abuse. But Jesus is simply moving out of the realm of law and juridical principles. The three issues which Jesus highlights, namely responding to evil, loving friends and enemies, are all matters of deep concern for whoever seeks to live gently and genuinely.
The wisdom of the contemplatives always puts as first question not ‘What can I do about it?’, but ‘How do I look at it?’
This is not about some form of super-spirituality. It’s all about tips that give inner freedom and peace, it’s all about what soothes the heart and the mind. It is not a wisdom one can learn. It can only be achieved day after day. But it impinges on the quality of our living.
Etty Hilesum, who was sent to Auschwitz where she died in 1943, left her diary An Interrupted Life, where she writes: “Life has its own meaning, even if it takes a lifetime to find it”.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his book To Heal a Fractured World, writes: “The Judaism I know always was a faith suffused with love and celebration, and a hope so resilient that it could survive any catastrophe. We do not redeem evil by hate. We redeem it by a faith in life so strong that it has the courage to bring children into a world that has known overwhelming suffering and yet is prepared to take the risk to begin again.”
Jesus’s words today are not a command to love. They are an invitation to be wise, a lesson on humanity, on how to be fully human. Both Leviticus and the gospel make us explore ways of growth and healing in the face of adversity.
A former curate and vicar in south London, Rev. Justine Allain-Chapman, in her book Resilient Pastors, writes: “resilience is the capacity to bounce back, to come through crisis, difficulty or trauma”.
In psychology, resilience is the positive capacity developed by people who are open and motivated to change in the face of adversity. This is what today’s Scriptures are all about: the possibility and the capacity in us to resist the destruction of our spiritual qualities. With the well of spiritual energy empty, there would be nowhere left to go.