Memorial of Saint John Chrysostom, bishop and doctor of the Church
Today’s readings are particularly countercultural. In the first reading (1 Corinthians 8: 1b-7, 11-13) we have Paul’s letter to the believers in Corinth emphasizing the importance of setting aside the need to always “be right” in order to avoid being a “stumbling block” to the weak. He is explaining that although it is okay for them to eat meat (that may have been sacrificed to idols before it came to the market place and homes), if their eating the meat causes a “weaker” person to stumble because that person doesn’t have the knowledge of their being only one true God and not numerous other gods to which the meat is sacrificed, then the believer is sinning by causing the weaker person to sin.
In other words, for example, if you don’t have a problem with alcohol and, therefore, can drink without “sinning”, but your drinking (intentionally) causes someone who does have a problem with alcohol to “stumble” and drink that which is harmful to them, then you are sinning in your self-centeredness and insensitivity to the other person. Yes, technically you didn’t do anything “wrong,” but you also didn’t do the “right” thing to support and keep your fellow disciple from falling.
I sometimes see this with my kids. One will intentionally annoy the other until his brother reacts out of anger and hits him (which is cause for an automatic time out in our house). The one who did the intentional annoying says he didn’t do anything “wrong” and doesn’t want to take responsibility for having played a part in provoking his brother. So, he might make a good lawyer in this scenario, but not a good model of Christianity (something I’ve been guilty of at times as well!)
Looking to the gospel passage (Luke 6: 27-38), we find a lot more countercultural teachings. We’ve heard them time and again: “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…pray for those who mistreat you…turn the other cheek…do to others as you would have them do to you…forgive and you will be forgiven.” Perhaps these teachings have become so familiar that we don’t really reflect on them and what it might really mean to live these teachings. They certainly go against the American culture, which glorifies violence, encourages revenge and models protecting ourselves and our assets.
In this week that holds the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, I wonder what it would be like if Christians throughout this country prayed for the terrorists and their families. What would it mean to “do good to those who hate you” either personally or as a nation? Challenging words of the gospel. I think of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and others who taught and lived the non-violence to which the gospel today is calling us, “To the person who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other one as well.”
If we love our enemies, as Luke’s gospel tells us, then we will be “children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”
Let us pray for the grace and strength to live these challenging but rewarding teachings of Jesus, and be recognized as true followers of Jesus, one with Him, not one with the culture in which we live.
Eileen Miller