From the Sermon on the Mount, which is the basic rule of Christian behavior, the Lord begins the section thus: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” The other is everything to you. He needs to be your beloved. Is he in need of food? Give it to him. Is he in need of comfort, to be near you? Offer it all, for he exists by you.
Christianity is not the exchange of affections. Love –without waiting for the beloved to return the same affection. “Freely you have received (from the Lord), freely give” to your brothers mankind. Do not differentiate in giving between those who love you and those who do not. God commanded all the faithful to love as God loves.
Then He arrives at the quintessence of his discourse in saying: “Love your enemies.” If someone becomes hostile towards you, do not return the enmity. He has sinned against God first, then against himself, and you do not expect affection from him who is unable to give such. He is what is important in your eyes, and not that he has hurt or devastated you. Your concern is his spiritual advancement. You know that he has fallen in the sickness of sin, and God wants from you to raise him from his fall. His spiritual interests are your concern and not just to be above the injury. It is sufficing for you that you are God’s beloved.
His enmity has appointed you as his physician, just like the one that was wounded on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, for whom God had appointed a physician, i.e. the compassionate Samaritan who had been a non-Jew, and of another religion. In our tradition, the Good Samaritan is an image of Christ, who takes care of those in the Church and outside the Church equally.
It is meet that no grudges or hatred touch your heart and that you keep in your heart everyone that you have encountered in the course of your life. In so doing, God will dwell in your heart; if he does not, your heart will be void, for the Lord is the abundant presence. Your goal is for your heart to become like Christ’s who forgave His murderers. The one who hates you does not know that he injures himself. If you love him, he will feel that he is hurting himself.
Matthew ends this passage from the Sermon on the Mount with the saying of Jesus: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”. The rule is to be like God. He is the model of your behavior. He is a Father to the thankful and the evil, and His grace is the same to the first and the latter. Although He has various ways of rearing, God is one in severity and benevolence, just as every father in the world loves his children, both the mild mannered and the bad tempered, with the same love, even though the approach may differ.
Mercy is all embracing. By His words, the Lord commands us to give ourselves with abundance to those who wish not our favor, according to the need that we know they have. You, therefore, wherever the need be, embrace them just as a woman coddles all her children without discrimination. Therefore, look out for those who need your mercy in the time of their hardship; for every soul has a different affliction. Search for various necessities and fulfill them. Now, this moment – and not tomorrow- act and let the one in need understand that you are an apostle of God sent to him, and through you he will know God.
Mercy is an aspect of love when the other is in a particular condition. Understand his plight, enter therein and have mercy on the other from your stance and his, whereby the giver and receiver become one in the Lord. For you will not be merciful unless you are with the Lord, who is the source of mercy.
Go and give yourself to others until nothing remains in you except love.
Translated by Kaftoun Monastery
Original Text: “الرحمة” –Raiati 40- 02.10.2011
