| Readings: | 1 Samuel 26:2,7-9,12-13,22-23 |
| Date: | February 23, 2025 Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C |
Little Jimmy was out to lunch with his mother and grandmother. When the waitress came to their table to take their order, she started with Jimmy, "What would you like for lunch, young man?" Jimmy replied, "I would like a hamburger and french fries with ketchup and a pickle, and a chocolate shake." Before the waitress could say anything, Jimmy's mother interrupted, "Oh no Jimmy that is not a healthy lunch." She turned to the waitress and said, "He'll have a turkey sandwich on whole wheat and a glass of skim milk." Then she and Jimmy's grandmother ordered salad plates. The waitress turned and called out to the cook, "Two salad plates, and a hamburger and fries with ketchup and a pickle, and a chocolate shake." Little Jimmy's eyes were bulging out of his head as he turned to his mother and grandmother and exclaimed, "Mommy, grandma, the waitress thinks I'm a real person!"
All of Catholic morality, ethics, and social justice start and end with one truth: each human being is a person whose intrinsic worth comes, not from money, or skin color, or country, or creed but from the fact that he or she is a child of God. The practical matter of relationships is that in almost every interaction, one party has more power, or authority, or status than the other. This is as true in parent-child, teacher-pupil, and boss-employee interactions as it is in master-slave, conqueror-conquered ones. Today's readings remind us that no matter which side of the power curve we are on, our dealings must be based on the fact that both parties are real persons, children of God.
I think most of us at least understand the goodness of this awareness when we are on the powerful side of the equation, like David was in the first reading. Here he was standing over the sleeping King Saul, the man who tried to pin him to the wall with the same spear stuck in the ground next to his head and who was even now hunting David down like a dog. He had every right under the law to kill Saul and he had the power to do it. We see how rich and magnanimous David is in sparing Saul's life. So how do we apply this lesson to what's going on around us today, to death row inmates, to migrants, or to underdeveloped nations who owe us huge sums of money?
But even harder to understand and to put into practice is the teaching Jesus gives us for when we are on the other side of the power. When we are the slave, or the conquered, or the oppressed. How is there any good in turning the other cheek, in giving our coat to someone who robs us of our shirt? Is Jesus saying to be doormats? How does this stop the violence? To understand this, I suggest we have to look at Matthew's version of these sayings as well as know something about the laws and customs of the time. Matthew's version of the first saying is, "When someone hits you on your right, turn the other one. How does someone (who is right handed) have to hit some one on the right cheek? With the back of the hand. Who do you hit with the back of the hand. An equal - no; a slave or someone not worth the bother. To turn the other cheek is to make the other person remember that you are a person. If they want to punish you, they must fight you as an equal not treat you as a slave. And what about the coat thing. In Jewish law, it was a serious crime to make another naked in public by taking their clothes for any reason. By offering the coat as well as the shirt, you would put the other in the position of committing that crime. So the action is meant to force the other person to regard you as a real person not as some object. But whether they do or not, we must treat the ones who hurt us as if they are sons and daughters of God and our brothers and sisters, because we have been blessed with the gift of knowing that that is indeed who they are.
So Jesus' message is clear and simple. In everything you do, remember that the other one is a real person, a child of God. Then when you have the power, you will use it wisely. When you are the oppressed, instead of reacting with violence that begets violence, act in such a way as to make your personhood clear. That is the way that Ghandi led India out of slavery, the way that Martin Luther King broke the stranglehold of discrimination in our country, the way the Polish trade union movement brought down the communist oppression in Poland. It is the truth that lays bare the lie that violence can solve anything. Jesus lived this to the cross where he hangs as a stark reminder that whenever we do violence to another, we are doing it to God.