LOVE, BLESS, FORGIVE, AND PRAY FOR WHO?

READINGS: SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

In the gospel of this 7th Sunday in Ordinary Times, Year C (Luke 6:27-34), Jesus says, “Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who despise you”. Now, I can hear people saying, “Yah right! Why should I love, do good, bless, and pray for my enemy—someone who has hurt me, lied against me, slandered my name, and hates me with passion?” Yap, we are not wired to be like that. We are wired for payback time, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” We may react in this way, because, upon reading this passage, our mind immediately goes to someone who is the enemy, and us, the victim. Yet, you might be the enemy someone else is thinking of, as this passage is read; the one they should never forgive, love, bless, or pray for. My friends, we are quicker to blame others than to blame ourselves, to judge others than to judge ourselves, to forgive ourselves than to forgive others, and to excuse ourselves than to excuse others. When David took Uriah’s wife and got her pregnant and, to hide the act, killed Uriah, Nathan the prophet confronted him with a story, framed differently but directly related to what David had done. David’s response was, “the man who has done this must die”, and Nathan said to him, “You are the man” (2 Samuel 12:7). Many a time, my friends, “we are the man” that needs to be forgiven, to be bless, to be shown mercy, to be prayed for, and in need of compassionate judgement. Let us take it easy on others.  

So, what Christ is asking us to do is not just for the benefit of others but for our own good. Scripture says that no unforgiving heart will ever see God. No one should have the power to hurt us, here on earth, and then cause us to act in ways that will lead us to eternal damnation. Scripture says, “If you do not forgive your neighbor’s sins, who will forgive yours. I, the Lord, your God, will remember all your sins in detail” (Sirach 28:1-2). To the man of the flesh, Solomon speaks of the "vexation of his spirit…vexation of his heart, …For all his days are sorrow, and his travail grief… [and] his heart never has rest at night” (Ecclesiastes 2:22-23).  Nothing gives more sleepless and restless nights like the spirit of unforgiveness, hate, vengeance, retribution, retaliation, and wrath. Moreover, if we live by the earthly rule of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we will one day live in a world full of blind and toothless people, and we, also, could easily become one of the blind and toothless. 

Therefore, Christ, in today’s gospel offers us the strategy to overcome these destructive tendencies. To love our enemy, to do good to those who hurt us, to bless those who curse us, and to pray for those who despise us is not weakness but strength. These are behaviors that produce the fruits of the Holy Spirit—joy, love, peace, patience, kindness, meekness, magnanimity, faithfulness, and temperance. These are virtues our primitive impulses cannot produce, and the death of our body cannot take away, because they are spiritual and heavenly, eternal and divine, and follow us after death, unto eternity. As Scripture says, “Blessed are those who die in the Lord for their good works follow them” (Revelation 14:13) 

By this teaching, Christ is also asking us not to turn from being victors to becoming the vanquished. We cannot let the sins of others turn us into sinners. Remember what Scripture says, “Anger and wrath are hateful things, but the sinner hugs them tight”. Let go and let God.