HOW TO DEFEAT EVIL PERSONS

Jesus is essentially telling us in today’s Gospel lesson what He told us in the Sermon on the Mount: if you have enemies, if they hate you, if they revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil things against you, and you wish to stop their hatred and drive them off the face of the earth – there is but one way to do it. Love them! But this is exactly what we find difficult if not impossible to do. How do we go about doing this?

There is the story of the holy man who was praying under a tree whose roots stretched out over the river bank. During his prayer he noticed that the river was rising and a scorpion caught in the roots was about to drown. He crawled out onto the roots to free the scorpion, but every time he did so, the scorpion struck out at him. Another man passing by saw what was happening, stopped and said, "Don’t you know that’s a scorpion, and it is the nature of the scorpion to want to sting?" To which the holy man replied, "That may well be, but it is my nature to save, and must I change my nature because the scorpion does not change its nature?"

That is a good question. If I am a Christian, and it is my nature to love since I am created in the image of love – God – why should I change my nature because of the many "scorpions" I encounter in life who do not want to change their nature? Why should I let others decide how I am going to act? Especially when I know that some people need loving the most when they deserve it the least.

Jesus said in the Gospel today that it is natural "to love those who love you." But he calls us to a supernatural love, a divine love, when He calls on us to "love your enemies, and do good, and lend expecting nothing in return . . . Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful." This is clearly not our kind of love. It is God’s love in us.

We do not manufacture or produce this kind of love. It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit in us. Like Mary at the Annunciation we ask when confronted with the impossible, "How can this be?" And the angel replies, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you . . . " (Luke 1:34-35). Only the Holy Spirit can give us this kind of love. The only way we can acquire this kind of love is by ensuring that we are living a Spirit-filled life. This means living with God on a daily basis, receiving the sacraments frequently, and asking God prayerfully to give us this ability. The simple truth is that some of us cannot learn to love our enemies because we simply don’t want to! We want to hold on to the insult, the hurt, the pain, and the anger. We feel justified in our anger and hatred. But hanging onto the cancer of hatred and not letting it go is about as intelligent as plugging up your sewer because you don’t want to get rid of your waste water. The net result is that your plumbing will back up and fill your house with stench and filth. By not letting the anger and hatred to go out of our lives, we ourselves do more than our enemies to make our lives miserable.

The Christ Who prayed for His enemies creates the same spirit in those who love and follow Him. It is happening every day and under the most trying circumstances. Stephen, the first martyr, kneeled and prayed for those who were stoning them to death. Countless other saints followed his example throughout history. It is not because they had some personal characteristic which made it possible for them to love their enemies which we somehow lack. The ability to love our enemies is a gift of God which all of us can appropriate if we have the desire and entreat God for this gift. Again, perhaps the reason why we lack this ability is simply because we do not desire it, nor have we repeatedly prayed to God to give us the gift.

When Christ dwells in our hearts and minds, then there exists power in us to love our enemy. Such a task is not an impossible ideal, but a real experience.