Matthew 5: 43-48
Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
The Opportunity to Love
In the fifth chapter of Matthew, we are well into the Sermon on the Mount. We hear familiar and comforting phrases: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “You are the light of the world.”
However, today the commands to love our enemies and to be perfect can be harder to hear; taken at face value, they can seem almost too challenging, too far out of reach.
And yet, for Jesus loving our enemies and being perfect is not just some abstract, spiritual teaching. Rather, it is the constant invitation to show love in the concrete realities of our lives, in the same way the heavenly Father shows love through His very real and undiscriminating gifts of sunshine and rain. The law that Jesus gives today is not a set of rules to judge behavior, but the gift of new relationship and a new vision of the world.
What a gift it is to have the opportunity today to love.
—Jon Herrington, SJ, is a Jesuit scholastic of the Midwest Province studying philosophy at Fordham University in New York City.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, you are perfect and you have sent us your Son, Jesus, to show us how to be perfect. Send us your Spirit to help us see the world as Jesus does and to show love more in deeds than in words. Amen.
—Jon Herrington, SJ