Saturday of the First Week of Lent Years 1 and 2 2024

Peter H. Davids

Lent • Sermon • Submitted 2 months ago • Presented 2 months ago

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We can be obedient out of duty or we can be obedient our of covenant loyalty, out of love of God. And while neither is bad, the second is infinitely superior. This helps us see what Jesus means about loving, or seeking the good of, one’s enemy. It is not self-interest or appeasement or even following the Torah, but it is divinization, being children of our heavenly Father, living as he does, loving what he loves. This makes us mature sons and daughters, which is what “perfect” or teleios means. Grasping and practicing this teaching is important both for community solidarity and for a proper counter to the hostile and increasingly violent world around us. Plus it shows the Church the true teaching of Jesus and leads them to love and away from the hostility we see even in the church world.

Notes

Transcript

Title

Becoming Mature

Outline

A reminder:

There are things I do out of obedience

But what sort of obedience is good for me? I can prayer the Divine Office simply because I must, because it is a canonical requirement, out of that type of obedience.

Or I can read “Be careful, then, to observe them with your whole heart and with your whole being” and say, perhaps, “I do not understand why I should do this, but since it is part of the covenant, I want to do it with my heart, with my whole being. I want to do it out of covenant loyalty to you. I want to do it out of love for you. Give me the grace to do it that way.”

The first will get the job done but leave me unhappy, while the second will give me grace and build me up spiritually, even if I never understand. I am living in covenant love.

That may help one understand loving one’s enemy

Loving one’s neighbor may be out of self-interest: prudence, reciprocity, perhaps emotional attachment. I can see the value of seeking their good.

Loving one’s enemy is another matter. That person does not like me, he or she has done hostile things, they have even persecuted or victimized me/us. It may be prudential to appease them with what looks like love, but actually seek their good?

Now I may do it because the Torah tells me to (there is a false idea that the Torah said to love one’s neighbor and hate one’s enemy - it actually says to love both so the saying must have been a popular maxim not derived from scripture), but while right, it is not good news.

Instead, Jesus calls on us to rise to the level of the divinization: “that you may be children of your heavenly Father.” He loves your enemy for he does good to him or her or them. If we love the Father we take on the family likeness and love those whom he loves. The prayer for help in this is “Father, make me like you.” And that is what “perfect” means: a mature member of the family. The first such “perfect” person in scripture was Noah, who followed the directions of the Father. We are to be, not two year old throwing tantrums when we do not like it, but mature sons and daughters acting as the Father acts.

Why is all this important?

First, it is the building block of the community if we are not going to see it break into factions. Notice that loving may mean seeking their good through gently and privately pointing out their evil, offering help and emotional support. But we exercise the spiritual works of mercy seeking their good.

Second, because some in the Christian community actually see it as virtuous to hate one’s enemy, whether in the gun toting right or those who gloat over how this or that person “destroyed” an opponent in a debate. There is the belief that one must speak out publicly against an enemy and that is not the heart of God nor what our recent Popes have done. I might add that Bp Barron, who dialogues with all sorts and types of people, has noted that in the com boxes on his postings Church people are the most vicious. We need to be agents of the other side.

Finally, we may have a lot of use for this this teaching. Persecution in the world is rising both inside and outside the Church. Violence seems to be increasing. We need to be the ones who counter this and more evil things with the love of God, loving our enemy and praying for our persecutors.