Friends
Peace be with you.
There are three instinctual reactions to violence: fight, flight, and freeze. If someone jumps out from a dark room, what is your reaction? I remember, a few years ago, watching a video of a person hiding in a trash can who popped out and scared people as they were being interviewed by an accomplice. Most people screamed and ran away. Some people put their hands up and screamed frozen in place. The experiment ended, however, when one person punched the guy as he popped out and knocked the guy out cold. I’m guessing most people watching the video cheered internally with the last guy because the man in the trash can got his comeuppance. However, as Christians, we believe there is actually a fourth option we are called to cultivate. If fight, flight, and freeze are animalistic, instinctual responses, natural responses as St. Paul might call them, there’s a spiritual, or supernatural response that is a charism that we need to ask for from the Holy Spirit if we are to live out our Christians lives.
We can see an example of this in the first reading and an explanation of it in the gospel. In the First reading, there are essentially two kings of Judah, one currently on the throne and one that has already been chosen as his successor by God. The king that’s already on the throne is named Saul. King Saul has consistently disobeyed God and has allowed the power to go to his head. Even when things go right, if they don’t go right in a way that makes King Saul look good, he gets upset and seeks revenge on the person who does look good. And it’s always King David who looks good so Kind Saul keeps trying to kill him. There are three instances in the First Book of Samuel where, while trying to kill David, Saul actually ends up putting his own life in danger. In this passage, King Saul and his men have been walking all day and are sleeping. The Hebrew word for sleep that they use is also used when God puts Adam to sleep to create Eve, so there’s a sense of divine anesthesia going on here. King David and his second in command, whose name is Abishai, walk among the three hundred soldiers of King Saul’s men. They see King Saul’s ceremonial spear stuck next to his head and it’s Abishai who has the reaction most of us would probably want to have had. This guy has been trying to kill us so, if we get rid of him, we get rid of the problem. They’ve tried flight and freeze to no avail. Maybe it’s time to fight. But David refuses because he will not hurt God’s anointed. Saul may be a terrible king but he’s still God’s choice to be a king so, by killing King Saul, he would really be killing God’s choice for king. For King David, he had to show mercy.
This same notion of mercy is littered throughout the Gospel. It’s founded on something that the Lord has made very clear to me that I must emphasize today: Love your enemies and pray for those who mistreat you. Remember love is willing what is best for the other person, not just a feeling or some kind of bland tolerance. Love is the basis of mercy; you show love to the person by not reacting in our animal instinctive way but by showing mercy instead. But it’s a distinctive kind of mercy, one that marks Christians as being different than the rest of the world. There’s a defiance to it. When someone smacks you on one cheek, turn and offer the left. That’s not a fight or flight or freeze response. It says that a person will not be embarrassed or hurt by someone smacking their cheek. The same is true when someone takes your cloak so you offer them your tunic as well. Think about the tunic like a sweatshirt or hoodie under a winter coat on a cold day. Giving a tunic on top of a cloak is a response of mercy and kindness to an act that doesn’t deserve it. Both of these show a willingness to suffer for someone else. Why suffer for someone else? Think of the scene from Les Miserables involving Jean Vajean and the Bishop. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, early into this play or movie, a man recently released from prison is given a place to stay at the local bishop’s house and the man responds by stealing the bishop’s plates and silverware. When the police take the man back to the bishop to return what he has stolen, the bishop thanks them and then hands the man two silver candlesticks, claiming he not only gave the man the plates and silverware but those as well. Instead of putting the man in jail, he tells the thief he has saved his soul for God.
This is the kind of mercy Jesus wants us to have in our interactions with one another. It’s one that lives constantly in hope that an entitled person will recognize his or her need for God. It’s the kind of thing that made a pagan author named Aristides of Athens comment in the second century that Chrstians are amazing because we love one another. But we don’t just love those closest to us, those easiest to love, we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. We want them to be converted and we’ll do whatever it takes, even to the point of embarrassing, inconveniencing, and even possibly hurting ourselves to make that happen. We want them to be saved.
Who do we find it difficult to be patient with or merciful toward? How is God calling us to be merciful in a way that saves their soul for Him?
