God practices what he preaches

By Norm McGraw

Saturday of the First Week of Lent
Deuteronomy 26:16-19
Matthew 5:43-48

During this season of prayer and sacrifice in Lent, the world seems consumed with hate. Although most of us have a “live and let live” attitude about our neighbor, we have three major wars going on today — one in the Middle East, another in the Ukraine, and a third in the Sudan. In this election year, the mainstream media, rather than reporting news, spins narratives that goad their readership into hating their political opponents. Even in our personal lives, we may have had a relationship with someone in the past that crashed and burned at the end rather than being resolved amicably.

The second reading in Saturday’s Mass presents God’s manual on how to handle the emotion of hate spiritually and emotionally in our lives. At the end of the 5th chapter, which features the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of St. Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples, “You have heard 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, that you may be children of your heavenly Father.”

Wow. “Love your enemies.” That can be a difficult road to choose.

God presents a seemingly easier road for us to follow with the first reading. It is from the 26th chapter of Deuteronomy where Moses, speaking to the Israelites, says, “Today you are making this agreement with the LORD: he is to be your GOD, and you are to walk in his ways and observe his statues, commandments, and decrees, and to harken to his voice.”

The bulk of the chapters in Deuteronomy, the fifth book in the Jewish Torah, (likewise, the fifth book in the Bible), are sermons delivered by Moses to his people. The early chapters recount forty years of the Israelites wandering, culminating with the exhortation to observe the law. Later chapters focus on the need to follow God’s law. That is where you can find the latter reading.

The message is straightforward. Like the Israelites, we should obey the Almighty’s word because He is our God, and we have made a covenant with Him. This message is reinforced in the responsorial psalm: “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!”

However, that doesn’t make it any easier to follow the command of Jesus to “love your enemies.” Perhaps looking at the meanings of “love” and “hate” might be helpful. Love can be defined as” the unselfish, loyal, and benevolent concern for the good of another.” The key word here is “unselfish.” Hate can be defined as “an intense negative emotional response to someone.”

Some experts believe that an essential element of hate is “a decision to devalue a previously valued object.” When we hate someone, we want to devalue that person. The problem is that when we truly hate someone, don’t we become like that person?  Don’t we devalue ourselves?

The best example of how to love one’s enemies is given by Jesus himself with the betrayal of Judas Iscariot. Certainly, someone who was the direct cause of his crucifixion would be an object of hatred. But how does Jesus react to his disciple turned traitor? In the 26th chapter of Matthew, when Judas and others came to arrest Jesus, “he (Judas) came up to Jesus at once and said, ‘Greetings, Rabbi!’ And he kissed him. Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, do what you came to do.’”

That does not present a picture of hatred from Jesus.

In the 23rd chapter of the gospel of Luke, when Jesus was crucified on the cross, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Mmm. That presents a picture of love more than hate to me. Indeed, Jesus practiced what he preached.

It is challenging to follow God’s laws, including the difficult one of loving your enemy, but God believes we are up to it.

As Jesus said, “So be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”