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Today’s reading and Gospel focus heavily on the theme of radical love and forgiveness, particularly the call to ” love your enemies” as Jesus teaches in the Gospel reading urging us to do good to those who hate us , bless those who curse us ,and pray for those who persecute us , essentially challenging us to extend mercy even to those who may not deserve it , mirroring God’s own boundless love. Jesus encourages us to give without expecting anything in return and warns against judging others. We are called to show understanding and compassion. 

 “To do unto others as you would have them do to you ” is one of the most difficult of all Jesus’ teachings to follow.  We all struggle against it. There are many objections. The concept of not judging others is relatively easy to understand and put into practice. But the concept of why we should love our enemies is extremely difficult. I must admit that I am not completely convinced I could do this. I have two beautiful granddaughters ( 5 and 7 ). If someone hurt either one I would not be willing to not seek revenge or hurt them back or forgive them. I just pray this never happens and hope my faith will carry me through dilemmas such as not being truly able to follow what Jesus has taught me.

Today’s world is rife with the opposite of what Jesus taught. All we have to do is look at our society, current events , the power and abuse by world leaders , the conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It is a natural instinct to want to seek revenge, etc but we must try to do what is suggested. By applying the philosophy of treating others as you would like to be treated doesn’t mean we support our enemies, or agree with them, or even necessarily become good friends with them, If we refuse to hate , refuse to hurt it may soon mean that the cycle of hate , the cycle of revenge , the cycle of retaliation , the cycle of violence may eventually subside and ideally stop. When we talk about forgiving those who hurt us , we are not denying our right to defend ourselves. We are not advising that we  accept abuse and manipulation. We are saying that when we respond to our enemy we can try to resolve problems with the ” do unto others as you would do to you” belief. In our daily  personal lives we can try to apply this to our relationships with family, friends, community. Forgiveness doesn’t mean we act as though nothing happened , it means we are aware of what happened yet we choose to let go. Try to treat other people with the concern and kindness we would like them to show towards us.

Someone who attempted to explain the wisdom in loving our enemies was Martin Luther King Jr. The civil rights activist said ” Jesus asks us to love our enemies because ” darkness cannot drive out darkness ; only light can do that ; hate cannot drive out hate , only love can do that. “

Let us pray for that inner strength to be compassionate when our survival instincts say something else. Let us pray for the inner strength to do as Jesus said ” Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” Let us pray that by doing so , the world will get a little better each day.

~Cathy  Keirstead