(Audio)
But rather, love your enemies and do good to them,
and lend expecting nothing back;
then your reward will be great
and you will be children of the Most High,
for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
Of course none of us have enemies. Or at least we don't think of it that way. But toward whom would it be painful for us to do works of service and expect nothing back? Certainly there are such people for all of us. We have very practical reasons why we want to keep up a strict equality of give and take with some individuals. But as Christians we are called to more.
Today, though the LORD delivered you into my grasp,
I would not harm the LORD’s anointed.
Like David we must be able to get beyond the cycles of give and take. Saul wanted to kill David. Reciprocity in that situation would perpetuate a cycle of violence. Yet for David it would make sense because it would protect him from danger if the one who sought his life was dead. We too are called to love not only those who seek our lives but those who won't or can't repay us as well. In some ways it is easier to give to those who can't repay us, because we don't then have expectations that they should. Those who won't are perhaps the ones we should focus on loving us much as we can if we would be like our Father in heaven.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
After all, we don't respond to God as he deserves but he loves us anyway. He wants to make our hearts more like his. We must clarify he does not call us to do everything our enemies want us to do. He calls us to love them as he himself loves them, which might be quite in contrast to their own desires. Yet such love is always free of vengeance and judgmental thinking.
“Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
Give, and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing,
will be poured into your lap.
When we don't feel like we have enough, when we feel like we're on the run from Saul and barely surviving, we can choose to love and to give. Only in this willing lose of our lives will we find them again in Christ for eternity.
If our spirits protest that is to be expected. We still have the old man, the first man who is earthly, pulling at our wills. This is called concupiscence. But we who are in Jesus are being renewed in a new man who is spiritual, being more and more transformed into the image of the heavenly one.
Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one,
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.
We need to welcome this transformation. We succeed at this when we are given the opportunity to love our enemies and we allow ourselves to rely on the grace that God never ceases to offer.
Merciful and gracious is the LORD,
slow to anger and abounding in kindness.
Not according to our sins does he deal with us,
nor does he requite us according to our crimes.
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