NOTES for Mat 5:33-48

Christ’s words about loving one’s enemies probably provoke more debate and attempts at interpretation than any others. Some reject them, defending their right to vengeance and hatred of an enemy; others, by contrast, respond with an ideology of pacifism and nonresistance. But it seems that in both cases the driving force is the desire to secure oneself and establish one’s own invulnerability to the enemy—whether through force or through indifference. The Gospel, however, proposes conduct built precisely not on the pursuit of one’s own safety or on withdrawal into oneself, but on an active response to the offender: “bless, do good, pray...” It seems that this is neither about pacifism nor about the ability to endure pain and put up with offenses, but about a far more difficult discipline—the ability to love.