Homily Ordinary 7C: Giving without expecting anything in return

Homily for 7^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C 2022

 1 Samuel 26:2,7-9,12-13,22-23; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38

Introduction

"Love your enemies."  What a tall order!  Loving is difficult by itself, even loving those who are close to us: parents and children, spouses and siblings, family and friends.  But now, Jesus is asking us to love our enemies.  Is that even possible?

In our world today “to love” means having good feelings towards someone, especially someone who makes us happy.  It is this kind of feelings that popular love songs sing about; it is this kind of passion that the magazines write about; it is this kind of delight that we see in movies.  But this is not the love that Jesus is talking about, since it focuses only on what is in it for me.  I give love, because I expect something in return.

One of my favourite TV shows is The Big Bang Theory. In one episode, Sheldon is informed by his neighbour Penny that she has gotten him a gift, which he will find under the Christmas tree.  Now while most of us would be happy to receive a gift, Sheldon complains that this gift is an obligation, since now he has to give her something in return.  To compound things, since he does not yet know what she has given him, he does not know what kind of gift of equal value to give her back.  He is so disturbed that when he goes shopping, he buys all kinds of gifts and hides them in his room, so that later when she gives him his gift, after seeing what it is, he will then run back to his room to pick the right gift that matches hers.

Later in the episode, he finds out that the gift was a napkin, with which Leonard Nimoy, his childhood hero, had wiped his mouth, a priceless gift.  Sheldon is overcome with emotion, and he rushes into his bedroom, to give her all the gifts he had bought, instead of just one.  But even then, he thinks they are not enough to match her gift.  So, he gives her one more gift, something he rarely does, a hug.

Aren’t we all in some way like Sheldon, in that we think of gift-giving as being a commercial transaction, a quid pro quo, I give you this, you give me that.  That is why with this mindset it is difficult for us to understand why would should love our enemies, people who can never give us anything in return, or worse people whose only return gift is grief and suffering.

Scripture and Theology

But like he taught in the Beatitudes in last Sunday’s gospel, Jesus is reversing our worldview, teaching us to see things through the eyes of God, not the eyes of man.

And so, the kind of love Jesus is talking about, the kind of love he asks to extend to our enemies is defined by St. Thomas Aquinas, "willing the good of the other."  Notice something different here; to love is to will the good of the other person, not myself.  This kind of love has nothing to do with how I feel or what benefit I receive from the interaction; this love focuses on the good of the other person.

But wherever could one ever find such love, such self-less love, that is concerned about others, without expecting anything in return!

Well, Jesus does not ask of us what he has not done himself.  We see this selfless love of God who created us in love, sharing his life with us, and expecting really nothing from us, except do his will.  And even when we failed to do his will, he continued to love us in this selfless manner by sending his Son as our Saviour instead of destroying us like we deserved.  We have to look no farther than the Cross, to see what true Christian love means.  That is why Jesus can ask the same thing of his followers. Like he loved us his enemies, he asks us to love our enemies.

But how do we love our enemies?  How do we will the good of our enemies?  Jesus gives us three possible ways to do this:  "do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."  In other words, you can will the good of your enemies by doing something good for them, blessing or wishing them well, and thirdly by praying, interceding for them before God.

And then Jesus gives examples of how one can do this, how he did this:

·        “To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well”, exactly what Jesus did during his agony and passion.

·        “and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic,” he was stripped naked during his agony and crucifixion.

·        “Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back”; on the Cross Jesus gave all of himself.

But there is one more element about loving enemies that Jesus gives his followers.  By asking them to love their enemies, Jesus is challenging the disciples to go the extra mile, going above and beyond ordinary expectations.

·        He says: “For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners love those who love them”

·        “And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same.”

·        “If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners . . .”

Essentially Jesus is showing that the kind of love expected of his disciples cannot be the quid pro quo type of love in the world; it must be greater because Christians have God's grace to help do a little heavier lifting.  That is why together with faith and hope, love is a theological virtue, a direct infusion of grace from God.  It is only with God's grace that we can even attempt to love our enemies, to treat them better than the ordinary fairness found even among sinners.  That is why Jesus says: “love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back.” If at all we expect something in return for our love, it cannot be something in this world, but something from God.  That is why he says if you love in this way, “then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Christian Life and Conclusion

So we have seen what love means, willing the good of others, even our enemies.  But who are these “our enemies”?  Jesus does not give us examples, like he does when asked “who is my neighbour?” in the Story of the Good Samaritan.  But that same story can teach us about who our enemies are.  If you remember in that story, the injured Jewish man and the Samaritan traveller were supposed to be enemies due to ethnicity.  And yet, it was not his fellow Jews, the priest and the Levite, who loved the injured man, but his enemy, the foreigner, the Samaritan.

Another example of loving one’s enemy is found in our first reading from the book of Samuel.  We heard that Saul saw David as a threat and was jealous of him, and mistrusted him. Saul pursued David to destroy him, but it is David who gained the upper hand and had the opportunity to kill Saul. And yet David was not consumed with the desire for revenge. David did not harm Saul. David loved his enemy.

Today our enemies take many forms.  Like David was for Saul, our enemy can be someone we know: a co-worker who took our promotion, a boss who is not very nice to us, a spouse from whom you are divorced, a sibling you haven't talked to in years perhaps over mom's estate.  Jesus is not asking you to invite them to your next birthday party; he is asking you to do good to them, to bless them and to pray for them.

Like the Jewish victim was to the Good Samaritan, someone can be our enemy by virtue of belonging to a different group, such as a different race (Black or White), a different religion (Mormon or Muslim), a different nationality (Mexican or American), a different political party (Democrat or Republican).  Jesus is not asking you to agree with their culture, religion, ideology.  He is simply asking you to do good to them, to bless them and to pray for them.

Let us remember that when we sin, we are God's enemies.  But he treats us with generous mercy.  Should we not do the same to those who sin against us?  Should we not respond like Sheldon when he realizes that some gifts are priceless?