The Gospel of Luke is the Gospel of mercy par excellence. In the outset of today’s reading (Luke 6: 31–36) the Evangelist presents a behavioral basis: “Do to others as you would have them do to you”. Therefore, if you want people to have sympathy towards you, to help you, to serve you during tribulations, and to come to you in your sickness, you should do these same things when you find people in such situations.
Then, Luke ascends to one higher degree and says: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?” If you wanted to express your love through charity, do it to any person in-need and not only to a relative or friend since you might be expecting these to be thankful or to treat you in the same way if you passed through a difficulty. Give the person that you don’t expect to reward you, to become closer to you and that might not come back to thank you. Luke mentions a practical example on that: “And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you?” This person might not be able to pay the loan that he signed, would you then send him to jail? How would that benefit you? If you were not able to give a big debt, then don’t do it. You must know that some people might take advantage of your tendency to help the poor and your mercy in order not to pay you back even if they had the ability. Deal with this situation. There is something called “a dignity debt” and it means giving someone an amount and not suing him: He might pay you back if he could and might not even if he was able to do that. In this situation, let the Lord deal with him.
Then, Luke ascends to another degree also and says “love your enemies”. The word “love” here doesn’t mean that you should make your enemy a friend of yours because he might not accept this friendship. On the lowest levels, the word means that you should not hate even if you were internally hurt since oppression hurts. Most of the times, you cannot convince your enemy that there is no real reason for his hatred or hurting. He might start a fierce campaign and stain your reputation and this is all because the devil has entered him and stained his soul or because there are people that have hatred as their natural approach and are delighted with harm. Jesus wants you not to return hatred with hatred, because hatred carries injustice and through it you will stain your heart and take its calmness away. Once your soul becomes muddled, you will not be able to see God’s face since God is peace.
The Evangelist presents an argument concerning forgiveness as he says that through forgiveness, you become a son of God who “is kind to the ungrateful and wicked”. He sends the rain and the sunlight to all people as Matthew says; he gives people their food whoever they were and gives the sinner various gifts perhaps he would repent.
Then, Luke ends this chapter by saying: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”. Here, Jesus asks you to behave as God does. And you are capable of doing that if you recognized that grace made you a son of God, i.e. in communion with Jesus being the Son of God.
Linguistically, being merciful means that your chest should be wide enough for all people. This is how God’s chest is. The important thing is that you understand that sin is the only thing that can deeply harm you. And mercy could be successful in bringing back a person to his sanity. He might not be affected by your mercy, but you would have saved yourself from hatred. And when you reach the highest level of forgiveness you would become like God your Father. Forgiveness erases every guilt in you and makes you trained to humility. The person that doesn’t forgive is the one that can’t endure his wound. However, people might hurt you a lot. You are asked to bleed and heal your wound through the only effective medicine which is forgiveness. All sins captivate us, but no sin does that as hatred that imprisons us. In the same way that you easily forgive your naughty or aggressive son because he is from your flesh and blood, you should forgive all “naughty” people because they are from Christ’s flesh and blood.
Translated by Mark Najjar
Original Text: “الرحمة” –Raiati no40- 05.10.2003
