7th Sunday of Ordinary Times

Earlier this week, I had an errand to do in Orleans. As I headed up Old Harbor Road, I met the construction crew replacing the gas main. The road was down to one lane, and I had to wait for the detail officers to wave me along. As I passed, I noticed that the passage was very tight. One false move by a worker, a piece of equipment, or one of the police officers and there could be an accident.

After finishing my business, I headed back to Chatham. As I drove along, I began to think about a way to avoid passing the construction site on my way home. It dawned on me I could turn on to Crowell Road, then onto Hitching Post, Old Academy, and then on home.

I’m not used to driving Crowell Road in the middle of the afternoon, and I was going about the thirty-mile-an-hour speed limit as I passed Monomoy Middle School. There was a police cruiser in the driveway, and he immediately started after me. I thought to myself, “Oh no, this is a twenty-mile-an-hour school zone.” I immediately pulled over and quickly reconciled myself to my fate. I know I need to be protective of our community’s youth; after all, there are so few of them.

When the officer approached, he asked if I knew why he was stopping me, and I told him it was because it was a school zone. He told me he was only giving a verbal warning, but could he have my license to check me out. I wasn’t wearing my clerical clothes, so his leniency can’t be attributed to that. When he checked my driving record, I’m sure he felt justified in his decision not to issue a citation. I haven’t been cited for a moving violation since my early twenties, and my only accident occurred on a snowy afternoon during my college days. I pray I can keep up the good work. As I drove away, I felt thankful for the officer’s small act of mercy and reminded myself to be merciful for the rest of the day.

Mercy is defined as

“Having a heart that suffers for another, even if that person doesn’t deserve it."

It isn’t pity that makes the offended superior to the other. Mercy is a sacred responsibility to show love to others, and it is placing trust that justice for a hurt or injury belongs to God and not man. Mercy is putting the love the Greeks called Agapan into practice. Agapan is the highest degree of love. The type of love for another that continues despite how a person may treat us. We are unwilling to stop loving them.

David showed that type of love for King Saul. The incident in today’s first reading wasn’t the first time he refused an opportunity to kill Saul. The two men had started as close friends after David’s famous slaying of the giant Goliath. Saul made David an adopted son but soon became extremely jealous of him. He set about various plots to harm David and see him killed.

David escaped and went into hiding with a small group of companions. Saul pursued David, who was hiding in the cave of Engedi. There David caught Saul literally with his pants down. Saul unknowingly went into the cave where David and his men hid to relieve himself, and David had a perfect opportunity to kill the unsuspecting Saul. Even though his men encouraged him to take his enemy’s life, David decided to show mercy. He snuck up behind Saul and cut off a piece of his cloak.

After Saul rejoined his army, David came out of the cave with the cloth he cut from Saul’s clothes. David confronted Saul and asked Saul why he was trying to harm him. David told Saul that he would allow God to judge between them rather than David kill Saul. Saul admits David is right and revealed that he believed David would soon become king in place of him.

Despite David’s show of mercy, Saul continues to treat David as an adversary, again trying to hunt him down to kill him. That is where we pick up today’s episode. Again, David has the opportunity to slay the enemy who has rejected his mercy. Again, David resists the encouragement of his lieutenant to kill his adversary. He decides to shame Saul by taking his spear, the symbol of his authority, and the water jug.

When David confronts Saul to tell him he has again spared his life and pleads with Saul to stop pursuing him. Saul admits to being a fool and making a severe mistake and urges David to come back. David puts the issue into the hands of God and asks God to value his life as David showed he respected Saul’s. Saul again admits that David will certainly succeed in whatever he does. Soon after, God does decide. Saul and his sons are killed in battle, and David eventually becomes king.

Today, Jesus instructs his disciples and us to exercise the same sort of restraint when dealing with those who do us harm. We are to exercise the same degree of love for them, and we are to continue to love despite what hurtful people may have done to us. We are to practice open-ended love of our enemies rather than just refrain from evil. We need to be willing to wait and trust God’s plan for reciprocity.

The quarrel many people have with God is not so much how God treats us as to how God treats our enemies. We want swift justice and punishment inflicted upon those who hurt us. God’s plan for reciprocity doesn’t necessarily mean God will punish our enemies with death or misfortune. Yes, Saul and his family met a tragic end, but that wasn’t David’s payback. David received his reward when God showed David mercy and forgiveness after he himself committed adultery and murder.

In Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, from where our gospel passage comes from today, Jesus suggests his listeners undergo a spiritual makeover. As part of that makeover, we are to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us and pray for those who mistreat us. We are to stop judging, condemning, and be forgiving so, in turn, we too will be treated with mercy by God and those we injure.

That lesson doesn’t mean we only refrain from evil. We aren’t to kill our enemies with kindness, really just scheming to ingratiate ourselves with our enemies, trying to shame them, or waiting until just the right opportunity to inflict harm upon them. Our reaction to offenses should be open-handed love of our enemies rather than refraining from evil thoughts or actions.

Trying to conquer evil with good can seem nieve or nonsensical, and it can feel as if God is suggesting we open ourselves to unjust abuse. It can all feel like just “pie in the sky when you die.” Life isn’t all about self-protection, and it isn’t about beating others to the punch before they can harm us.

The Christian ethic Jesus preached in the gospel is more than just refraining from bad things but doing good ones. It is the conscious effort to be more loving than other people. We are required to be people set apart, not as to be exclusive but as an invitation for all people to follow the example of love that was Jesus.

Love of our enemies doesn’t naturally come from the heart. It has to come from our will. Love of our enemies takes intense effort and determination. Jesus showed that example in his life but most clearly during his passion and death. He did good throughout his life but especially in the Garden of Gethsemane when he healed the ear of the servant whose ear Peter wounded with his sword. Even in that tense situation, Jesus’ concern was for the innocent victim.

Jesus blessed those religious authorities and Roman soldiers who lacked faith in his preaching and tried to taunt and torment him as he carried his cross to Calvary. He was able to see their actions as coming from spiritual blindness. On the way to his death, he prayed for the women of Jerusalem, their children, and all those who would suffer because of his death.

If we model our lives in the same way, we might not receive a great position of power and prestige such as David received. Our reward might not be sainthood but instead God’s mercy for our sins and failures. If we show great forbearance and compassion for our enemies, then we are promised God’s unconditional love and forgiveness for our sins and hurtful actions.

To do that, we need a potent dose of God’s grace. We need the great strength of the real presence of Jesus Christ in our souls so we can be examples of mercy to others. We need God’s grace to share with our families and community to empower them too. Now we are poised to begin the Liturgy of the Eucharist. That part of the Mass when God sends the Real Presence of Jesus’ Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity to fortify us to be God’s instruments of mercy and compassion.

Accept God’s grace today. Take it into our world and transform our world into the Kingdom of God.