The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today generate questions about how we should respond to injustice.
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| Generous living |
The reading from the First Book of Kings describes the action of Jezebel to seize Naboth’s vineyard.
* [21:1–16] The story tells how Jezebel manipulates important structures of Israelite social order, law, and religious observance to eliminate a faithful Israelite landowner who frustrates Ahab’s will.1
Psalm 5 urges trust in God for deliverance from enemies.
* [Psalm 5] A lament contrasting the security of the house of God (Ps 5:8–9, 12–13) with the danger of the company of evildoers (Ps 5:5–7, 10–11). The psalmist therefore prays that God will hear (Ps 5:2–4) and grant the protection and joy of the Temple.2
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches concerning retaliation.
* [5:38–42] See Lv 24:20. The Old Testament commandment was meant to moderate vengeance; the punishment should not exceed the injury done. Jesus forbids even this proportionate retaliation. Of the five examples that follow, only the first deals directly with retaliation for evil; the others speak of liberality.3
Joe Zaborowski comments that we are called to place faith in God by emptying ourselves of both material possessions and desire for revenge. He asks: “So the relevant question for me is; am I willing to trust and follow Christ’s teaching? Otherwise I just take on the wickedness of both Ahab, Jezebel and the elders of Israel.”
Justice, power, greed, corruption and evil are on full display in both the first reading and the Gospel. Jesus gives us juxtaposition from what we see in Kings. Christ is asking for true justice for our neighbor and willingness to allow a complete emptying of our own wants and desires for the sake of others.4
Don Schwager quotes “You tear yourself apart by hating,” by an anonymous early author from the Greek church.
"We have seen how murder is born from anger and adultery from desire. In the same way, the hatred of an enemy is destroyed by the love of friendship. Suppose you have viewed a man as an enemy, yet after a while he has been swayed by your benevolence. You will then love him as a friend. I think that Christ ordered these things not so much for our enemies as for us: not because enemies are fit to be loved by others but because we are not fit to hate anyone. For hatred is the prodigy of dark places. Wherever it resides, it sullies the beauty of sound sense. Therefore not only does Christ order us to love our enemies for the sake of cherishing them but also for the sake of driving away from ourselves what is bad for us. The Mosaic law does not speak about physically hurting your enemy but about hating your enemy. But if you merely hate him, you have hurt yourself more in the spirit than you have hurt him in the flesh. Perhaps you don’t harm him at all by hating him. But you surely tear yourself apart. If then you are benevolent to an enemy, you have rather spared yourself than him. And if you do him a kindness, you benefit yourself more than him." (excerpt from INCOMPLETE WORK ON MATTHEW, HOMILY 13, The Greek Fathers)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 5:38-42 comments that it’s only human to want to take an eye for an eye. This is why we need Jesus’ help in order to resist the temptation to take revenge. It’s only as we walk closely with the Lord and remember his example that we are able to take the high road—forbearing, turning the other cheek, and forgiving.
The next time you find yourself tempted to retaliate with a snap remark, ask the Lord to give you the strength to keep quiet. When a coworker speaks rudely to you, try to forgive and let it go. If there’s a long-standing feud or hurt in your life, take some time to pray about whether there is anger or a desire for revenge lurking in your heart. Have you forgiven the party who hurt you?
Taking the high road isn’t easy, and it usually doesn’t come automatically, but with Jesus’ help, we truly can conquer evil with good.
“Jesus, help me to let go of any desire to retaliate or take revenge.”6
Friar Jude Winkler fleshes out some of the cultural practices surrounding the land of Naboth that were violated by Jezebel. The Hebrew Testament sought mercy in the application of the Law. Friar Jude reminds us that we recognize that bad actions are symptoms of interior brokenness when we respond with generosity and love.
James Finley has been deeply influenced by the writings of Thomas Merton (1915–1968) who quotes Meister Eckhart [1260–1328] as saying, “For God to be is to give being, and for [humanity] to be is to receive being.” [1] Our true self is a received self. At each moment, we exist to the extent we receive existence from God who is existence. . .
Phrased differently, we can say that God cannot hear the prayer of someone who does not exist. The [false] self constructed of ideologies and social principles, the self that defines itself and proclaims its own worthiness is most unworthy of the claim to reality before God. Our freedom from the prison of our own illusions comes in realizing that in the end everything is a gift. Above all, we ourselves are gifts that we must first accept before we can become who we are by returning who we are to the Father. This is accomplished in a daily death to self, in a compassionate reaching out to those in need, and in a detached desire for the silent, ineffable surrender of contemplative prayer. It is accomplished in making Jesus’ prayer our own: “Father . . . not my will but yours be done” [Luke 22:42]. . . .7
James Finley concludes this letting-go in the moral order is the living out of the Beatitudes. In the order of prayer it is in-depth kenosis, an emptying out of the contents of awareness so that one becomes oneself an empty vessel, a broken vessel, a void that lies open before God and finds itself filled with God’s own life. This gift of God is revealed to be the ground and root of our very existence. It is our own true self. The gift of life filled with God is the basis of our generous response to the needs of others.
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