In our Gospel today, Jesus places before us a great challenge, to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, to seek what is seemingly impossible by loving not just those who love us back, but those who might very well hate us. Jesus is telling us to go beyond loving our neighbor and to love our very enemy as well.

What’s more is that it seems that He is telling us that in order to do this, we are, in his words to: “offer no resistance to one who is evil.” And, while it is true that Jesus always encourages the more non-violent approach, these three ways He gives us show a more creative way in which to deal with our enemy.

In fact, He challenges the very popular phrase at the time, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” with the suggestion that we give the other cheek. While, at the outset it may not seem too different, this is actually a gesture of defiance, because in order for one to be hit on the right cheek it would have to be done with the back of the right hand.

In biblical understanding, this was symbolically how a master might strike a slave. Therefore, when Jesus says we are to give the other cheek, the left cheek, this is a symbolic gesture of one being equal with the attacker. This puts the attacker in an awkward position, in trying to strike a second time, and, in fact, is actually a non-violent way of standing one’s ground and of refusing to be further insulted.

The same thing is true when Jesus encourages the handing over of one’s cloak as well as their tunic. In biblical times, the Jewish people wore two principal garments, an interior garment and an exterior. The interior was a tunic, it covered the whole body and extended down to the knees. The second garment was called a "cloak," or a mantle.

It was typically the wealthy who would be able to have a cloak, and, in fact, one’s wealth was judged on how many garments they wore. If a poor person, however, had a cloak, it might be the only one they had, and it was common for them to use them as a bedcovering.

Now, in the Biblical times if a poor person borrowed money they would use those garments as collateral for a loan, and if the person was really poor, they would use their cloak. On cold nights, they would need something to cover themselves with, so there was a requirement that the garment had be returned to the poor person every night for warmth. However, he was also required to return the garment each morning until the loan was paid back.

If these requirements were not met by either the poor person borrowing the money or the one lending the money, there would be a lawsuit.

What Jesus is saying then is that by giving their cloak and their tunic, they are giving everything they own, even the clothes upon their back.

In Israel, shame comes upon the person not who is naked but upon the one viewing the nakedness, so the humiliation then is on the accuser.

Lastly, a Roman soldier was allowed to have a slave carry his pack for only one mile, anything beyond that puts the soldier in violation of military law. Jesus then is putting the burden or the punishment on the soldier not the one who is “going the extra mile.”

In each case, Jesus is showing creative ways in which to not give up our dignity as humans and as Christians, but to non-violently oppose our accuser.

This is the way He is saying we are to respond to our enemy, but He is still asking us to love them.

The question then, is how do we love our enemy? 

The typical response is that while we are obliged to love all, we don’t have to like them. That is, though we are not too fond of the person we wish them no harm or that nothing bad befall them.

And, while that is the general understanding of how it is we are to love our enemy, it still seems to fall short, because our enemy, no matter how much they hate us, is still a human being, our enemy is still one molded and shaped by the hand of God.

That is why Jesus shows us another way, by His example as he laid upon the Cross. Because, from the deepest recesses of His heart, He does not say: “Father, condemn them, let your wrath fall upon them,” or “strike them dead at this very moment,” no, His response is different, He says: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

He takes the very epitome of evil, the worst that humankind is capable of and He asks for forgiveness, He asks for sanctification, He asks that the most evil action become transformed and blessed by the Father.

Jesus then shows us that, indeed, it is possible to love our enemy, when we love the person with God, that the only way to love our enemy is to pray for them, because prayer is the greatest form of love that any of us can offer. It puts us at the heart of bringing those whom we cannot find forgiveness for, those whom we may hate or who, in turn, may hate us, and turns it into good, by blessing it, by blessing us, by blessing them.

Because, no matter the evil that was done, no matter the hate that exists, prayer levels the playing field, placing both our enemy and ourselves before God, placing us in the very presence of Love. So that while we stand in His presence, it becomes merely impossible to not love even our very enemy.

That is what Jesus means when He says we are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, because perfect love can only exist within God Himself, and if we seek to bring ourselves before Him who is Love, standing side by side with our enemy, in the end, we will see it is not just our neighbor whom we are to love but even, and most especially, our enemy as well.

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Lord, if you will
Lord, if you will
The Will of God
The Will of God
I have had multiple requests to find a means of making my homilies accessible for others, so this is my first attempt at doing just that. I don't quite know how long I will keep this going nor if I will enjoy "blogging," but here goes.

I chose the title based on that beautiful Scripture passage where a leper approaches Jesus and says quite simply and humbly: "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." A full abandonment to the Will of God, and in it, there is a combination of confidence and humility, of "self-emptying" and of filling up, as it were.

I believe that our life hinges on God's Will and the more perfectly conformed we are to His Will, the more ours and His become one, so that, in essence, we truly say "my will is His Will and His Will is mine."

That is the heart of what it means, in my opinion, to follow Christ, and since I believe God has gifted me with an ability to preach whether for better or worse, I will use this site to post those homilies.
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