Archbishop of Sydney

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Luke 6:27-38

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
22 February 2004

Today is the seventh Sunday of ordinary time.

We are now concluding that short period of “ordinary time” in the Church’s liturgical year between the Christmas season and Lent, which begins this week with Ash Wednesday.  I cannot resist telling you of the youngster last year from Grade 1 or 2 who told me that ordinary time was when nothing happened!

If the youngster had been older we could have explained that plenty should be happening in ordinary time, when we should be concentrating on doing everyday things well, family life, work, community building, worship and daily prayer.

Today we would also be able to explain that in the gospel we have proposed for us the stiffest test for Christians, Christ’s commandment that we love our enemies.

In Luke’s Gospel this teaching immediately follows Jesus’ preaching of the beatitudes, blessed are the poor, hungry, those weeping, those who are persecuted.

We have heard these teachings many times and we still hear them with a mixture of unease and partial disbelief or disapproval.

If we have been slapped once we should offer the other cheek for a slap.  If our cloak has been stolen, we should offer our tunic also.  We can imagine how those who heard this for the first time would have reacted.

There is no doubt that Our Lord was attention seeking, not for himself, but for his teaching.  People in every age are tempted to hear what has been said, but refuse to engage with the content.  We might feel that we know that already or that we do not agree or that we could not be bothered examining this too closely, because we have problems enough without more extreme religious burdens or requirements.

But there should be no mistake.  In this passage we are at the heart of Jesus’ revolutionary moral teaching that we should return good for evil, love our enemies, pray for those who hate and curse us.

I have recounted once or twice the story of the catechist chief in the Papua New Guinea highlands when they were being opened up by Catholic missionaries.  He was translating the sermon when the priest explained the Christian teaching that we should not kill.  The chief was amazed, interrupted the sermon to check with the priest that he has the message correctly and then returned to explain to his people this extraordinary teaching “Jesus says that you must not kill.  Did you hear you that? Do as he says.  And if anyone of you should kill I will kill you!”

We often react in a similar way, although we are too sophisticated generally to be caught out so publicly.

Some people are more hot tempered than others, coming to the boil and going off the boil equally quickly.  Some are very slow burners, but once ignited it can need a miracle, or perhaps many years before the fires of hate and revenge are doused.

It is often harder to forgive those who hurt our loved ones than it is to forgive those who hurt us.  Nonetheless even those who accept Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness at the intellectual level, or the level of principle have to wrestle with their feelings.  Sometimes we do not feel one bit like forgiving.  We can be full of genuine outrage at what has been perpetrated and very angry.

At this stage it is still useful to count to ten, at least in matters of lesser moment and we know we have a short fuse.  More importantly we should pray, either for ourselves to master our feelings and do the right thing; or we can try to pray for the persons who have done the wrong thing, even when we feel that such a prayer would choke us.

A couple of clarifications, which can in fact, make our situation more difficult at a practical level.

The obligation to forgive does not have to mean that the need for punishment is abolished.  Children and adults sometimes need punishment, although this is to be meted out by the appropriate authority e.g. parent, teacher or perhaps adults, police and judiciary.

Secondly it is important to remember that the obligation to compassion, the obligation to forgive, not to condemn and not to judge, must not mean that we abandon the public defence of Christian moral teaching, and decline to teach the Ten Commandments.

The answer lies in the old Christian maxim to hate the sin and love the sinner.  This is absolutely at one with the Christian obligation to forgive.

Often we are tempted to hate both the sin and the sinner.  Sometimes we might detest the sinner and not care too much how he is sinning.

But the need to forgive does not mean that anything goes; nor does it mean that Christian teachers should not be heard in the public forum.

It does mean that we shall be judged as we judged and we shall receive, at the final judgement, what we have handed out.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.