“In the beginning there is struggle and a lot of work for those who come near to God. But after that there is indescribable joy. It is just like building a fire: at first it is smoky and your eyes water, but later you get the desired result. Thus, we ought to light the divine fire in ourselves with tears and effort.” Amma Syncletica, a “Desert Mother” of the 4th century
“Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” St. Pope John Paul II, quoted in Light from Light by Bishop Robert Barron.
Looking at the Context
Today’s Gospel continues Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain that began last Sunday with “Blessed are you when….” As I prayed with this week’s continuation of that homily, I noticed something of its beginning that I missed last week. Jesus has been up on a mountain with his disciples. He has chosen the “inner twelve,” the ones who will become apostles and martyrs. As they come down to the plain, Luke describes the scene this way:
“And he came down with them and stood on a stretch of level ground. A great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and even those who were tormented by unclean spirits were cured. Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all.” (Luke 6:17-19)
Then comes the phrase that jumps out at me this week, “And raising his eyes toward his disciples he said…”
When Jesus speaks difficult, radical, and important words today and next Sunday, he is speaking TO HIS DISCIPLES.
These centuries later, we, too, are Jesus’ disciples. He is speaking to us, his ardent followers today. Jesus and I have been in prayer dialogue about these words since he pointed them out to me about a month ago. They are tough words, but they are becoming very important, healing words for me. They are words that can give true freedom—the freedom to do what we ought in a way that can become habitual, and, according to multiple saints, filled with “indescribable joy.” They give us freedom to love.
Luke 6:27-38
In these verses Jesus gives more than a dozen rules for living. They include the famous “Golden Rule (Do to others as you would have them do to you) and invitations to live life generously (Give and gifts will be given you) that appeal to us.
Yes, Jesus, I want to do that. Yes, that makes good sense. Yes, I want to live the abundant life you describe!
But they also include rules for living in radical contrast to our “survival of the fittest” world:
- Love your enemies
- Do good to those who hate you
- Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours, do not demand it back.
- Be merciful in the same way God is merciful
- Stop judging and you will not be judged
- Forgive and you will be forgiven
No, Jesus, no. You know what he did to me….I mean, I won’t do to him what I want to do, but love him? Do good to him? And, Lord, you know how hard it is to get along with her. She lies. She has stolen my good name. I have to at least judge her in my head.
To which Jesus says to my heart, “Yes, Mary, yes. I mean what I said. I mean for you to take these rules literally. I mean for you to live by them with EVERYONE. Trust me. Letting go of your hidden anger will be a blessing for you. It will give you freedom—freedom from your social and psychological wounds, freedom from your passions—freedom from your human, survival of the fittest, prone to sin nature. Freedom to live in love by choosing to love.”
Oh.
I Corinthians 15:45-49
Corinth was a sin city when Paul founded a Christian community there. If you read all through both his letters to the Corinthians, you will come to conclusion that the new Christians didn’t become saintly the minute they were baptized. They had to LEARN Christian rules and habits. The “Law” of the Jewish converts had reigned in many of their passions for centuries, but the Greek converts had none of that history. It was tough for both groups to LIVE as Christians. And they, like us, lived surrounded by culture that fostered giving in to anger, sexual passion, and selfishness.
And so, as Paul nears the end of this epistle, he reminds the community: you follow Christ, the heavenly one. You live by his heavenly nature, not your environment’s survival-of-the-fittest earthly nature.
Message for us: Grace, prayer, learning, confession, healing, Eucharist, the experiences of living in loving community, advice from saints, the upcoming season of Lent—all these help us follow the spiritual path Jesus outlines—but following it is expected of us.
It rises strong within me to see the words of Jesus today as just as required as the Ten Commandments. They are positive prescriptions “thou shall,” rather than “thou shall not.” Positive prescriptions can’t define our limits the same way that the “shall not” prescriptions do because we cannot do all good things. We cannot give everything to everyone every day. We can refrain at all times from stealing from anyone in any way. But following these rules of following Jesus’ way of love is required. They are what we should mean when we say, “I have greatly sinned…in what I have failed to do.” [For a more thorough discussion of the weight of positive and negative prescriptions in moral instruction, see St. Pope John Paul’s Veritatis Splendor, paragraph 52.]
I Samuel 26: 2,7-9,12-13,22-23
This story of David and Saul gives us example of what Jesus meant. I would encourage you to read all of I Samuel 26. It gives a fuller, more beautiful story, both of David’s perspective and of the power of the choice he made. He was working from a prudent application of the Ten Commandments, yet he managed to demonstrate what Jesus meant as he spoke to his disciples in the Sermon on the Plain. David acted with love to his enemy.
Applications
In January, when I was looking for something else in Scripture, God riveted my eyes and heart to the Sermon on the Plain, especially these words and the ones in next Sunday’s Gospel. God confronts me with it. What has helped more than anything is realizing that, as a therapist all these years, I have treated those who came to see me at the office in ways that match Jesus’ rules today–even if their behavior and attitudes were anything but good. My treatment of them has helped create healing and resolution of family problems. It has helped restore love in relationships. In them I have seen how following Jesus’ rules today bears fruit.
Yet, at present, I don’t want to treat EVERYONE in my personal life by Jesus’ rules. Why? I’ve let my “thoughts in the night” nurse anger and resentment. These feelings and thoughts have held me bound so I am not free to do what I ought, what I want. I am not free to fully love.
Why can’t I fully follow Jesus’ rules in personal matters? The essential “light of God” Truth came when I realized that I only have trouble when I want someone to be loving to me and they are not. When I expect to be loved, my focus on myself blocks me from doing what Jesus asks. It blocks me from loving. And I know that it is loving that gives joy and makes even sacrifice easy. It is loving without seeking to be loved in return that makes me free.
Oh.
Yes, Jesus, I see. Following your rules enables your disciples today to live with others in ways that give us freedom. In a thousand little ways, they stop the patterns of selfishness by replacing them with patterns of love.
Prayer
Be patient with me, Lord, and help me be patient with others. Keep loving me, Lord, and help me be loving to others. Forgive me, Lord, and help me to forgive others. Give me joy, Lord, in all of this—and let me help you build the Kingdom of God one loving act at a time.
