The first thing that we read in today’s Gospel (Luke 6: 31–36) is an invitation from Jesus for us to treat others the way we want them to treat us. The other is in the path of my life and God made me responsible for him. I became the person that feeds him when hungry and talks to him when lonely. I ask about him and about all his needs. I initiate in all what is good for him, and do not wait for him to ask me about anything.
I love him and don’t wait for him to thank me. I don’t look for a quality in him as a condition to serve him. He might not be my relative or friend. Love is not based on exchanged feelings. From my side, I should love though he might not love me back. I should love and serve him as obedience to Christ.
I often lend him money and do not hope to get it back. Christian love is not a contract. It is a one-sided giving. It is given to any person that needs it, and once we recognize that, we shall understand the Lord’s expression: “Love your enemies”. If someone antagonized me, he would be harming and saddening himself. If the Lord asked me to save him from this hostility, I should heal his soul. And since I knew that he fell in hatred, spite, jealousy, or gossip, I should become his doctor. I have been assigned as his doctor because I recognized his illness. I should think about his salvation and not about the wound he left in me. If I stayed away from him or hated him, the level of my humanness will decrease; I will become a dwarf and enter his game. However, if we knew that love is unconditioned, it I will become easier to understand the expression: “Love your enemies”. Exactly as God is graceful towards the unthankful and the evil, I distribute myself on those who loved me or hated me without differentiation. My heart should be wide enough for the world; therefore, the Gospel ended this text by saying: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”.
Exactly as the Lord treats all people with what is good, grace, clemency and fatherhood, I should be. His bosom is wide enough for all his sons, good and evil together. God uses a specific way with every group of people in order to let them reach him. The Lord of the house loves both, the good boy and the bad evil one. He has his own way with every child. In this same way, if we treated all people with the same sympathy, we would be able to manage our life with people in different ways and the purpose is to reveal to them, through our behavior, the divine tenderness.
Man has harshness in him; he has harm, exploitation and love for control. He has all kinds of serpents. You should love the other in order to kill these serpents. Evil is not abolished except through what is good, forgiveness, and constructive work. Negativity cannot be destroyed except through positivity. And what is even better than positivity is to have the initiative in serving, to be the one that washes others’ feet. This is your mission; this is what Jesus did.
A Human relationship is not a contract in which two sides agree on the phrase “I give you if you gave me”. It is a triadic relation in which God is the regulator of the contract. “God loved us first” and he is the one that loves us during our life and the only one that receives us when we die and in the last day. I am merciful with you because I learned the morals of mercy from the Lord, my embracer. And if we looked at people through the eyes of God, we will find out that they are his beloved ones regardless of their sins.
On earth, we should be ready to deal with everyone, and make them elevate from their situation, or at least try to. This is hurtful for the sensitive person and for the pure person that is shocked by the impure. However, the Lord made every person a guard for his brother, and if he didn’t accept this delegation and left the other without mercy, he would be handing him to death.
Translated by Mark Najjar
Original Text: “الرحمة” –Raiati no40- 01.10.2000
