NewCreation

Homily for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this, the homily for the seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time. This week our Gospel continues directly on from last week's Gospel. So just to remind you where we were last week: we were at the beginning of what is called in Luke's Gospel the Sermon on the Plain, as opposed to Matthew's account where we know it as the Sermon on the Mount. And I brought out last week something very peculiar about this — that it's deliberate, coming down from the mountain and then Jesus being lower than his disciples, looking up at them and then speaking. Meaning that this is not an exercise in communication from on high, but it's an exercise in communication from beneath that has to be spread by people repeating it. And that's actually very, very important for what we're going to see, because just as last week's, so this week's is full of some of the most memorable phrases in the entire Gospel. And that's exactly what they were meant to be. Luckily we have a very, very ancient Aramaic account of St. Luke's Gospel which is either original or the closest thing to original. So we actually have the very words that Jesus was probably using when he taught this. And in the Aramaic version they are clearly mnemonics — they're clearly designed to be easy to remember, and so as to be repeated, and to have word links with other passages so that they can be remembered. So here, when Jesus starts by saying "but I say to you that listen," it's not merely a grand way of saying "I'm speaking and you're listening to me." It's more like: you who are listening, when you hear these words, when you hear this, it is me who is speaking. In other words, what is going to be passed on to them is the words, and it's in those words that he is speaking. There's a special divine imprint to these words, and they are utterly remembered, and they won't pass away forever — that's part of the mnemonic teaching technique. So one of the phrases that we know is absolutely central to Jesus's Gospel is: "Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." Notice that apparently the Aramaic word behind the word for "abuse" is rather stronger than the word "abuse." It's a word which is the whole mechanism for persecution — starting from the thought "I need to get rid of that person," to the accusation, the false accusation, the calumny, "this is what that person has done so we need to get rid of them," to the action: we all go up and we get rid of them. It's the whole of the lynch mentality. That's what's being referred to here. And what is Jesus saying? Is he saying allow yourself to be walked all over by people? No. As in Matthew's Gospel, which has a slightly different version – very slightly different version – of the same thing. He's saying, and take this part by part: the first step is don't let the bastards get to you, don't let them run you, but start to turn the whole way you are towards them, so that you're not reactive to them, but on the contrary becoming good towards them, because that's how God is. This is instruction about turning our whole way of being around in the face of hostility, so as to be towards those hostile to us as God is to us when we're hostile to him. In other words, it's very, very strictly related to the power of the Creator, us finding ourselves on the inside of the power of the Creator which works in an entirely different way, which is why he's speaking from underneath. He's giving things that can be remembered, because these are things which we can learn practically. "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also." Referring also to how Jesus was buffeted at his crucifixion. But here Luke doesn't give Matthew's little tales of the cheek, the going the second mile, the tunic, where the way in which each one works as a turning the situation rather cleverly in some way against the person who's doing the hostility, though in a way that favors them. Here Luke's not particularly interested in that. It's just "of the other also." Don't become reactive to them. "Anyone who takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt." Don't go into reactivity against them. "Give to everyone who begs from you. And if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again." And it doesn't say "steal." It's quite a delicate word here, the taking away, because it refers to accidental things. I mean, the guy who's sailed into your parking place, not aware that you'd been waiting there patiently for it to open up, the person who simply took it – that's the sort of person who's being referred to here. Just the person who took it. Don't get all worked up about it. Don't get worked up about them. "Do to others as you would have them do to you." So he's built up to that, and then this is the single mnemonic which is at the center of this passage. What we know as the golden rule. It's Luke's version of the golden rule, and it's the positive version – rather, it's not "do not do to others what you would not have them do to you," it's the positive one: "do to others as you would have them do to you." In other words, the golden rule is becoming creative of a new space for others regardless of what they're up to. Becoming creative of a new space for others, a good space for others. Yes, if I were in this space, what would I like? I'd love it for someone to open up the space for me. And then Luke moves in to make absolutely clear that this is a completely mimetic matter. And you can tell that it's mimetic because our normal understanding of these words is governed by reciprocity. "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?" That's the NRSV. The King James: "what thanks is it to you?" The Greek: "what grace is it to you?" The Aramaic: "what blessing is it to you?" — the blessing in the sense of God creating something positive for you. So "credit" makes it sound a bit like a brownie point, whereas it's more than that. It's actually: how does that build you up as being a blessing? So "if you love those who love you," how does that build you up as a blessing? In other words, you're simply reciprocating as part of keeping things together because you're frightened that if you don't, things will turn nasty. That's not moved by goodness. So even sinners love those who love them. Yeah, the mafia treats its own well. "If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?" So you pay back nicely to them because they've treated you nicely — splendid. But the threat, of course, is that if they would treat you nastily, likewise you would treat them nastily. So there's always the threat again of violence. That's how reciprocity works. We're being told we've got to break reciprocity because it's our mimetic natures trapped. "If you do good to those who do good to you, what blessing is that to you? For even sinners do the same." Here Luke doesn't use tax collectors and prostitutes, the terms which Matthew uses; he just uses sinners in general. "If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, how does that turn you into a blessing? Even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much again." He says yes, it's all part of a give-and-take system which ultimately is guaranteed by violence. He says no: "but love your enemies" — so turn from being people who are run by their hatred of you into people who are towards them as God is. "Do good and lend" — and in the Aramaic it says to them, and here in the Aramaic it says "expecting nothing in return." It seems that actually — and I've received this in a secondhand version because I don't read Aramaic — the Aramaic version is more delicate than what we have in the Greek. When it says "expecting nothing in return," it means something much closer to "don't deceive the hope of those to whom you lend." In other words, if I lend someone something and think in my heart, "well, you know, this is a hopeless person, he or she will never be able to pay me back, so I'm going to write it off in my heart — I'll write off the debt in my heart because I know that they're no good, they'll never do it, so I'm being kind because I'm like God, but they'll be no good at all" — they say no, no, it's much subtler than that. It's: don't deceive their hope. What would be their hope? Their hope would be that they would be able to give it back to you — in other words, lend in such a way that you have skin in the game, that you are creating a relationship with them, that you will be proud of what they are able to do, to give something back to you. It's not an exercise in humiliating people. It's an exercise in building people up, because that's how God acts towards us. God's got skin in the game. The generosity of God is not so as to make us feel little and wicked and hopeless, but to think, "You know, I actually can. I can become someone thanks to all this help I'm being given. I actually can become someone, and I will be able to give something back." There's a delight in this. So "your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High." And this is the same point as Matthew's: "you will be like your Father in heaven." That is what becoming a child of the Most High looks like. It looks like being a person who is creating blessing, opening up generosity even in the midst of hostility. And how do we know that is the Most High? For he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. And this is one of the things which Luke's Gospel gives us time and time again, and we don't usually give it enough credit. Luke understands that all of us are ungrateful and wicked, and that God's generosity traverses our hostility — it breaks through our hostility. And what being like God is like is breaking through other people's hostility. We have had our own hostility broken through by God; now let's break through the hostility of others. And then the final line of this section, after the golden rule of the previous section: "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." And apparently the Greek term is "merciful," but the Aramaic term is a very emotive form of mercifulness — be warmly, compassionately sweet, as your Father is merciful. Then we have the mirror sides: "Do not judge, and you will not be judged." So, backing up that this is completely mimetic — in as far as you judge, you are judged. And "judge" here means setting up the process of trying to find out whether someone has done something right or wrong, and then thinking that they are good or bad because of the judgment. That's what it means in Aramaic, and we're told not to do it. "Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive" — that's to say, let go, unbind — "and you will be forgiven." And then this wonderful sense of the ludicrous, excessive, hyperbolic generosity of God: "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure" — that says "press down" — so that's the suggestion that it's a vast amount of oil, "shaken together." And each of these words — "shaken together," "running over," "poured into your lap" — each of them is a participle indicating something really over the top. "Shaken together," so that, for instance, a huge amount of grain — because it's shaken, it'll mean that it will settle down into an even bigger pile. Running over will be put into your lap. "Into your lap" may seem a bit of a surprise, but remember that people at the time would wear very long robes, so the idea was that you held up a piece of your robe so as to receive the generosity that's brought into you. That would work in the case of grain, slightly problematic in the case of oil, I should imagine. So we can imagine that basically this is for solid goods. The modern equivalent will be an apron, I guess, because we don't wear long robes mostly. But the point again is: the measure you give will be the measure you get back. The suggestion behind this – and this is what Jesus is whispering out from underneath – this immeasurable generosity that we are being asked to allow ourselves to become part of towards others, however apparently hostile, evil and wicked, in just the same sense that that has been pushed through our hostility and wickedness to break the mimetic forms of reciprocity that are mutual protections against violence, and actually open up the possibility of constructing a new world together in which people are not frightened of each other. This is the promise of the Sermon on the Plain. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.