When it comes to dealing with the difficult teachings of Jesus often our first move is to tame them, water them down. This is often done under the euphemism of contextualizing them. In other words, despite no evidence of this in the sacred text, we insist that terms and conditions apply.
The provocative truth, dear friends, is that terms and conditions usually do not apply. In other words, Jesus meant what he said. Sure, he sometimes used both irony and, in the case of last week’s Gospel concerning plucking out your eye and cutting of your hand, hyperbole, typically his “Yes’ means “Yes” and his “No” means “No.”1
As his followers, Jesus challenges us more often than he comforts us. It is by taking up his challenge, which requires a radical act of trust in him, that we find the comfort only Jesus can give, the peace that passes all understanding. Otherwise, we are simply seeking what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.”
Cheap grace, according to Bonhoeffer, “means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.”2 Seeking to clarify what he means by cheap grace, Bonhoeffer, writing in a more sarcastic tone, employs a reductio ad absurdum:
Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin3Bonhoeffer’s point is that while God’s grace given us in Christ is truly free (i.e., you don’t deserve it and you can’t earn it), it requires something of the one who accepts it. What is required of the one who has received grace? To extend that same grace to others. We acknowledge this each time we utter this phrase from the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”4 But for the person who has truly accepted the grace offered her in Christ Jesus, this is not so much an obligation as it is a deep desire.
There is nothing cheap about the grace God offers us through the Eucharist and the sacrament of reconciliation, which are made possible by Jesus’s passion, death, and resurrection. Saint Paul, a few chapters on from our second reading, told the Christians in ancient Corinth: “you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.”5 The price with which you were purchased was the crucifixion of the sinless Son of God.
The exhortation to “glorify God in your body” means nothing other than what you say and do matter. At the end of Mass you are dismissed: “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”6 Jesus says that you glorify the Father not only by forgiving your enemies but by loving and praying for them.7 As the one who has done the hard work of forgiving and loving someone who has wronged him knows, this comes at a cost. There is nothing cheap about it.
Our first reading, taken from Leviticus, comes from the heart of what is known as the “Holiness Code.” Across the five major discourses around which his Gospel is structured, Matthew presents Jesus as a lawgiver, like Moses. No doubt a passage from Deuteronomy undergirds Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus. In this passage, Moses tells the Israelites: “A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kindred; that is the one to whom you shall listen.”8
The words Jesus speaks in our Gospel today echo the words of the Torah, which reveal that to be holy as God is holy means nothing less than loving your neighbor as you love yourself.9 Too often, when we think of holiness, we think like the pagans or those still living under the law. In other words, holiness becomes about theories and abstractions or, worse yet, some kind of implied magic- “If I do x, then y will result.” But as the Torah and Jesus himself make clear, holiness subverts the retaliation that, in our self-deception, we often disguise as justice.
This subversion consists of breaking the lex talionis, the law of retaliation, which urges an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. In the movie Fiddler on the Roof, when a fellow villager urges Tevye to seek an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, the milkman responds: “Very well. That way the whole world will be blind and toothless.”10
What this comes down to is choosing grace over karma. In an interview some years ago, Bono of U2, after acknowledging the reality of karma, which holds that you get what you deserve, asserted, “along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that ‘As you reap, so will you sow’ stuff.” He goes on to state that “Grace defies reason and logic.” "Love," he continues, "interrupts… the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff… I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge… It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own [righteousness].”11
It stands to reason that if I want grace for myself, I had better want it for others too. “To be a Christian” C.S. Lewis observed, “means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”12
As he aged, I used to tease a friend who was a priest from Ireland, not to contract Irish Alzheimer’s. The result of this spiritual disease is forgetting everything except your grudges. Let’s face it, it is human, all too human, not only hold onto and nurse our grudges, but we sometimes, as alluded to in our first reading, "cherish" them. As we do this, it very often happens that we become more and more convinced of our own righteousness and the wickedness of the one who wronged us. Of course, this blinds us to the ways we have wronged others, or leads to the rationalization that, “Well, that’s different.” But the only real difference is that when it comes to your own wrongdoing, it’s not you who was harmed, offended, or belittled.
What Jesus asks of his followers in today’s Gospel is not easy to do. In fact, left to our own devices and without God’s grace we are probably not capable, or even inclined, to do what the Lord asks. But Jesus is clear, refusing to do this renders you a non-Christian. He asks: “if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?”13 Of course, the answer to the first question is “None.” And the answer to the second question is “Yes.”
I’d be a liar if I left you with the impression that this any easier for me than it is for you. It’s not. If you don’t believe me, ask Holly, she can give you the dirt on the Deacon. My point, sisters and brothers, is that we need each other so that we can help each other. If our parish is not a community in which forgiveness and reconciliation are regularly put into practice- this only begins in the little room at the back of our Church- then whatever else we might be, we’re not a Christian community. This is why the early Christian communities were frequently exhorted
to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace…14
1 Matthew 5:37.↩
2 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R.H. Fuller, Touchstone: New York, 43.↩
3 Ibid., 44.↩
4 Roman Missal, "The Order of Mass," sec. 124.↩
5 1 Corinthians 6:20.↩
6 Roman Missal, "The Order of Mass," sec. 144.↩
7 Matthew 5:44.↩
8 Deuteronomy 18:15.↩
9 Leviticus 19:18.↩
10 Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Norman Jewison, 1971.↩
11 All quotes in this paragraph from “10 Brilliant Things Bono has said about God.”↩
12 From The Weight of Glory.↩
13 Matthew 5:46.↩
14 Ephesians 4:1b-3.↩
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