7TH
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – A
Matthew
5:38-48
In his autobiography (now a major motion
picture) “Long Walk to Freedom”, Nelson Mandela wrote: “I know
that my country was not made to be a land of hatred. No one is born hating another person because
of the color of his skin. People learn
to hate. They can be taught to love for
love comes more natural to the human heart.” It came from the heart of a man who was
imprisoned for 21 years fighting for freedom for South Africa.
In his speech “I Have a Dream” Martin
Luther King Jr says “There will be no
permanent solution to the race problem until oppressed men develop the capacity
to love their enemies. The darkness of racial injustice will be
dispelled only by the light of forgiving love…”
When
an evil thing is done against us, our natural tendency is to feel angry and if
anger is not handled well, it is turned into hatred which spirals into thoughts
of revenge and retaliation. When our
hearts become bitter, it is obsessed with vindication and we want to get even if
we are wronged. But there is the
Christian way out of the vicious cycle of evil that continue to beset us and
that is the way of love. The message of Jesus is quite radical and
revolutionary because it challenges the deep seated nature of humanity and
brings it back to that state it was created for. Gandhi, another champion of non-violence
once said that if the world follow the rule of eye for an eye, then everyone
will be blind; to follow the rule of tooth for a tooth, then everyone will be
toothless.
Why do we have to love our enemies and
pray for those who do evil things to us? Because there is nothing extraordinary
in loving those who love us and in doing good to those who are good to us. We love our enemies because we used to be
God’s enemies and yet He still loves us; we also do good things to those who
are bad to us because God still gives us His blessings even if we were bad to
Him. When we love our enemies and do
good to bad people, we return the favour to God for loving us in spite of our sinfulness.
In
the same manner to forgive those who have wronged us is not easy as eating
pie. Many people choose not to forgive
for some reasons only known to them.
They continue to harbor grudges and nurse hatreds for a long time; some
even carried them to the graves. Only those who have experienced forgiveness
from God are able to translate the same forgiveness to others. The arteries of an unforgiving heart are
blocked by hatred hence unable to breathe life and is susceptible to cardiac
arrest. To forgive is like having an
open heart surgery, giving the heart another chance to live and love.
To
walk another mile, to turn the other cheek, to give our cloak: these are
examples of transforming our nature from human to divine. Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi
showed the world that it is possible to follow the way of Christ because it is
only love that can give birth to love. The Filipino people during the EDSA Revolution
in 1986 proved to the world that peaceful revolution is possible in breaking
the vicious cycle of violence and oppression.
To
be perfect just like our Father in heaven is not about ontological perfection which
is being without defects; it is not sinlessness which are impossible ideals for
us to achieve. To be perfect is rather
becoming whole and undivided in spite of our imperfection, woundedness and
brokenness. What distinguishes us from
the other animals is our capacity to go beyond our nature because we just don’t
simply live. What distinguishes the
Christians from the rest of humanity is our ability to love and forgive in a
culture of hatred and violence.
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