Jesus’ teaching this morning must have been a startling
teaching for the original hearers. If it
was startling for them, it may be something with which we have also
struggled. “Love your enemies, and pray
for those who persecute you.” In
first-century Jewish Palestine, “your enemies” and “those who persecute you”
would have immediately brought to mind the Roman oppressors. Jesus challenges his disciples to love and
pray for the very people who occupy their land, tax them heavily, and treat
them with violence and injustice.
Such radical love for their persecutors is precisely what
will make them children of God who is Love itself.
The call to imitate God in his holiness and love was not a
new concept. The Levitical law commanded
Israel to be Holy, just as the Lord is holy.
The was interpreted as a call to separate yourself from the unholy—make sure
you don’t keep the company of sinners—make sure you are ritually pure, make
sure you have nothing to do with non-believers.
Jesus, however, calls his disciples to imitate God by being
perfect in love. He enters in to the
life of sinners—he sits with them, eats with them, and calls them to God’s
mercy. This love seeks what is best for
others—even one’s enemies. It is a call
to reflect the Father’s perfect, committed, selfless merciful love in our own
lives.
This is an important Lenten lesson. Our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving
throughout Lent is meant to help us practice self-discipline, it is also to
help us do penance for our sins; but it is also meant to make our hearts more
like Christ’s. We are to pray and fast
FOR our enemies, yes, so that they can be converted, but also so that we can
love them as God loves them.
If you can think of someone who you consider an enemy, to
yourself, or to Christ, and you haven’t fasted a day in your life for them,
have your really followed Jesus’ command here “to pray for those who persecute
you”? Fasting is not only changing our
bodies but our hearts.
May our Lenten practices grow our hearts in loving as our
heavenly Father loves for his glory and the salvation of souls.
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