NOTES for Mat 5:43-48

Go out into the street and ask the first 10, 20, or 30 people you meet whether this is possible. What will the result be? Everyone wants to be a child of God, an heir of the One who is Almighty, all-knowing, and possesses everything. But for that one must also love everyone and be merciful to all (see Matt. 5:48). No, for human beings this is impossible.

Is Jesus really giving us commandments that are impossible in principle to fulfill? The answer is paradoxical: yes. But He also gives us the possibility of fulfilling them, because He is the One who, already being the Son of God, fulfilled them. This means that the impossible has become possible in Him and through Him, and perfection is attainable.

Go out in the street and interrogate the first 10-20-30 passers whether this is possible. What result will you have? Everyone would like to be God’s babe, the fellow-heir of the One Who is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and possesses all. But we ought to be lovely and more merciful for this (Mt 5:48). No, it is impossible for man. Is Jesus really giving us fundamentally inexecutable laws? Paradoxical answer: Yes. But then He gives us the possibility to execute them, because He already executed them being the Son of God. Consequently, the impossible became possible in Him, and through Him perfection is achievable.

By calling His disciples and followers to be "perfect, as the Heavenly Father is perfect," Jesus thereby continues and brings to its logical completion a tradition that goes back to pre-exilic times. It was then, in the second part of the Book of Leviticus, written around the middle of the ninth century BC, that God's regularly repeated call appears: "be holy, because I am holy." This call presupposed that, once sanctified at God's altar, a person would then preserve the state of sanctification by remaining in it constantly.

The post-exilic tradition connected with the concepts of the inner Torah and the "living Torah," without which righteousness was unthinkable, was connected with the desire to carry out what the author of the second part of the Book of Leviticus called for. As can be seen, Jesus also calls His disciples and followers to the very same thing, though in somewhat different words. But He considers the main sign of the fullness of righteousness and the fullness of sanctification to be love, and love not only for friends and in general for those who love us, but also for enemies.

Of course, the Torah says something about love for enemies, and post-exilic Judaism considers love for enemies one of the signs of righteousness. But neither the Torah itself nor the post-exilic tradition requires love for enemies from a person as something absolutely necessary. Jesus, however, clearly poses the question in exactly this way.

What is this: a demand for the fullness of righteousness, which was formerly an ideal and now must become the norm? Probably yes. But why? Only out of a desire to see His disciples and followers as the best people in the world? Probably not for that reason, or at least not only for that reason. Rather, out of a desire to see them as inhabitants of the Kingdom. And in the Kingdom one must indeed be perfect. Not because others are looked down on there, but because in the Kingdom it makes sense only to be perfect or to become perfect. Otherwise there is nothing to do there, because there is no other way to participate in the fullness of the Kingdom's life. And without that, even being in it loses all meaning.

Christ's commandment to love our enemies, offenders, and persecutors is perhaps one of the commandments hardest for us to fulfill. Of course, one can say, "I love everyone, I forgive everyone, and I have no enemies," but few can say it sincerely. After all, anyone can be a person's enemy, even those closest to him; in fact, it is precisely among close people that the greatest tensions arise first of all - they wound most painfully, and from them one has to endure the hardest persecutions. Perhaps that is why the Lord said elsewhere, "A man's enemies will be those of his own household" (Mt 10:36).

And yet He calls us to love our enemies - both near and far. And we try to pray for and bless not those we like, not those who make us feel good, but those whom it is hardest to love - those who cause us pain. Someone may call this approach masochistic, but it is not: it is precisely what Christianity can set against masochism - the humility and meekness commanded to us not because life is easier that way, but because they are an inseparable characteristic of our Lord Himself. We are not obliged to follow His way of acting, but if we want to understand what true love and true happiness are, then we will have to learn to forgive our enemies.

'For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?' There is one remarkable saint - Mother Teresa of Calcutta. It is sometimes not easy for us to enter into the prayer experience of the saints, since we are completely different. But she has words that immediately penetrate the heart. And although they are addressed to another person, which means she surely addressed them to herself as well, one still wants to call them a prayer, for such things can be said only in the presence of God. So let us call this a prayer.

And when you think about it, it feels as if it arose as a response to today's reading. Here is what she once wrote: 'People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do something good, you will be accused of selfishness and ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you succeed, you will gain false friends and true enemies. Work anyway. The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and openness will make you vulnerable. Even so, be honest and open. What you spent many years building may be destroyed in one minute. Build anyway. Your help is truly needed, but when you help people, they may attack you for it. Help anyway. You will give the world everything, and you will get your teeth knocked out. Even so, give the world everything.'

It is hard to take in what is said here. Here we are given the very commandments that opponents of Christianity have been used to mocking for centuries. Let us not deny that Christians themselves also find them hard to take in.

But let us note that Christ nowhere speaks of nonresistance to evil. After all, He Himself, in the wilderness not long before this, resisted temptations, that is, the same evil. What is being discussed here is nonresistance to the evil one, that is, to a person possessed by evil. But evil is the disease with which all of us are infected, and from which Christ wants to heal us.

In ordinary perception, the words about turning the right cheek have for too long seemed like another name for weakness and surrender. But for some reason few people notice that in many situations turning the cheek requires courage. For example, we may rightly say that a person who goes unarmed to meet enemies, whether a negotiator trying to enter talks about a ceasefire or someone going to take the place of captured hostages, is turning the other cheek for the sake of saving people. And in general, anyone who tries to stop hostility, especially deep-rooted hostility, risks being beaten by both sides. Yet such attempts do not cease.

If we think about it, we are offered here the most normal rules of behavior: not to be fixated on ourselves, not to be greedy, to forgive offenses. But these commandments are strengthened by the call not to divide people into ours and enemies. In essence, the Lord calls us to begin ending hostility and hatred.

And here Jesus reveals to us the height to which we are called to rise. He calls the disciples not simply to keeping the commandments or to piety; that is not enough. We must become perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect.

Of course, we are used to considering ourselves weak sinners, but neither sins nor weaknesses should rule over us, because Christ came precisely to free us from them.

What Christ offers us here still seems impossible to most people. But if we want to do only what is within our power, we will not have enough strength even for that.

Christ's words about love for enemies provoke perhaps more debate and more attempts at interpretation than anything else. Some reject them, defending their right to revenge and hatred of the enemy, while others, on the contrary, respond with the ideology of pacifism and nonresistance. But it seems that in both cases the driving force is the desire to secure oneself, to establish one's own invulnerability before the enemy - either by force or by indifference. The Gospel offers precisely a behavior built not on the pursuit of one's own safety, not on withdrawal into oneself, but on an active response to the offender: "bless, do good, pray..." And the point, it seems, is not pacifism and not the ability to endure pain and bear insults, but a far more difficult art - the ability to love.

Today's passage shows how seriously God takes us. Here Jesus speaks about what He would like us to be, without making any allowances for our weakness or infirmity. And as we honestly read these words, all we can do is be crushed: "I cannot do this. And I cannot do that. And I cannot do this either." So we read all the way to the last, forty-eighth verse, and almost with relief exhale: "Well, there, I told you I cannot!"

But, of course, here is also the answer to all our "I cannot." Only God can be perfect, and Christ's whole call to us is this: "Make room for God in your life, and it will become perfect!"