Teaching of Jesus can
be counterintuitive to us. For example, his teaching on loving enemies (Matthew
5:43-48) is contrary to what we tend to think of dealing with enemies. Our
intuition rather tells to fight enemies, keeping them from us. And Jesus knows
this so well. That is why he has said: You
have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy
“(Matthew 5:43), citing Leviticus 19:18 on loving our neighbors and reflecting
the sentiment of Psalm 139:19-22 and Qumran/Dead Sea Scroll (1QS 9:21) on
hating our enemies. And we tend to rationalize our hatred toward enemies. But,
in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has taught us to love our enemies. What
a contrary it is that Jesus telling us to love what we thought to hate!
In fact, his teaching
on loving enemies is not necessarily unique to Jesus as we can find the
teaching on benevolent treatment of enemies in the Old Testament. For example,
it says: If your enemies are hungry, give
them food to eat, if thirsty, give something to drink (Proverbs 25:21;
cited by Paul in Romans 12:20). Furthermore, also in Torah, God had commanded
the Israelites: When you come upon your
enemy’s ox or donkey going astray, you must see to it that it is returned. When
you notice the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you
should not desert him; you must help him with it (Exodus 23:4-5). Interestingly,
our benevolence toward enemies will hurt them so that we may win them over,
perhaps, leading to their conversion, as indicated in Proverbs 25:22.
In fact, if enemies
deserve vengeance for their evil doings, as Proverbs 20:22 reminds, it is God’s
prerogative to inflict punishment on them whenever He wills. In the meantime,
we treat our enemies with our love in the hope that our benevolence toward them
will transform them.
Obviously, it is our
weakness to fall oblivious that God does not want us to embark on vengeance on
our enemies out of hatred. Rather, He expects us to treat them as our
neighbors. So, Jesus reiterated this
teaching of treating enemies with benevolence rather than hatred from the Old
Testament by commanding us to love our enemies just as we love our neighbors –
challenging us to apply the spirit of Leviticus 19:18 not only on our neighbors
but also on our enemies.
As a matter of fact,
Jesus’ counterintuitive teaching on loving our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48) has
some similarity to his Parable of the Tares among the Wheat (Matthew 13:24-30).
In this parable, which is a part of the Gospel Reading for the 16th Sunday
in Ordinary Time on Cycle A (Matthew 13:24-43), Jesus offers another
counterintuitive teaching.
Say, you work in the
wheat field. You have noticed that tares are also growing along with the wheat
that you have planted. Then, your instinct would nudge you to pull these tares
that you did not plant out of your wheat field. On the contrary, with this
parable, Jesus teaches not to pull the tares until the harvest time, because
pulling them while growing with the wheat may inadvertently uproot the wheat
along (Matthew 13:29-30a). Then, at the harvest time, when everything in the
field is pulled, the tares are separated from the wheat and bundled to be
burned (Matthew 13:30b).
As Jesus has said in this
parable, the tares need to be destroyed upon being pulled at the harvest time
because they are, in fact, poisonous weeds, though they resemble wheat. They
are not just harmless weeds. If they were not detected and separated at the harvest
time but processed and milled, you would fall drowsy as tare’s poison has a
soporific effect. That is why tare is also called darnel, which is derived from
“darne”, which in Walloon means “dazed,
stunned, drunk”, as well as “darnelle”,
which in Old French means “to harm”.
As enemies can hurt us,
so do tares (darnels) as they are deleterious weeds. Our instinct tells to
eliminate what can hurt us. However, Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:43-48 and
Matthew 13:24-30 are rather contrary. He has taught to love our enemies, rather
than hating them, in his Sermon on the Mount, and has taught not to pull the
tares out of the wheat field until the harvest time in his Parable of the Tares
among the Wheat.
,
Jesus has explained
what he had meant by his Parable of the Tares among the Wheat in Matthew
13:36-43. According to this, the tares are the metaphor for the children of
evil ones, while the wheat represent the children of the Kingdom of Heaven
(Matthew 13:38). With this explanation of Jesus’ Parable of the Tares among the
Wheat (Matthew 13:24-30), juxtaposed to his teaching on loving our enemies
(Matthew 5:43-48), the tares are like enemies among us, enemies who may be
difficult to distinguish because of their resemblance to us. Though enemies can hurt us with their evil as
tares can hurt us with poison, Jesus has taught us not to rush with our
instinct for vengeance on them. Rather, we treat enemies among us as our neighbors
with love, until the time of God to bring the judgment at the eschaton, as the tares are allowed to
grow among the wheat until the harvest time.
So, where this
counterintuitive teaching of Jesus across Matthew 5:43-48 and Matthew 13:24-30
leads to?
Besides not reacting to
our enemies out of our intuition for reprisal, the teaching is about to be like
how God the Father treats us, the sinners, not with His vengefulness but
loving-kindness and mercy, which represent God’s perfection.
Our sins hurt God and
those who are perfectly faithful to Him, like the Saints. In this regard, we
can be treated as God’s enemy among the Saints. We can be like the tares, which
are deleterious with their soporific poison, among the wheat. Imagine that God
had ordered His angels to pull us out of the world immediately because we have
offended Him with our sins and had been thrown into the Lake of Fire (i.e.
Revelation 19:20). Then, many of us would have been eliminated out of the world
already. But, we are still here in the
world, as we have been given many chances to repent and convert, upon
reconciling with God, though we have sinned countlessly – until the eschaton, when Christ will return to
judge who are to be in the Kingdom of Heaven for eternal joy and who are to be
thrown into the Lake of Fire for eternal damnation.
God the Father is the God
of justice and mercy, as reflected in Wisdom 12:13, 16-19, which is the First
Reading for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time on Cycle A. And, His
mercifulness is emphasized in Psalm 86:5-6, 9-10, 15-16, the Responsorial Psalm
to Wisdom 12:13, 16-19. In fact, this is what we are called to imitate God for:
His “perfection” or “fullness”(telos),
as reminded in Matthew 5:48.
Our intuition, which can prompt us to fight our enemies, like pulling the tares (darnels) among the wheat while growing, makes us forget Jesus’ counterintuitive teaching across Matthew 5:43-48 and Matthew 13:24-30. It is our weakness to act solely out of our intuition rather than God’s will for us. So, in order to overcome this weakness of ours, Paul has taught us to call for the Holy Spirit’s intercession so that we can act according to God’s will for us, rather than acting out of our intuition, as in Romans 8:26-27, the Second Reading for the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time on Cycle A. As the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, we will not act out of our intuition for retaliation but observe Jesus’ counterintuitive teaching both in Matthew 5:43-48, on loving enemies as our neighbors, and in Matthew 13:24-30, on not to rush to pull the tares among the what, while we strive to be the children of the Kingdom. With the Holy Spirit, who is another Parakletos (John 14:16, 26), we do understand what God wants us – to be as “perfect”(teleioi) as He is (Matthew 5:48) by imitating His mercy (rachamim) and loving-kindness (chesed) by not reacting to our enemies merely out of our intuition or weakness. The Holy Spirit helps us understand that reacting to our enemies simply out of our intuition for vengence is like pulling the tares out of the wheat field prematurely, resulting in harming the growing wheat. The Holy Spirit also reminds us that it is God’s prerogative to inflict vengeance on our enemies while we are to imitate God’s telos (perfection, fullness) in regard to His loving-kindness (chesed) and mercy (rachamim) toward those who offend Him with sins, allowing for repentance, reconciliation, and conversion. And, this is what the Kingdom in progress is about.
Let the Holy Spirit help us overcome our weakness to react merely with our instinct for retribution so that we can respond to enemies among us with our caritas, in our imitation of the perfect loving-kindness (chesed) and mercy (rachamim) of the Father. This way, we do not usurp His prerogative of judgement and just punishment, just as we do not prematurely eradicate the tares among the growing wheat, before the harvest time, when God-sent angels will come to sort the tares out of the wheat.
The Kingdom of Heavens
right now is in progress, like the field where the wheat is growing for the
harvest, though some tares are also growing. With the intercession of the Holy Spirit,
we do better in imitating God’s perfect loving-kindness (chesed) and mercy (rachamim)
towards enemies among us, who are like the tares among the wheat, in the hope
that they will be touched by our benevolent love and convert.
No comments:
Post a Comment