In an essay on reconciliation, the late Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote about a mother in South Africa whose only child had been killed. She spoke directly to the man who had murdered her child, and she told him that she hoped he would spend the rest of his days in prison and that he would rot in hell after death. Archbishop Tutu observed that such a reaction from someone who had experienced a heinous loss in her life doesn’t seem odd to us. In fact, it seems normal.[1]
If we’re honest with ourselves and can try to imagine being in that poor mother’s shoes, don’t you think we all might have reacted in the same way? Don’t her actions toward her child’s killer appear natural, normal, even just, to us? How do you feel toward people who seem to have no moral compass and commit wanton acts of cruelty? Perhaps in your own life, you’ve experienced a wrong so grievous that you harbor nothing but hatred towards the perpetrator. I think Archbishop Tutu was right. Our human reactions of loathing and unforgiveness toward those who have done evil are simply part of our normal human speech. We’re conditioned to excuse hatred or unkind words as appropriate—even equivalent—responses to evil.
But Archbishop Tutu told two other stories in that same essay that emblemized what he called the “magnanimity of reconciliation.” One involved a Mrs. Savage, who was the victim of a hand grenade attack at a golf club dinner party in South Africa. After spending six months in an intensive care unit, she was discharged with shrapnel remaining in her body. She needed assistance bathing, putting on clothes, and eating. And yet, Mrs. Savage told South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, of which Archbishop Tutu was the chair, that that experience had “enriched her life.” Indeed, Mrs. Savage wanted to meet the person who was responsible for her injuries as an act of forgiveness. She not only wanted to forgive him; she wanted to ask him to forgive her.[2]
And then there was former South African President Nelson Mandela, who, after twenty-seven years wrongly spent in prison, called for reconciliation, not revenge, and for forgiveness, not retaliation. After he was elected, Mandela invited his former jailer as a V.I.P. guest to his inauguration. Likewise, Mandela extended a lunch invitation to the prosecutor who was responsible for putting him in prison, even though he’d sought a life sentence for Mandela.[3]
Let’s look deep within ourselves again and be truthful. Are we bothered by what we might consider to be easy forgiveness? Are we troubled by a seeming lack of justice in these accounts of extraordinary acts of love? Would we have preferred that Mrs. Savage tell the person who so grievously injured her that she wished he would suffer immensely for the rest of his life? Would it have seemed fairer to us if Nelson Mandela had used the authority of his office as president to exact revenge on those who’d put him in prison?
If truth be told, I don’t think we know what to do with acts of generosity and love as astounding as those of Mrs. Savage and Nelson Mandela’s. We understand quite well how to speak in our native language, where an eye is demanded for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But we simply have no clue how to handle actions and words from another world, when a victim not only refuses to return evil for evil but goes the extra mile and offers love and forgiveness in return.
But our Lord knows all too well that our normal language is not the language of the kingdom of God. And as much as we usually try to foist our own brutal language onto God by making him more and more like us, we simply can’t change who God is, which is infinitely perfect love. Jesus assumes that our normal language will be that of retribution, retaliation, and quid pro quo. Surely this must be why in Luke’s Gospel he immediately follows his delivery of the Beatitudes—the blessings and woes we heard last week—with a conjunction like but. But I say to you that hear. . .
Everything lies in that coordinating conjunction that poses a contrast between what comes before and what comes after. What comes before is left unspoken in the Gospels, but we know it all too well. What comes before Jesus’s but is our normal human way of speaking. We might call them words and actions from this world.
Jesus says, you will be tempted to do all these things, but I say to you, live differently. Jesus knows that we’ll be tempted to pray for a life to be taken from one who took a life from us. He knows that we’ll say that we shouldn’t pray for someone we hate because it would be to side with evil. He knows that we’ll tell ourselves that we shouldn’t love our enemies because that would be to condone their behavior. He knows that we’d prefer not to do good to those who do horrible things because that would be a travesty of justice. He knows that we’ll continue to convince ourselves that only Jesus can really love his enemies, bless them, and curse them.
But Jesus anticipates our own objections by prefacing his own words with that contrasting coordinating conjunction. But. . . I say to you who hear. And what follows could be seen as the Gospel’s unique claim, words that will shock us and might seem foolish, ridiculous, probably even unfair. What follows are not words from our own sinful, distorted world but words from another world altogether.
And when that world breaks into our own world from an eternal place, a place that is nothing but an infinite sharing in love, we are puzzled, put off guard, even offended. We haven’t a clue how to handle them. And yet, there are times when that other world slips into ours, and we catch glimpses of heaven. In those glimpses, we see a God who isn’t like us, and thank God for that. We catch glimpses of that other world here at Mass when God still comes to us in bread and wine even though we come to his altar refusing to pray for our enemies and harboring hatred in our hearts. God still showers us with his love even when we withhold that love from someone who has offended us. God still offers unconditional forgiveness to us even when we won’t forgive someone who has wronged us. These are all glimpses of a God who isn’t like us because he continues to love and bless us no matter what we do and no matter who we are.
Over two thousand years ago, humanity saw in the flesh the words and actions from another world. Those listening to Jesus who had ears to hear what he was saying heard him say, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” Those were words from another world breaking into our own. And on a hilltop outside Jerusalem on the hard wood of a cross, there was no clearer message from another world than that of the expressed forgiveness and perfect self-offering of One whom the world rejected. That scene on Calvary was the perfect image from another world played out on the screen of this broken, sinful world.
But although two worlds collide as Jesus offers his words from another world, he knows us so intimately that he understands where we’re coming from, and he meets us there. Jesus knows that we’ll make every excuse not to love our enemies. He knows that we’ll struggle all our lives to operate in a different paradigm from that of this world. He knows that we’ll never fully understand the shocking generosity of God and the infiniteness of his mercy and compassion. And so, he tells us to do something. Even if you don’t like your enemy, do something good toward them. When you’re tempted to curse them, bless them instead. When the devil tries to persuade you to avoid praying for someone who does evil because it would be to side with injustice, pray for that evil person anyway. Even if you hate what they’re doing and believe it’s evil, do not return evil for evil. Stand up against the evil itself, but ask God to help you love the one who is captive to it.
And when we’re incapacitated by our hatred and don’t know how to respond to evil, then we can always pray. Pray that God will move us to greater love. Say the names of our enemies, and let God do the rest. Do something, but know that God understands exactly where we are. For us to speak and act as if we’re from another world, we must start in this world.
If we dare to be imperfect in loving our enemies, then we’ll have put our whole trust in God, who will forgive us even when we fall short. Jesus asks us to perform the supreme act of letting go. Let God be God. Let God bring his justice to this world. Let God speak his words from another world into this one. And if we have ears to hear, we can let those words from another world become our native language.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany
February 23, 2025
[1] Desmond Tutu, “The Magnanimity of Reconciliation,” in I Have Called You Friends: Reflections on Reconciliation (Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 2006), 3.
[2] “The Magnanimity of Reconciliation,” pp. 6-7
[3] Ibid., pp. 5-6