Today’s Gospel is one that’s certainly very familiar to us. But if we’re honest, every time we hear it, it must give us a little bit of uneasiness, right? Because, yes, it is very easy to love those who love us, to do good to those who do good to us, to greet those who greet us. But when it comes right down to it, Jesus is right. There is nothing special about loving those we know well, and we certainly look forward to greeting our friends and close family. So this is the culmination of all the “You have heard that it was said…” / “But I say to you…” passages we have been hearing in the Gospel readings at daily Mass over the last week or so. Because this whole line of thinking, just as everything else in the Gospel, all boils down to love. We have to love, even love those who we’d rather not.
Loving those we’ve rather not is a tall order, and we would naturally avoid that kind of thing. However that’s not what the Christian life is about. We know that, but when we get a challenge like today’s Gospel, it hits a little close to home. We all have that mental list of people who are annoying or who have wronged us or caused us pain. And to have to greet them, do good to them, even love them – well that all seems too much most days.
And yet that is what disciples do. We’re held to a higher standard than those proverbial tax collectors and pagans that Jesus refers to. We are people of the new covenant, people redeemed by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And so we have to live as if we have been freed from our pettiness, because, in fact, we have. We are told to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect. It’s a tall order, but a simple act of kindness to one person we’d rather not be kind to is all it takes to make a step closer.
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