Luke: Should we “turn the other cheek” and ignore corruption and injustice?

-
 Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also.
Luke: 27-29
… Love your enemies goes only so far

If only people listened to and followed the words of Jesus Christ. Those who claim to accept him as their lord and savior have problems doing that. 
So does everyone else. 
When Jesus says to love your enemies and to turn the other cheek, does that mean that we have to ignore those who are corrupt and violent?
Should we really love Vladimir Putin? He is now threatening to kill thousands of people as he invades Ukraine. Should the Ukrainians turn the other cheek?
Limits on those words
Sometimes, those commands seem antithetical to the words of God, particularly with some of the leaders of the world who are corrupt and reprehensible,
Jesus gives his followers multiple challenging commands, such as “love your enemies, be good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you.” We know the command to love (agape) is a call to emulate God’s divine, selfless love for all creation. 
With these instructions, Jesus requires the disciples to confront people doing evil but not reciprocate their hostility.
Jaime Waters, “Jesus calls us to turn the other cheek. But what does that mean in a world of corruption and injustice?” America, February 11, 2022
We should not love Stalin, Hitler
The words of Jesus are clear. Even though we may have to turn the other cheek at times, this does not mean that we should allow desperadoes to continue to wreck the world,
Jesus opposed people and systems that created poverty and oppression, and this commitment is embedded in the Gospels. At the same time, Jesus responded to the needs of the world with love and mercy, and he wanted the same of his followers. We hear this explicitly with Jesus’ statement to “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
We should notice that Jesus’ command is not to love injustice and ignore corruption. Jesus does not want us to accept abuse, tolerate racism or overlook the root causes of suffering in society. Rather, he wants us to be actively, creatively and mercifully engaged in preventing and solving the problems of the world. Today’s Gospel is not about passively acquiescing to corrupt forces, which is a misinterpretation of Jesus’ call to turn the other cheek.
Instead, we should take the verbs of today’s Gospel—love, bless, give, forgive—and let them inform how we live in the world. 
Jaime Waters, America, February 11, 2022
Do everyone deserve the Golden Rule?
What Jesus says in Luke is imperative, but must be placed in context,
27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one che ek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Book of Luke
The last words are illustrative. We should do to others as we would have them do to us, but does that mean accepting what Putin is doing to Ukraine?
When we encounter people who take advantage of systems and benefit from the suffering and exclusion of others, the “enemies” of today’s Gospel, we are called to love them. And when we encounter people who suffer because of corrupt systems, we are also called to love them. Jesus’ teachings challenge us to look inward and outward to find ways to love and serve that will create a just society.
Jaime Waters, America, February 11, 2022
That sounds contradictory, but who says love and justice and mercy are easy. We should never accept Putin and Stalin and Hitler, but we should always strive to find justice in our society. 
Easier said than done.
Luke
Love for Enemies
27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one che ek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Judging Others
37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the feast of St. Joseph, an evaluation of a “Josephite marriage”

-
Image
… Catholic view is Mary remained virginal March 19 is the feast of St. Joseph, and since we are children were taught by nuns of the St. Joseph’s order, we knew about the man.  However, many people are not aware that Joseph and Mary lived a celibate life, according to the Catholic Church.  Today, there exists within the Catholic Church what is called a Josephite Marriage. I had never heard of it, so I did some investigating.  Here is what I found. Catholic view of celibate marriage I had read about this because of a piece in the New York Times about a man whose parents, with four children, applied to the church to enter into a Josephite marriage. Today, many priests think that such a thing is abhorrent, but not all of them.  So, what is a Josephite marriage? There appear to be two forms of the Sacrament of Marriage, one that we could call the “ordinary form,” the other that one might call the “extraordinary form.”  While both are the same vocati...
Read more

Refuse to take communion from sinful priests: I turned the tables on one

-
Image
“Sixty-nine percent of all American Catholics do not believe that the host and wine that they receive is actually the body and blood of Jesus Christ”  How do Catholics know which priests are in the state of grace? If a priest or bishop is in a state of sin, should he be dispensing the body of Christ? This is a story about why I refused communion from a sinful priest. How could I know if a priest is sinful?  No one actually knows this but God himself.  However, I can know about a sinful priest in the same way that they they make the judgment about us, postulating that some of us are unworthy of receiving communion.  Important: I am in a state of grace with God, but not with the church. However, my guess is that many of those who take communion at a Catholic mass is in a state of sin.  Which is as Jesus would have wanted it. Still, how would a priest or bishop or cardinal know if someone is in a state of sin? Only God knows what is in our hearts and souls. An...
Read more

American Christian leaders have supported ex-atheist Putin over the years, praising his “morality”

-
Image
Putin’s morality is “higher than our own” … the brutal dictator is hardly a follower of Christ How times have changed. Vladimir Putin became a hero to American conservatives, particular those who call themselves “Christians.” They praised him as a leader with better morality than Americans.  Putin was an atheist for years as a member of the Communist Party in the USSR, which prosecuted anyone who followed God. He was a leader of the KGB that brutally enforced those policies and killed anyone who deviated from them.  Yet, over the past 15 years, American evangelical leaders have praised Putin, the brutal leader who is now being denigrated worldwide for his immoral and illegal invasion of and war in Ukraine.  In fact, one religious figure even praised Putin as having better morality than the American president.  And now? The worm has turned, and the snakes have started slithering away from adulation of Putin — though not all of them.  Why? Frankli...
Read more