Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

As we continue to make our way through Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, we find the Lord’s Teaching to be more engaging as we go along, and therefore more challenging to put into practice. We started out with the beautiful, and even poetic Beatitudes which help us, upon reflection, to find blessing, grace, and even happiness in the midst of adversity.

Then the Lord asked us to embody this spiritual awakening by becoming salt of the earth and light for the world — that is — to become part of what Saint John Paul II identified for our times as the “New Evangelization.”

Now, Jesus, presented in St. Matthew’s Gospel as the one, true interpreter of the Commandments, instructs us to move beyond being mere passive recipients of ancient teachings, and to engage the world by way of a newer, deeper insight into what the Commandments suggest, provide, and encourage… not just what they forbid, in an actual manner of living that makes moral choices easier, not more difficult.

Concepts (and not just words) are given to us in our three Readings today that can sound overpowering, unattainable, or downright scary, on first hearing, but when looked at more closely, can be better understood as means for growth in our primary identity as Christians.

These concepts are given to us not by any of the Church Councils, a saintly medieval theologian, or a modern televangelist … but right from the beginning by Saint Paul, who eschews mere human wisdom n favor of endowed wisdom, originating from:

 -Jesus Christ Our Lord, who says, “Be perfect, as you heavenly Father is perfect,”
  — and from —
-God the Father, who says, “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God am holy.”

We know that, unattainable as these directives might sound, God, who created us, who knows us, and who loves us, would not require of us that which is impossible. So, let’s take a brief look at these concepts of wisdom… holiness… and perfection in order to see what insight they can give us to better understand the Lord’s Teachings, especially about
- turning the other cheek  —and —
- loving our enemies.

Wisdom can be defined most simply as the fruit of reflected-upon life experience. Use of the phrase “older, but wiser” suggests that wisdom reigns in the realm of older people, and there is some truth in that, but not all old folks are wise. Some are bitter, ornery curmudgeons, while others may seem happy enough never having delved deeply into human affairs, living life on a shallow plane.

But those who allow their thoughts, memories, and hopes to ruminate in the Grace of prayer, become truly wise, gaining in the process sometimes profound intuitions concerning the depths of the human condition.

These graced intuitions are the basis for Understanding, one of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, which leads to charity, patience, and freedom from judgmentalism. Wisdom, then, is not merely an accumulation of knowledge, it is graced insight, which allows us to see other people more as God sees them, or, as Saint Paul instructs us, it is an awareness of ourselves as Temples of the Holy Spirit, the knowledge of which becomes the basis for holiness.

Holiness
The word “holy” in English is translated from a Greek word which means “other” or “set apart.” In ancient days this word was used only to speak of God, who is totally “other” from His Creation, or of things set apart for the worship of God, such as the Temple, or the altar therein.

Here, however, God Himself is encouraging us to include ourselves among those persons and things that are to be considered holy. Stated simply, then, holiness means for us a sense of setting ourselves apart from that which is base, sinful, or ungodly in human life.

Holiness recognizes:
- an urge of the soul
- a need of the heart
- a tug of the conscience

and all of these pointed toward God, along with a desire to do something about  those urges, needs, and tugs.

Holiness in action will allow our heart, soul and conscience to lead us toward choices for goodness truth and beauty, all of which are revelations of the Presence of God in Creation, and will then lead us toward the beginnings of human perfection, a godliness which is only available through Grace. What, then of this perfection?

Perfection seems the least attainable virtue in life, the realm of the great mystical Saints, perhaps, and fleeting, at best, for the rest of us, because we know that God alone is perfect.

But in Saint Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Be perfected,” rather than "Be perfect,” which suggests a process or movement toward godliness available to those who desire it.

So, what does this process or movement of “being perfected” look like?
- constancy in prayer
- purity in love
- generosity in response to need
- self-giving to the point of self-sacrifice … for starters.

The Greek word that St. Matthew uses for perfection —teleios — does not demand moral faultlessness, but it does mean “imitation of God,” a life-long challenge for moral and spiritual development. If we’re unsure what “imitation of God” would mean for us, we can look to the Gospels, especially to the Sermon on the Mount, to learn how we might begin to imitate Christ. So now that we have a certain grasp on the virtues set forth for us today:

- Wisdom : 
the fruit of reflected-upon life experience

- Holiness:
setting ourselves aside from worldly judgments and irreligious human affairs

- Perfection: 
an eye for seeing things with a graced enlightenment…

… we can take a more-informed look at the Lord’s Teaching about: “an eye for an eye… and a tooth for a tooth,” as well as the instruction to love and pray for our enemies.

An eye for an eye 
I think that we could say here, without too much debate, that Jewish law and consciousness pretty much invented the concept of Justice by virtue of their ardent desire to fulfill God’s Commandments as a means, not only to please God, but an attempt to live together in harmony that would eventually lead to Our Lord’s call to Perfection.

Previous to the instruction of “an eye for an eye,” was the rule of Vengeance, embraced as honor killing, a high calling which usually brought an escalation of violence in retaliation for an evil inflicted. But Justice de-escalates the violence, putting the consequences of an unjust aggressor into the Lord’s hands, for…“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”

However, Our Lord wants us to go beyond Justice to Mercy, because if we were to take the “eye for an eye/tooth for a tooth” approach to Justice, our parish would soon be made up of mostly blind and toothless parishioners.

The Lord, in His call for mercy, is not suggesting pacifism in the face of evil in His statement, “Turn the other cheek…” but a willingness to suffer some injustices in the name of Charity and Wisdom, and, therefore, a more godlike mercy will initiate a different kind of peace than the uneasy truce which often passes for peace among people and nations.

This understanding of mercy and appreciation for peace leads us to the Lord’s further instruction to love our enemies and to pray for them. However, for the Jewish people, then and now, it made good sense to hate their enemies, surrounded as they have always been, by enemies, both political and religious who have sought their annihilation, so hatred for one’s enemies had become a means of survival. Here is where we see the call to Perfection at its most difficult: It is the love of one’s enemies that moves the Christian heart and will from vengeance… through justice… to mercy.

In being merciful and forgiving, difficult as this may be, we become most godlike, for, in the end, is not mercy the one thing we most hope for from God?

So, in the brief two paragraphs Our Lord gives us concerning mercy and forgiveness, love and prayer, we can consider as realistic and truly possible the call we hear today to
- grow in wisdom
- excel in holiness — and —
-walk with the Lord in the path of perfection.