Love Your Enemies

Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

The story told in the first reading from the First Book of Samuel is a good representation of what Jesus means in the Gospel of St. Luke. “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” There is nothing new in this statement. It is also recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew.

One of the gifts of the First and Second Book of Samuel is that they contain some of the richest portrayals of biblical characters in the Hebrew Scriptures. Saul and David are full characters with complex emotional lives, and an even more complex relationship. The first reading today comes from a difficult time in Saul’s life. He has grown older under the pressures of encroaching international powers, a difficult relationship with God and a young upstart who is now favored by the very people and God who chose him to be king. While Saul has not been a perfect person, he has tried to protect his people. He has tried to show mercy to his soldiers and even his enemies. However, God rejects Saul because Saul disobeys God on several occasions. Saul displayed greed, impatience, and an unwillingness to heed the warnings of God’s prophet Samuel. For this, he was rejected by God and the prophet Samuel who then anointed David to be king. He watched while his once promising career fell to pieces all around him. The young upstart he brought into his court, David, is now vying for his throne. It seems these pressures have led him to a dark place in his mind. He is a man who feels abandoned, alone and afraid and he grows paranoid and reckless. Blinded by this pain and fear, Saul loses sight of himself and of his grasp on reality. David was the victim of Saul’s downward spiral.

So, we can easily understand why David might jump at Abishai’s offer to murder Saul in today’s first reading. Saul has not given David much reason to do otherwise. Yet, David chooses to spare his enemy. David’s choice comes out of the recognition that Saul’s life is precious to God. So, the decision David makes is essentially based on Saul’s humanity. This is where David shows a difference in his relationship with both God and Saul. He refuses to dehumanize Saul and recognizes that Saul is a human being deserving of his respect.

Perhaps this is why we have a difficult time understanding why Jesus asks us to love our enemies. We tend to look at our enemies as something other than human. Scroll through any social media site and you can see human beings labeled as “monsters” or “demons” or “scum,” be they violent criminals or simply someone with whom another disagrees. Name-calling has become rampant in our social discourse. Instead of remembering that people with whom we disagree are human beings, we turn to denigrating people and fail to remember that they are children of God just as surely as we are. This is our challenge: to see others as God sees them.

Jesus’ standard applies not only to our treatment of others, but also to our treatment of ourselves. We can be our own worst enemies, denying ourselves the kindness we willingly share with others, and judging ourselves most harshly of all. We must see ourselves as God sees us – worthy of mercy and goodness like any one of God’s children. We must allow God to love us.

Ultimately, we are all in God’s hands, and there is no better place to be. He pours upon us a good measure of redeeming grace through the life death and resurrection of his son as we celebrate in every Eucharist. As Jesus puts it in today’s Gospel reading, grace that is packed together, shaken down, and overflowing.

There is one distinctive difference in the way St. Luke records this imperative. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, we are told to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. Instead of perfection, St. Luke states, “Be Merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful.” While perfection might be out of my reach, surely mercy is close at hand. United with Christ we bear his heavenly image, and that is how God will always see and judge us as well as our brothers and sisters throughout the world.