Tuesday of the Eleventh Week
In the first reading for today, Paul praises the churches of Macedonia for their keen desire to live out the gospel. This dedication to the gospel is demonstrated first and foremost in the outpouring of their love for one another. As Paul states, Jesus is our prime example of the proper response to God’s love. For Jesus did not come into the world to exalt himself: Instead he came with a mission of love and service. Paul notes that we are not forced to respond in this way. The Macedonians’ response was an act of gratitude towards God, who loves us and who has done more for us than we can possibly imagine.
The gospel reading shows the foundation of what the Macedonian Christians were doing. The reading comes from the Sermon on the Mount. There Jesus is laying out a radically different way of living. He has just exhorted his listeners that it is not enough not to kill each other; even more so, they are to refrain from becoming unjustly angry with each other. Jesus can be seen here to be taking the demand that each of us feels to live ethically and intensifying and transforming it. Jesus points out that ordinarily people love their friends and hate their enemies. Yet he commands his disciples to go beyond this so that they will love not just their friends and family and those who benefit them, but also those whom it is difficult for them to love—even their enemies. In the gospel reading we are presented with the core of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount: Love one another. And in this we are called to emulate God, who loves all of creation. Jesus commands us to go beyond simply conforming to outward conventions of behavior and instead to allow our hearts to be changed. We are asked to do what it takes to rid ourselves of sin—not for the sake of saving ourselves but because we desire fellowship with God.
What Jesus is calling us to do here is very hard at times. We are being asked to forgive other people even as God has forgiven us. That could mean not jumping on the bandwagon to condemn others and not to call for revenge. It could mean registering as a conscientious objector and/or protesting the escalation of war. But it certainly means that we cannot bear petty grudges and store up hatred and ill will in our hearts towards other people. For then we will not be recognizable as Christians, as followers of Jesus.
We have many positive examples to follow in scripture. Let us consider them today, to help us put into practice in our lives Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, such that in the words of St. Paul we may “test the genuineness of [our] love by [our] concern for others” (II Corinthians 8: 9). Then we too can be like the Macedonians who, despite the extremity of their situation, looked to do the right, good, and loving thing.
Joel Schickel