Today’s gospel goes to the very heart of what it is to be a Christian, the call to love and compassion. We all know the importance of love, how it can shape and form us. We all have some experience of how it’s lack can undermine and damage us.
We know that love is not always easy, it requires us to put ourselves aside, to think first of what would be best others. To do that with those most intimately connected to us, our families, our friends, those who think and live like us can be hard and challenging enough. Yet Jesus tells us that to love those who love us is not enough. He tells his disciples:
“Love your enemies and do good, and lend without any hope of return. You will have a great reward, and you will be children of the Most High, for God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”
It’s a call to love as God loves, going beyond our limited human ways. This seems to put the call to love into the category of almost impossible. If we struggle to love those who love us how can we ever learn to love those who would harm or hurt us? Jesus goes on to answer this question:
“Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judged yourselves; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned yourselves; grant pardon, and you will be pardoned.”
It’s still a hard call, especially in our harsh times. In so many areas hate and mistrust seem to be gaining the upper hand in our communities and societies. In such times this call is even more important. “Be compassionate” Jesus says, calling us to risk being open, vulnerable, and giving others the benefit of the doubt.
Where are you being called to love your enemy today?