“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” (Mt. 5:43-45)
As we celebrate Independence Day this weekend, we rejoice in the freedom God has provided us in this country as the result of a hard battle against an oppressive and unjust regime. At this time, however, we are also faced with cries of ongoing oppression and injustice in our nation from a people who are the descendants of those who were brought to our country as slaves and who still find themselves fearing for their lives due to what they perceive to be “systemic racism.” This is a good time for us to examine our Lord’s teachings – by word and example – as he came to bring us the only true freedom we will ever experience: before God.
God’s eternal plan called for his son, Jesus, to come among us to free us from the bonds of sin and death. These bonds are the result of our rejection of God and choosing, instead, to listen to the tempting of the devil, who tricks us with lies and half-truths in order to lead us away from God and into his control. This turning away from God is recounted in the Book of Genesis where we find the story of Adam and Eve, a mythological account that explains the rebelliousness we all struggle with in our lives.
It’s important to note that God sent his son into a society that was struggling with oppression and injustice. The Roman Empire enslaved those whom they conquered, treating them with contempt and exploiting them and their lands. And, Jesus was not born as the son of the Roman Emperor but the son of Mary, a Jewish woman who was among the oppressed. He surely experienced the brutality of the Roman Empire as he grew up.
So, what was Jesus’ response to this oppression and injustice? We learn a great deal about it in the Sermon on the Mount where we hear Jesus teach his fellow Jews:
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. …Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. …Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of God. (cf. Mt. 5:5-10)
Our Lord goes on to admonish his fellow Jews to love their enemies and pray for their persecutors. You won’t find anywhere any of the gospels a call to angry protests or finger pointing. Instead, it calls everyone to a conversion and a change of heart. Even when Jesus spoke with righteous anger against the Pharisees, calling them a “brood of vipers,” (Mt. 12:34), he doesn’t call his followers to rebellion. Instead, he teaches:
“Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? …You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.” (cf. Mt. 7:1-5)
Jesus calls us to stop judging others – only God has the authority to judge – and instead, to look at ourselves to overcome our own sinfulness. Racism, murder, oppression and injustice will never go away in this world – it’s part of the sinful nature of man, symbolized in Cain slaying Abel, and of the reign of the devil – but Jesus came to establish his new kingdom where those who follow him strive to correct their own sinful ways and, by their example, call others to do the same. When the Jews brought the woman caught in adultery before Jesus, they wanted him to condemn her. His response was, “let the one without sin throw the first stone.” No one did because they had to admit their own sinfulness. And then, Jesus – God himself and the only one who is supposed to pass judgement – assured the woman that he didn’t condemn her; he just called her to avoid this sin. He called her to a change of heart, gently and with an abundance of mercy and love.
Our Lord’s teaching about love in the face of oppression is even more demanding as we also see in the Sermon on the Mount:
“You have hear that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. …Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.” (cf. Mt. 5:38-41).
This is a very strong admonition and one that we all struggle to heed; we want justice without mercy and look for vengeance instead of reconciliation. Jesus’ teaching is even more powerful when you understand the two examples he used here. In the time of our Lord, there was a specific significance to the act of someone striking you on the right cheek: he was challenging you to fight. Roman soldiers would often strike the Jews on the right cheek to provoke them to fight. So, how does Jesus call them to respond? Offer them the left cheek, as well, as a sign of gentle, abundant love in the face of hatred and contempt. And, Roman soldiers were allowed to press their subjects into service but there limits to their demands to ensure that the subjects would not be taxed beyond their abilities. Jesus uses the example of being pressed into service for one mile. In the face of this oppressive practice, Jesus calls for a generous response; going the extra mile. Jesus goes on to teach: “whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mt. 12:50). That’s what the Church – the presence of God in this world – calls us to do today.
The Church has long been in the forefront of promoting social justice. But, it starts by calling everyone to a conversion and a change of heart. That’s how we are called to respond. Beginning with Rerum Novarum, a powerful encyclical promulgated in 1891 in response to the oppressive practices of some capitalists over their laborers and continuing through the years, including a 1989 proclamation entitled The Church and Racism: Towards a More Fraternal Society, the Church has called all peoples to recognize that we are all made in the image and likeness of God and are all to be equally loved and respected.
Jesus, who teaches that we should love one another, calls us to extend an even more generous love in the face of oppression and injustice. His gospel – Good News – is very clear, but very difficult. And, he lived as he taught, standing silently before Pontius Pilate in the face of false accusations and praying for the forgiveness of our sins as he hung on the cross. If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that we are all sinners. Black Lives Matter exposes another, contemporary example of that sinfulness. Rather than insisting on an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” Jesus says, “offer no resistance to one who is evil.” And, as I mentioned above, Jesus is speaking specifically in the context of an even more oppressive environment than we have today. The Roman Empire demonstrated its superiority over its subjects with a vengeance and with the intention to intimidate and oppress them. Our nation, on the other hand, was founded on the Declaration of Independence, proclaimed on 4 July 1776, which attests:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
As we celebrate the freedom that we enjoy here in our beloved country, I invite you to reflect on how we can best bring the true freedom that only God offers us to our land now, once again, torn apart by division and discord. True freedom comes only in loving as God does, abundantly, unconditionally, with mercy for all and a constant awareness of our own need for conversion of heart. May God bless America!