1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38

The first reading, psalm, and gospel this week all place a heavy emphasis on forgiveness. In the first reading, David has an opportunity to kill Saul, who is leading an army to hunt David down and kill him. From a strictly utilitarian and selfish perspective, killing Saul would seem to be the only rational thing for David to do here. If he does not kill Saul, David has every reason to believe that Saul will continue to hunt him, and David will remain in a life of constant flight from danger, always fearing for his own life. David's companion Abishai is not being completely unreasonable when he urges David to let him run Saul through with a spear. However, David instead spares Saul, and implicitly displays trust that God will protect him from Saul. Afterward, David points out his own mercy to Saul, and says, "The LORD will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness."

The Gospel today, from Luke, also deals with forgiveness, and it is a difficult gospel. Love your enemies? Turn the other cheek? Lend expecting nothing back? That doesn't sound so great to me. Honestly, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. Why should Christians just open ourselves up for a lot of mistreatment? First, we have to recognize that Jesus is not exactly commanding his followers to be doormats. Most of what is said here is about two things: doing good even if we do not receive good in return, and not lashing back when we are hurt by others. Neither of these things actually means we are to walk right into persecution if we can avoid it. We are to be sensible, not self-destructive. Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek if a person strikes us, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to stay out of striking distance when we meet the person in the future.

The phrase "forgive and forget" is a common one. It is one that some people give to children as a moral teaching of sorts. It is given as advice to people who have been hurt. It is repeated frequently by many Christians. Oh, and one more thing: it is not in the Bible. Nowhere does Jesus suggest that it is wrong for us to be cautious about those who have hurt us or others. Nor does Jesus tell us not to try to prevent others from hurting us. Christians are not meant to be professional victims. The example of David is particularly instructive here. David spared Saul, but notice he did not try to run up to Saul and give him a big hug. He did not tell his own companions that they should really go follow Saul. He did not suggest a cordial breakfast meeting with Saul. In fact, if we look at the entire account in Scripture of Saul's long pursuit and persecution of David, we will see that David spent enormous effort in avoiding Saul and preserving his own life. He used almost every moral means at his disposal to defeat Saul's efforts to do harm to him. The one thing David did not do was try to harm Saul in return.

None of this changes the truly stunning nature of Jesus' message in the Gospel. Even if we try to prevent people from hurting us, plenty of people will in fact hurt us, sometimes in very serious ways. In these situations, loving your enemies and doing good to those who hate you is decidedly not the way of the world. It does not seem to make sense, and it goes against all our instincts. The first impulse of almost everyone when they are hurt is to strike back, and certainly not to do anything good for the one who hurt them. The course of action Jesus suggests is completely contrary to what we want to do, and to the ways in which human beings normally interact. Jesus basically acknowledges that this is not how most people in the world live, but He calls His followers to be different, to rely on Him as David did, and to abandon the notions of revenge and reprisal that human beings often hold so dear.

It is important to remember as well that Jesus did not give this revolutionary teaching in an abstract context. If we think these things sound difficult to us, think about how they must have sounded to first century Jews under the oppression of the Romans. They lived in a very real everyday world of persecution and abuse. As pagan imperial powers went, the Romans were far from the worst in history, but make no mistake: living under Roman occupation was not fun for non-Romans. It was even worse for the Jews, because they had such a strong national identity, which was defined by their completely unique religious identity. This caused them to resist the Roman influence more strongly and stubbornly than many other peoples and nations, which of course only brought them more hardship. They knew that it was wrong for the Chosen People to be ruled by a pagan empire, and they were, not unreasonably, expecting God to deliver them from the grasp of these godless men. They were looking for a spiritual leader who preached real physical revolution by force, not one who preached a revolutionary message of forgiveness. When Jesus preached to them as He did, remember that for his hearers things such as being struck in the face or having a cloak taken were not just broad figurative examples but real life experiences. The enemies he is commanding them to love are not just annoying neighbors and co-workers, but the oppressive representatives of a whole hated pagan nation that occupies their homeland, the Promised Land.

Jesus knew that His words would not be easy to take for anyone, either those listening to Him then, or us listening to Him now. He does not tell us that the people who wrong us are really in the right. He did not tell the Jews that there was nothing wrong with the Romans ruling over them. They were right that it was completely wrong for the Roman Empire to rule over God's Chosen People. However, Jesus taught them, as He teaches us, that we should imitate God in the way that we deal with those who offend us. Jesus emphasized here the mercy of God, which is also at the center of the psalm for this Sunday. We have all offended God, and yet He forgives us constantly, again and again, every time we ask. Even when we do not ask, God does not abandon us, but continues to uphold us in life, and reach out to us with His grace. God Himself "is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked," and we as children of God are to imitate Him. If we do that, Jesus promises generous rewards: "Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you."

Sometimes it might not seem that the rewards of loving and forgiving our enemies are all that wonderful. The immediate results are not always pleasant. However, the greatest reward, of course, is in our relationship with God. Of all the things Jesus says about our reward, perhaps the most important part is that last sentence in the Gospel today: "For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you." Ultimately, this is the big payoff, as it were. God loves us no matter what we do, but if we treat others with a spirit of love and forgiveness, then we will be open to receiving the infinite love of God, and He will forgive us far more than we can ever imagine.

However, the rewards of following Jesus on the divine path of love and forgiveness are not limited to God being merciful in His judgment of us, as crucial as that is. Even on earth, while God's ways often are not our ways, God's ways are truly spectacular. Ultimately, most of the people of Israel did not follow the will of Jesus in returning their mistreatment at the hands of the Romans with love. After decades of hate, bitterness and occasional unrest, a violent revolution began in the year 66. Although the Jews held out against the Romans for a remarkably long time considering the circumstances, their revolution was marred by infighting, and it predictably ended in horrible and bloody disaster, including the loss of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70. However, already at that time another line of events was beginning, started by the Jews who had followed Jesus, the rightful King of Israel from the line of David. The Romans were experiencing some mild annoyance with this minor Jewish sect, enough to result in persecutions which, to the amazement and in some cases amusement of the Romans, were greeted by these incomprehensible people not with attempts at violent resistance, but often with a spirit of loving joy. Just a few centuries later, without fighting a single battle, this "minor Jewish sect," the followers of the last King of Israel, had effectively conquered the pagan Roman Empire, the oppressors of the Chosen People and the greatest empire the world had ever known. To this day, the vicar of the King reigns over the kingdom on earth in the former capital of the empire.