LIVE PEACEABLY WITH ALL MEN

A SERMON FOR THE 3rd SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

A few nights ago, I had a dream.  Nothing special about it really, just one of those jumbled collections of our subconscious thoughts that serve to pass the time while we’re sleeping. And yet, I can’t completely reject the idea that God does in fact send us certain insights along with all the crazy stuff of which our dreams are made.  In this particular dream, I was transported to an old farmhouse.  It was the time of the Civil War, and on the previous day a great battle had been fought.  I was a captain in the Union army, and I had been ordered to stay in the farmhouse for the night along with just two soldiers from my troop who had survived the battle. One of these soldiers was dying in the next room, so I didn’t see him.  The other one, when he took off his cap, couldn’t have been more than about 18.  Naturally, he was exhausted from the fighting, covered in dirt and sweat—blood too in places—and worst of all he was terrified by the memories of what he had seen that day.  In the absence of his mother, I suppose, he turned to his captain for comfort and encouragement, oblivious of course to the fact that I was just as dirty and terrified as he was.

Looking back at this dream, I’m struck by how easy it is to love, with our fine, smug, Christian love, those who fight with us in the trenches.  It is the comfortable love that comes from the pleasant feelings of camaraderie we share with the people who fight the same battles as we do, who agree with our principles, who applaud the same people we admire, who appreciate the same ideas we have, who believe the same truths and practice the same values.  With such men we can very easily “live peaceably” as St. Paul exhorts us in today’s Epistle.

But then, of course, there are our enemies.  Those who wish us harm, who would think nothing of crushing us under their boots in order to advance themselves, those who for apparently no reason seem determined to despise us, who seek to humiliate us and belittle us and mock us.  How easy is it to live peaceably with such as these?  St. Paul shows us the right way: “Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” In other words, it is not our place to seek revenge on those who hate us.  We must rather leave such vengeance to God, whose role it is to reward the good and punish the wicked.  Such advice is not merely spiritual counseling, it is sound practical advice that prevents us from becoming embittered, spiteful, and filled with the venomous toxin of hatred.  If ever such hatred were to fill our souls, it would block the presence of the Holy Ghost and there would be no good, no love, in us.  We would die hating, and we would be damned to the eternal fires, where we would hate for evermore.

So we must love our enemies.  And when he comes crawling to us in his hour of need, it is not the role of the Christian to rejoice in his humiliation, but to reach out and sustain him in his need. If he is hungry, we must feed him. If he thirst, we must give him to drink. And if we act thus out of true Christian charity for a neighbor in distress, our kindness serves to “heap coals of fire on his head.”  The contrast between his hatred and our love would be so glaringly transparent that it would inspire all who witnessed it to embrace goodness and eschew evil.  It would sow the seeds of grace in the arid and cynical souls who today look around them and see nothing but animosity and quarreling.

What God asks of us is not easy, however.  But it is possible, otherwise God would not ask it of us.  It is certainly within the powers of our will to forgive and love our enemies.  We are not asked to likethem, just to lovethem.  And not to love them with any silly, emotional notion of love, but with a firm act of the will that is determined not to wish them harm but good, at least spiritual good.  We must not wish for our enemies to die, but rather to be converted and live.  This is possible for even the angriest victim of their hatred, and yes, we can all live up to this precept of God to love our neighbor. It is even possible for the soldier on the battlefield to love his enemy even as he plunges a bayonet deep between his ribs.  He should not, and hopefully does not, hate this enemy, who after all is simply performing the same job that he has for the opposing army.  And he should, if he has a second to think, say a prayer for his soul even as he deliberately forces that soul out from its body.  There is salvation for those who find they must kill in wartime.

Today, we are all surrounded by enemies.  More and more enemies.  They hate us because they hate God.  They are God’s enemies, and therefore we, the friends of God, are their enemies also. We read in this past week’s news that the Governor of New York has legalized unlimited abortion right up to the moment of birth.  What’s even worse is that this was not something he did reluctantly in order to protect some ill-conceived rights of women to control their own reproductive system. Governor Cuomo signed this bill into law with great rejoicing and celebration, ordering that many of the monuments of New York City be illuminated in pink to celebrate the expansion of infanticide within the state.  How are we supposed to love Governor Andrew Cuomo when he rubs his hands together with glee at the prospect of more dead babies?  We applaud and take up the call of the two modernist bishops for the excommunication of this perverse politician, but in doing so, we must do so not out of anger and frustration, but out of charity.  And it ischaritable to punish someone for the good of society, in this case to defend the rights of the unborn.  It’s charitable also, because the punishment may bring the wicked-doer to his senses, it just might dissuade him from losing any Catholic faith he has left.

So let’s fight any temptations we might have to wish for a violent and preferably painful death for people who would do such terrible things to innocent babies, much as they deserve it.  “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.”  Our own role is to defend those babies as best we can by thrusting the bayonet of excommunication right between Cuomo’s two beady eyes.  With all the love we can push with.  And in the more general sense, we must remember that while it is our job to defend the innocent and the oppressed, it’s God job to serve up the ultimate sentence of justice on those who violate them.  Never to overcome the evil ones with greater evil, but to overcome them with good.  It might not be easy, but neither is it optional.