Homily for Tuesday, 18 June 2019

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 8:1-9; Psalm 146:2, 5-6ab, 6c-7, 8-9a; Matthew 5:43-48

Tuesday of the 11th week in Ordinary Time

Is anybody here able to think of somebody you would consider an enemy?

In one sense, I have difficulty thinking of anybody I would consider to be a true enemy. But what do we mean today when we speak of an enemy, compared to what Jesus meant by our “enemies” in his time, as we hear today in Matthew’s Gospel when Jesus asks us to “love [our] enemies and pray for those who persecute” us?

Today, as in Jesus’ time, we might think of an enemy as any foe, any adversary, anybody who demeans, disrespects or, as Jesus says, persecutes us. Some of us in our not-too-distant Church history, or maybe even still today, might speak of Satan as the (arch-)enemy. These definitions of an enemy have persisted for centuries and still exist now in English and many languages. Yet many ancient languages spoken in Jesus’ time and before then distinguished our more common definition of an enemy as a persecutor from another form of enemy as essentially a stranger.

If we include within our possible range of meaning of “enemy” somebody who is a stranger to us, does Jesus’ command in our Gospel today, “love your enemies,” not become somewhat more challenging to us? Is it not challenging enough to love somebody who constantly demeans or persecutes us, without having to love also anybody who is a stranger to us? I cannot think of many, if any, people who demean or persecute me to the point that I would consider them enemies. But I am able to think of people, some at one time close to me, with whom I could make a better effort to communicate; others who think and behave differently from the way I would think or behave about whom I could avoid gossiping or whose differences I could make a more deliberate effort to understand and even honor. I could make a better effort than I do to listen attentively, and not only to reply but to understand and honor, to people I differ from in various ways.

How many of us could “love [our] enemies” more than we do in the sense of loving and honoring people who are or who have become strangers to us, even when this estrangement is more-or-less unintentional? Who are the strangers in our lives from whom Jesus is inviting us to become a little less estranged; to love more than we do?

Some people are easier to recognize as strangers than others, for example the neighbor who has just moved into the neighborhood. The farther another person’s experience is from our own, the easier it can be to define this person or situation as strange to or estranged from us. Perhaps the integration or lack thereof of migrants and refugees into our countries shows this especially strikingly. For undocumented migrants, refugees, or trafficked persons, there is yet another layer of estrangement, of “not like us.”

Yet estrangement exists within families and between people whose relationships were once close, let alone with people whose situations and experiences are far from us. How often do we make enemies, in this sense of estrangement, with people with whom we would otherwise be close, as in by blood or by friendship? The internet and its “social” media, and other forms of modern communication too often further accelerate this estrangement.

“Love your enemies,” Jesus invites us today. Work to bridge estrangement. Jesus’ challenge to us today through this commandment is great indeed.