In our Gospel reading today, Jesus continues to instruct his disciples and the wider group. He tells them (and ourselves) to “love your enemies”.
This verb is not an emotional term, but has the sense of wishing the best for the other person in a disinterested way, without any thought of personal advantage. This is the reverse of the perhaps usual reaction of wishing some form of revenge on someone who does not like us or has tried to do us harm. The love that Luke presents Jesus speaking about is more a matter of attitude, not emotional involvement.
We find in this extract Luke’s version of the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you would like them to treat you.” The wider reading suggests that we should act as God does. As children often resemble their parents, disciples of Jesus should aim at being “[children] of the Most High”, so that other people may see in them and their attitude and treatment of others the kind of God in whom they say they believe.
This God, Jesus says, is “compassionate” or “merciful” and acts positively towards people who are apparently undeserving. If those listening to Jesus put into practice his teachings, God will reward them to an overflowing degree: God will not weigh out the amount to be given, unlike a careful merchant. But God will take our own measuring into account
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REFLECT
In Luke’s account of Jesus’ teaching, we are told to be “compassionate” or “merciful” rather than “perfect” as in Matthew’s account. The theme of compassion or mercy runs through Luke’s version of the Jesus story, which is perhaps one of the reasons why so many people describe it as their favourite Gospel.
But this section is very demanding: Jesus requires that we go beyond our normal, human reactions and look at others in a different light. Wishing the best for someone we instinctively don’t like, or who has done us harm, is a tall order: it will be demonstrated later in the Gospel narrative, when Jesus prays for forgiveness for those who are crucifying him.
We often hear talk about evangelisation. This can be understood as presenting the Christian faith to an audience of people who do not believe in terms of preaching, media programmes and other forms of publicity. As we see from Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, this can be very effective. However, our Gospel passage today may be suggesting that there is another form of spreading the word: it might be summed up as attraction rather than promotion. The faith is illustrated or manifested by the type of people who believers actually are. It is this which can arouse interest in other people, who decide “those Christians have something special and I want some of it!”
If other people see in us some likeness of the God we believe in, they may well start to wonder and inquire what we have: but first, we must be “children of the Most High”.
learn
- The Greek New Testament word for “love” in today’s reading is not an emotional term.
- It means to desire the best for the other, without hoping for any advantage for the person doing the wishing.
- Compassion or mercy are terms frequently occurring in the Gospel according to Luke..
do
Look at yourself in the mirror: see yourself as a son or daughter of the Most High. Don’t be afraid, but resolve again to live up to your calling.