Even sinners do the same. If you lend only when you expect to receive, what kind of grace is yours? For sinners also lend to sinners,
expecting to receive something in return. But love your enemies and do good to them, and lend when there is nothing to expect in return.
Then will your reward be great, and you will be sons and daughters of the Most High. For he is kind toward the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful,
just as your Father is merciful. Don’t be a judge of others and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned;
forgive and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you, and you will receive in your sack good measure, pressed down, full and running over.
For the measure you give will be the measure you receive back.”
REFLECTION:
Herman Hesse writes: “When you hate a person, you have something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”
This can mean that the enemy we make out of someone is actually an enemy we have in ourselves. To weaken the enemy in ourselves, we have to know it,
own it, and outgrow it. Befriending and outgrowing the bad side of ourselves make us whole and confident against any destruction.
Jesus challenges us to fill ourselves with love to embrace anything we hate, including people who threaten to diminish us.
Hatred cannot penetrate when love abounds in us. Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela, for example,
have strong self-belief that translates to belief in people including their haters. They respond with smile and forgiveness.
Sometimes such responses move the other, sometimes not. But their mission and love for humanity is intact flowing continuously.
© Copyright Bible Diary 2020