The readings this week contain commands we should object to.

The First Reading says: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” and “be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.”

Impossible.

To love as God does.

What does God’s love look like? The Responsorial Psalm puts it this way:

The Lord is kind and merciful. He pardons all your iniquities, heals all your ills. He redeems your life from destruction, crowns you with kindness and compassion.

This description of God sounds comforting.

But can you and I possibly try to love the way God does, even if we work hard?

The Gospel has Jesus’ own guidelines for doing so. As he did last week, Jesus quotes the old laws and then he opens them up, giving us a view of their insides.

First:

• Old rule: “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.”

• Revised rule: “offer no resistance to one who is evil. … If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand over your cloak as well. … Do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow” (Gospel)

Objection: how very silly this is.

When I lived in Berkeley, California, some beggars admitted frankly that they had a quota to meet before they could go home. Sometimes a large, expensive car would come pick them up at five or six pm! A business! Should I have donated my coat to the syndicate? Ok, they are poor and I cannot turn my back on the poor, can I? I have to crown them with kindness and compassion.

But wouldn’t I be a sucker if I did this? Help!

Second:

• Old rule: “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.”

• Revised rule: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” The heavenly Father loves and rewards both the bad and the good, the just and the unjust. “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Objection:

This is just absurd. I am a tiny ant compared to God, a crawler with surroundings that are flying loose from the big bang. How am I supposed to be as perfect as God? This seems like an absurd command.

Answer:

You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you. (Second Reading)

Ok, let me translate. God built the human heart with a “hole in it.” It is an openness that can let others in if we don’t block them with selfishness. And if we grow into it, we can let God’s own self in. He can stretch our stunted outreach so that we will truly give to others out of love.

So should I give to the beggar employed by a syndicate? I have to ask whether it for his good. Is it for his good?

Should a wife stay home where her husband beats her up regularly? Wouldn’t she be trying to cuddle a rabid dog? So the answer has to be no, because that would not be “giving out of love.”

A judgment has to be made in each case, but in general if the care is ethically and/or physically harmful to the giver or the given-to, it does not flow from God.

Real love is what we are after, the kind Jesus describes and which God makes possible in us.