Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time (A): Matthew 5:38-48
Our Gospel reading for today offers us abundant riches and abundant challenges. Three years ago, the last time we saw this Gospel, I addressed the question of what Jesus meant by “Be perfect”. You can find that post here. This time, I will focus my attention on a different issue that our Gospel reading raises: the issue of how we understand the Bible.
The Bible plays an extremely important role in the lives of Catholics and, indeed, of all Christians. This seems so obvious that it might not need to be said. In the Mass, we not only have the Liturgy of the Word, comprised of readings from Scripture; many of the prayers and responses during Mass are based on Scripture. We are all encouraged to read the Bible regularly and to use it as a source of divine wisdom to guide our lives. We venerate the Bible as a unique record of God’s dealings with His people.
Understanding the Bible, however, is no easy feat. It does not come with an owner’s manual or a set of FAQ’s to guide our reading. Suppose I had a question about my life that I was trying to solve. I find a verse in the Bible that seems to answer my question. I tell a friend, “See, the Bible says this.” Suppose that my friend were to respond, “Maybe so, but there’s another verse in the Bible that says that”, after which I hear something that seems different from what I had read in the first place. Many arguments have taken place over what the Bible really says about certain matters, and what it means. Many of the divisions between Christians are based in large part on how the Bible should be understood and interpreted. Most of the disputes between Jesus and the Pharisees or Sadducees had to do with how to interpret the Bible.
How, then, do we begin to understand what the Bible says about anything?
Let’s say that we happen to come upon a verse or a paragraph somewhere in the Bible that addresses our question. It tells us something about it. However, it isn’t all that the Bible has to say about it. Chances are, other verses in the Old and New Testaments speak of our question in some way or another. Chances are that all these verses do not say the same thing. How do we connect all these dots? How do we know how to understand it all?
Does Jesus Himself say anything in the Gospels about our question? After all, He is the Word of God. He knows the fullness of Scripture and what it was intended to mean.
What does the Church say about our question? After all, the Church is the Bride of Christ and the Body of Christ. The Church is guided by the Holy Spirit in the task of unfolding the full meaning of all that God has revealed to us. Guided by the Holy Spirit, the Church connects various dots and perceives patterns in the Bible, and comes to discern what God meant to say to us in the Bible. The Church then offers us various ways to connect these Biblical dots that are in harmony with what Christ has taught: the Creed, the Catechism, other doctrines, the lives of the saints. These give us a kind of manual or a set of FAQ’s to keep in mind as we read the Bible. Our understanding of the Bible is accurate to the extent that it is in harmony with these tools the Church has given us.
And how do we apply the message of the Bible to our lives? We ask the Holy Spirit before we read to guide us. We read the Bible in the light of the Creed and the Catechism and other Church teachings. We may seek the advice of a good friend who is close to the Lord and whose wisdom we value. If we come to the Bible in a spirit of openness to what God is saying to us, a willingness to trust Him, and a desire to love Him fully and to do His will, our hearts are opened for Him to guide us in how best to live out what we have read and learned.
Our Gospel reading gives us an example of much of what I have been trying to say. It is taken from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus first raises the question of revenge. There is that verse from the Old Testament, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, that Jesus quotes. But there are other verses, like this line from our first reading: “Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people”. Although some verses of Scripture seem to allow for some revenge, there is an overall pattern in Scripture that seeks to limit and eventually eliminate all revenge. Thus Jesus can say, “Offer no resistance to one who is evil” (in other words, do not repay evil with evil) but repay evil with good whenever possible. We don’t allow wrongs we suffer to define us. We are children of God. We respond with love.
Then, Jesus takes up the question of how we deal with enemies. He begins with the line “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy”. There are a number of passages in the Old Testament that speak of love of neighbor. There is no passage that says specifically that we are to hate our enemies, but people often assumed (then as well as now) that hating one’s enemies was somehow allowed. But Jesus knows of other verses in the Bible, like the one where if we see an enemy’s animal caught in a pit, we are to help it escape from the pit, and so Jesus connects the dots differently. We are to love even our enemies. This does not mean always harboring warm feelings for them, but wanting what is truly good for them, praying for them, and doing good for them when possible. Why? God does this for everyone; God’s gifts are offered to friend and foe alike. We who are called God’s people must do the same, so that the world may know that we belong to God.
How is this possible? How can we offer love for evil? How can we love our enemies? It’s nothing we can do on our own. Nor do we need to make it happen on our own. It is given to us. If we truly believe that we are the people of God, brought into being and saved by God’s love, and if we truly embrace this, we will find that we can live this way. In fact, we will not want to live any other way. We will want to respond with gratitude and love to the love God has given us. Even when it involves people who hurt us, or who are our enemies.
In the first example, Jesus speaks of how we respond to individual hurts or offenses; one-time deals. In the second example, Jesus speaks of us praying for our enemies, but one gets the sense that these enemies aren’t always with us. There’s at least a bit of distance. What Jesus does not address here is the repeated offense. What if someone is constantly sinning against you in some way and shows no remorse, no signs of stopping, no willingness to listen or change? In another passage, Jesus speaks of forgiving seventy times seven times, but with the understanding that the offender is sorry and asks forgiveness each time. What if that does not happen? What if it’s someone who seems determined to abuse you, no matter what?
If we look at the Scriptures as a whole, we see times when people accept suffering, even death, for the Lord. However, we also see times when Jesus tells His disciples that if a given town will not accept them, they must shake its dust from their feet and leave that town. This is where the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the advice of a trusted person who shares our faith is most crucial. The challenge is discerning when one needs to stay in a difficult situation in obedience to God’s will, and when one needs to leave that situation in order to be free to follow God’s will. There are times when the better thing to do is to leave.
Much more can be said about this. It is my hope that this will be helpful as a guide for how to approach the Scriptures in a fruitful and Catholic manner.