7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

When I was Vicar for Clergy in the Archdiocese, I went around to different parishes each weekend to celebrate Mass with the pastor.  One of the pastors gave a homily based on today’s Gospel.  He said, “I bet that many of us feel as if we have enemies in our lives, so, raise your hands, if you have many enemies.”  And surprising to me quite a few people raised their hands.  Then, “Now raise your hands if you have only a few enemies.”  And about half as many people raise their hands.  “Now raise your hands if you have only one or two enemies.”  I raised my hand along with even fewer people.

“See,” he said, “most of us feel like we have enemies.  Now, raise your hands if you have no enemies at all.”  The pastor looks around, and finally, way in the back of the church, a very old man raises his hand.  He stands up and says to the priest,” I have no enemies whatsoever!”  The priest is delighted and invites the parishioner to the front of the church.  “What a blessing!” the pastor says.  “How old are you?  “I’m 98 years old.”  The priest says, “What a wonderful Christian life you lead!  And tell us all how it is that you have no enemies.”  “All those bastards have died!”

Most of us, sadly, go through life with a few people we may feel are “enemies.”  Or, more broadly, people who seem to dislike us.  There are people whom we’ve offended, to whom we’ve apologized, but who refuse to accept our apologies.  There are people at work whom we’ve angered, who are jealous of us, or who have set themselves against us.  There may be people in our families who hold a grudge against us for some mysterious reason that we can never quite comprehend.  And there are people who seem to dislike us or wish us ill for no good reason.  It’s a very sad part of human life.  And it’s a hard part of life.

Jesus asks an awful lot from us in our Gospel today.  It’s interesting to note, however, that he doesn’t ask us to turn our back to violence, he asks us to turn the other cheek.  What exactly does that mean?  The ancient law that Jesus spoke about, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” was actually a pretty good law for the time.  If someone stole your lamb, that didn’t mean you had the right to steal his spouse or his children.  If someone broke your tooth in a brawl, that didn’t mean you had the right to knock out all his teeth.  This law was designed to restrict the spiral of violence and put some stop to it.

But Jesus realized that the law didn’t work.  There is something dark about human nature, that when we finally take revenge and take out one eye or one tooth, we want to continue, and the violence spirals.  That is what domestic violence is all about.  One slap isn’t enough.  One slap leads to another and then to another.  An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth simply doesn’t work.  That is why Jesus proposed a new way of responding to violence.  We read in John’s Gospel that a guard slapped Jesus because he dared to answer back the high priest.  What did Jesus do?  He looked his enemy straight in the eye and challenged him, “If what I say was wrong, tell me.  If I am right, why did you hit me?”

Turning the other cheek doesn’t mean we become a doormat.  It means, as Jesus told us and as he showed us, that we must not return evil with evil.  We must not become part of the problem by giving into the spiral of violence and hatred.  Basically, and to put it less elegantly than Jesus, if your enemy behaves like a jerk toward you, there’s no reason you have to act like a jerk towards him.  That’s why I’m proud that Governor Inslee placed a moratorium on the death penalty and that our bishops promote abolishing the death penalty.

A community of peace and justice cherishes every man and woman as a child of God, loves not only friends but enemies.  Will our community be open like Jesus to the stranger, open to the immigrant, open to those who are different?  The miracle of the Catholic Church: from one end of the earth to the other, we are one body, because the same Holy Spirit lives in us and holds us together.  This body of Christ – is really an internet Bill Gates might envy.  In Christ Jesus we are incredibly one.  One with one another.  We are blest.