"Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned."
2 Kgs 21:17-29
Jn 13:34
Mt 5:43-48
"Love your enemies." A short statement, but so powerful! It is a little "mustard seed" that has generated a vast spiritual revolution. "Love your neighbor." There was never a commandment to "hate your enemy." Everyone simply took it for granted than an "enemy" must be excluded from the range of our love. After all, if we love him, he is not really an enemy! Expanding our understanding of whom to love and what it means to love. We could even say he is 'exploding' our understanding of love. Any limitation that we tend to place on love is exposed as invalid. Our love is to be like the love of the Father, who loves perfectly, without any limits.
The Father's love is universal and unstoppable ; it is pure, intense, unchanging. Jesus, who knows the love of the father better than anyone, says it is like 'sunshine.' When the sun shines brightly on a hot summer day, it warms everyone and everything, including those who hate the sun, and those who hate God. The only way to avoid being warmed on such a day is to hide from the sun. That is what the love of God is like. He loves the bad and the good. He loves his enemies. He loves 'us' when we behave like his enemies. The only way to avoid the love of God is to deliberately reject him. But this rejection do not stop God's love, just as hiding in a windowless basement does not stop the sun from shining.
"Pray for your persecutors." This gives us a practical way to see whether we are really fulfilling the commandment of love. How can we tell if we really love an enemy for whom we may have an intense feeling of dislike? How can we love him when we hate what he is doing to us? We discover the answer when we try to pray for him. To pray for an enemy or persecutor is to will what is good for him, to choose the good that God wants for him. If we cannot pray for our enemy, then we do not want God wants for someone, we do not love him.
This is the love Jesus is inviting us to practice : a love surpasses our natural preferences, a love that reflects God's own perfect, merciful live. He invites us to love as he loves, because he wants us to be perfect as he is perfect. We cannot generate this kind of morality out of our own unaided resources. It goes beyond our individual capacity. But living by Christian morality is not a lonely struggle : we have a deep awareness that we are part of one another and joined with Christ. We do not face God in lonely solitude and depending on our own resources alone. Our eyes, our ears, our hands ---- all are parts of the body ---- are different ; yet they share the one life of the body. Likewise we are all, though different, members of Christ's body ; the love in him is the love in us.♥
2 Kgs 21:17-29
Jn 13:34
Mt 5:43-48
"Love your enemies." A short statement, but so powerful! It is a little "mustard seed" that has generated a vast spiritual revolution. "Love your neighbor." There was never a commandment to "hate your enemy." Everyone simply took it for granted than an "enemy" must be excluded from the range of our love. After all, if we love him, he is not really an enemy! Expanding our understanding of whom to love and what it means to love. We could even say he is 'exploding' our understanding of love. Any limitation that we tend to place on love is exposed as invalid. Our love is to be like the love of the Father, who loves perfectly, without any limits.
The Father's love is universal and unstoppable ; it is pure, intense, unchanging. Jesus, who knows the love of the father better than anyone, says it is like 'sunshine.' When the sun shines brightly on a hot summer day, it warms everyone and everything, including those who hate the sun, and those who hate God. The only way to avoid being warmed on such a day is to hide from the sun. That is what the love of God is like. He loves the bad and the good. He loves his enemies. He loves 'us' when we behave like his enemies. The only way to avoid the love of God is to deliberately reject him. But this rejection do not stop God's love, just as hiding in a windowless basement does not stop the sun from shining.
"Pray for your persecutors." This gives us a practical way to see whether we are really fulfilling the commandment of love. How can we tell if we really love an enemy for whom we may have an intense feeling of dislike? How can we love him when we hate what he is doing to us? We discover the answer when we try to pray for him. To pray for an enemy or persecutor is to will what is good for him, to choose the good that God wants for him. If we cannot pray for our enemy, then we do not want God wants for someone, we do not love him.
This is the love Jesus is inviting us to practice : a love surpasses our natural preferences, a love that reflects God's own perfect, merciful live. He invites us to love as he loves, because he wants us to be perfect as he is perfect. We cannot generate this kind of morality out of our own unaided resources. It goes beyond our individual capacity. But living by Christian morality is not a lonely struggle : we have a deep awareness that we are part of one another and joined with Christ. We do not face God in lonely solitude and depending on our own resources alone. Our eyes, our ears, our hands ---- all are parts of the body ---- are different ; yet they share the one life of the body. Likewise we are all, though different, members of Christ's body ; the love in him is the love in us.♥
No comments:
Post a Comment