Fr. Lino Moreira OSB
David had been badly wronged by Saul, but he spared the life of his enemy, putting his trust in the Lord who rewards everyone for their righteousness and faithfulness (cf. 1 S 26:23). As we have heard, Abishai had proposed an entirely different course of action, more in keeping with the ordinary notions of retributive justice, but David knew that the Lord shows himself merciful with the merciful (cf. 2 S 22:26) – that is to say, he understood that a compassionate and generous God wants his servants to be like him in returning good for evil.
What we see in David, however, is only a foreshadowing of what we find in Jesus of Nazareth, who revealed the full measure of God’s love for all humanity. Jesus said to his disciples, when they were urging him to eat: My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work (Jn 4:34). And similarly in the Temple of Jerusalem, at the age of twelve, he said to Mary and Joseph: Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business? (Lk 2:49).
These words emphasise that throughout the course of his earthly life Jesus was entirely devoted to the work of reconciliation that had been entrusted to him by his Heavenly Father. And his mission as Mediator between God and the human race was fully accomplished when he died upon the cross. As Saint Paul puts it: when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son (Rm 5:10). Indeed, when Jesus Christ laid down his life for our salvation, he not only restored our friendship with the Creator of world – as the last Adam, who came from Heaven (cf. 1 Co 15:47) – but even made us partakers of his own divine sonship – as the true Son of the living God (cf. Mt 16:16).
To become God’s children is, therefore, the greatest and most wonderful gift we have ever received from Heaven. But every gift from God entails a task, and we can only be acknowledged as sons and daughters of the Most High if we in our turn are willing to reconcile ourselves with one another.
How? – we might ask.
In today’s gospel we are told that the only way to make our peace with all our brothers and sisters – with friend and foe alike – is to take God himself and his only-begotten Son as the model for our dealings with others. In fact what Jesus really means when he exhorts us to do to others as we would have them do to us (cf. Lk 6:31) is that we should follow his example in imitating his Heavenly Father, who is kind even to the ungrateful and the wicked (cf. Lk 6:35).
So we are asked to do good to those who hate us (cf. Lk 6:27), because our Creator showed his love for us when were we were still his enemies (cf. Rm 5:10). We are asked not to resist an evil person (cf. Mt 5:39), because Christ was delivered into the hands of sinful men to be crucified (cf. Lk 24:7). We are asked to lend and give freely, because God the Father did not spare his own Son but delivered him up for us all (cf. Rm 8:32). And above all we are urged not to pass judgement on others, because – as Jesus said to Nicodemus – God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him (Jn 3:17).
By acting ever more decisively and perfectly along these lines, we will be helping to build up that true peace that Jesus left as his great legacy, when he said at the Last Supper: Peace I leave you, my peace I give you (Jo 14:27). This messianic statement, which we repeat at Mass every day, reminds us that it is Jesus Christ himself who gives us both the discernment and the strength to bring his work of reconciliation to fruition in our own time. We can have confidence, then, that our task is not an impossible one, and that by loving our neighbour as Jesus loved us we will indeed be acknowledged as his brothers and sisters, in accordance with what he said in the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God (Mt 5:9).