Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
1 Samuel 26 (abbreviated)
In those days, Saul went down to the desert of Ziph
with three thousand picked men of Israel,
to search for David in the desert of Ziph.
So David and Abishai went among Saul’s soldiers by night
and found Saul lying asleep within the barricade,
with his spear thrust into the ground at his head
and Abner and his men sleeping around him.
Abishai whispered to David:
“God has delivered your enemy into your grasp this day.
Let me nail him to the ground with one thrust of the spear;
I will not need a second thrust!”
But David said to Abishai, “Do not harm him,
for who can lay hands on the LORD’s anointed and remain unpunished?”
So David took the spear and the water jug from their place at Saul’s head,
and they got away without anyone’s seeing or knowing or awakening.
All remained asleep,
because the LORD had put them into a deep slumber.
Going across to an opposite slope,
David stood on a remote hilltop
at a great distance from Abner, son of Ner, and the troops.
He said: “Here is the king’s spear.
Let an attendant come over to get it.
The LORD will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness.
Today, though the LORD delivered you into my grasp,
I would not harm the LORD’s anointed.”
Psalm 103 (selected verses)
R. (8a) The Lord is kind and merciful.
Bless the LORD, O my soul;
and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
He pardons all your iniquities,
heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
crowns you with kindness and compassion.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
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.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.
R. The Lord is kind and merciful.
Brothers and sisters:
It is written, The first man, Adam, became a living being,
the last Adam a life-giving spirit.
But the spiritual was not first;
rather the natural and then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth, earthly;
the second man, from heaven.
As was the earthly one, so also are the earthly,
and as is the heavenly one, so also are the heavenly.
Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one,
I give you a new commandment, says the Lord:
love one another as I have loved you.
Jesus said to his disciples:
“To you who hear I say,
love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well,
and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks of you,
and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?
Even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same.
If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you?
Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount.
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.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“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.
For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”
After last week's reflections on the four ways Jeshua turns our standards of winners and losers on its head, we find we're still in upsidedown mode as we take in Luke's synopsis of the Moral Code: Just love: love your enemies rather than hate them, i.e., treat them with respect, as you'd like others to treat you, and you'll be a winner. In John's gospel it is simply: I give you a new commandment, says the Lord: love one another as I have loved you.
Looking through the reference material I find this is not a Jeshua original, but part of ancient wisdom, this idea of 'loving' someone who attacks you. While it goes against some primary instinct that puts us on the alert against the 'enemy', the one who would steal from you, enslave you or kill you - an elementary survival instinct to 'get him before he gets you', it seems that from the beginning we knew we could be better than that. There are ancient records of exceptional people showing mercy to the vanquished. ( No less than Hammurabi [1800 BC], and Umar ibn al-Khattab who captured Jerusalem in 638. See https://www.wsj.com/articles/mercy-in-victory-is-as-ancient-as-war-1427985451#comments_sector)
In this one injunction Luke summarises the long catalogue of examples that in Matthew's gospel extends for three chapters. Matthew comes from the legal side: 'You've heard it said..., but I say...' Each accepted 'standard' is overturned and its opposite becomes the new standard. 'You've heard it said: love your friends and hate your enemies, but I say love your enemies.' Illustrations in Luke's version are taken directly from experience: 'Even sinners love those who love them; but you, love your enemies and do good to them.'
It is not only a guide for human relationships but a challenge to each of us to grow up. We have to go beyond the thinking of me opposed to you, of us versus them. We are to lead evolution to a new level where enemies are not treated as enemies, but respected as of equal dignity and worth.
Commentators point out that the 'love' we are to have for enemies is not the emotional love of close friendship but 'agape', which means 'fellowship'. It is the way we identify with our associates at work, with our team, or the community of our neighbourhood. This 'love' is, first of all, respect. Give them a fair go. Treat them decently.
A particularly nasty factor in modern warfare involves soldiers being deliberately fired up to hate and despise the people opposing them and to see them as sub-human. The result of this corruption of the soldier's humanity is that they then treat prisoners and the vanquished in general with gratuitous humiliation and torture to show or to prove their disdain for them.
Perhaps an up-to-date translation would be: Respect your enemies!
If God's standard for us is to love our enemies, it goes without saying that we must not make enemies. This may be even harder than 'loving' those who pick a fight with us. It is certainly very common, even in the churches, to want to pick a fight. It might not be out of place for us to remind ourselves that the bishops are not the enemy; the priests are not the enemy; and the people who have conservative views and follow old fashioned rituals are not the enemy, any more than gays or straights or women or men are the enemy. I think we must respect those who would oppose our ideas or try to bully us into submitting to theirs.
When Jeshua prayed 'that they may be one' I don't think he was much concerned about the different forms and interpretations people would come up with in their different ways, nor was he worried about the different cultures that can be found within communities. His concern was that those differences should not turn into animosity, hate, verbal abuse or persecution. If 'they' hit you on one cheek, just turn the other cheek to them. If 'they' bully you, don't let it put you off your course.
Do not make enemies.
There are signs in the world at large that uncivilised behaviour is on the increase amongst us. We seem to be headed back to the jungle. Some would say it started when people stopped respecting their elders, their teachers, and authorities in general. This would be a one-sided view, because the 'rebellion' occurring throughout the world is reaction to the way those on top have treated those below them forever. Most of us are happy to let someone else make the hard decisions, but we expect them to show respect for everyone. The disturbing thing is that political leaders are not only bad mouthing their opponents to paint them as despicable, dangerous and evil, but they lie to the people, set one group against another, and vilify those who don't go along with them. We need our leaders to be the best and they have become the worst.
Neither are the refugees who land on our shores. The way we are treating them is the worst example of making enemies. We have taken some who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and locked them away on remote islands in endless, hopeless detention. Australia's very own Guantanamo? Perhaps Port Arthur or Norfolk Island might soon be re-opened. The aim is to stop the flow with this deterrent. It is barbaric, inhumane and surely criminal to use cruel detention as a way of intimidating innocent, needy, desperate people who only want to find a place to live and contribute to our common wealth. If we can possibly make room, how can we ever justify, even in economic terms, this systematic, endless waste of human beings? Beyond shame is the fact that we proclaim to the world that this is the model to follow. One former PM told the British they should adopt our model. The president of the United States of America openly praised it and, emboldened by our success, is determined to build his wall to shut them out.
Our "christian" practice does not measure up well against our spiritual heritage:
“You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt”(Ex.22:20).
“You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the soul of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Ex.23:9).
“The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Lev.19:34).
“You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deut.10:19)
“You shall not hate an Egyptian, for you were stranger in his land” (Deut.23:8).
“Always remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment” (Deut. 24:22)
A recent article in a Jewish journal[LINK] https://jps.org/for-you-were-strangers-in-the-land-of-egypt/ shows that the status of immigrant residents is not peripheral to the Torah, but central to it. “…it is startling that the legal portions of the Torah contain more than fifty references to the resident stranger….” writes biblical scholar Jeremiah Unterman in 'Justice for All: How the Jewish Bible Revolutionized Ethics.'
We should remind ourselves that 'we' were once refugees, the vast majority of us, whether we came as convicts or as refugees from poverty in the 19th century or from the devastation of WW II, Vietnam or other conflicts.
The argument is that we take in our share of refugees by orderly immigration and so are not obliged to take in those who land on our shores uninvited; we claim it is right to call them illegals and queue jumpers. The most hypocritcal 'justification' for using detention to stop the boats is that too many drown at sea. If we are truly concerned for them, what's to stop us running an ocean liner back and forth to Indonesia? Health checks and basic documentation can be done during the two week's sailing and they will be ready for the next phase when they are landed in one of our major cities. A proper system would give hope to thousands, and end the business of the smugglers.
There are over 60 million refugees and displaced person in camps around the world, and we of the wealthy West with eyes tight shut build our walls and patrol our beaches. Australia the Fair is the world's worst for we boast how we successfully use the cruel torture of detention to deter the rest.
"The measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”