Earlier in Matthew the gospel asked you to settle on your way to court so not to be judged yourself. Now you are asked to deepen your relationships, to be kind and merciful, even with your enemies. What injustice in your own life keeps you from an open heart? What keeps you stuck in resentfulness? You belong to God, and with God’s love your heart has the capacity to let go and move on.

The ancient law wasn’t wrong. Those who love God should embrace divine standards. Loving enemies as well as friends, responding with benevolence to those who show malice, is not the human way; but it is the divine way, and when you stumble on this path, Paul is right, too: God's forgiveness is guaranteed.

You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies.

MAYBE SOMETHING similar has happened to you. Sitting at a table in front of an ice cream parlor on a warm summer night, a group of friends and I were gently shaken out of our sugar-and-chocolate reveries by an elderly woman. She picked our group from among the others who were enjoying themselves. Making no eye contact but loud enough for all of us to hear, she said, “I sure do like ice cream. Wish I could afford some.” It worked. By the time a wave of guilt had rolled over us, we had all reached into our pockets—five dollars from one, three from another, and so on. It added up. With a quick nod she turned and walked off—right past the store entrance and into the dark. “Maybe she was going to a grocery store to buy a cheaper brand or would treat herself later,” one of our group suggested, but the general consensus was we had been scammed. We licked our wounds. “If that’s the case,” said the hopeful one licking his spoon, “I wish I had given her more.” He got what Jesus is telling us today in the gospel.

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

While scripture this week talks about the importance of loving rather than hating, the underlying issue is holiness: Why and how, as the Book of Leviticus says, to “be holy”—or, in Saint Paul’s words, how do you become the temple of God which “is holy”?

It’s easy to love our neighbors when they are friends or family. It gets a little dicier, however, when our neighbor is particularly unpleasant or has wronged us. How do we reach out in love without duplicity or patronization and also keep ourselves out of the line of fire?

From now on there can be no more wars of faith. The only way to overcome our enemy is by loving him. —Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship