Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
(II Corinthians 8:1-9; Matthew 5:43-48)
Biblical theologian John Meier finds Jesus’
command, “Love your enemy,” unique. He
examines all Jewish and pagan literature before and during Jesus’ lifetime without
locating any equivalent saying. For
Meier this indicates that the words come directly from Jesus. That is, he is convinced that the command
could not have been borrowed from another source and attributed to Jesus as
“the kind of thing he would say.” “Love
your enemy” may be jarring to those who hear it for the first time but perhaps
not as much so as the last command in today’s passage.
Jesus tells his disciples to “’be perfect
as your heavenly Father is perfect.’” This
sounds almost neurotic. Conventional
wisdom states that perfection is the enemy of the good. And mothers warn their children that only God
is perfect and that humans have to accept themselves as fallible. But Jesus remains unsparing in his
command. His disciples are to become
like God in their relations with others; that is, they must be good to
everyone.
Before putting aside Jesus’ command as
impossible, impractical, or self-destructive, we need to consider something. These dictates come with the Holy Spirit. He is the very presence of God who does not merely
help us but transforms us. We are no
longer crippled by sin but walk as God’s children. As Bach’s children wrote
music approaching the glory of their father’s work so too can our goodness approach
the perfection of our heavenly Father’s.
