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Matthew 5.43-48

‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

This familiar chapter from the Sermon on the Mount instructing us to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” seems so straightforward. Jesus lived this directive, and it is a message conveyed to us in multiple ways throughout the bible. Yet, while reflecting on this passage, and wanting to go deeper into its meaning, I found I had more questions than answers.

What Jesus says to us here seems simple: Loving those who are easy to love (those who already love us) is mundane and not as righteous as loving all (including those who are our “enemies”). To do this is to be “perfect” and live the word of God.

In theory I agree with this concept. I can imagine how living this might make a kinder, equitable, righteous and more whole world without the negative forces that currently divide us and cause so much pain. But how on earth do we live this? While it might be easier to love those who already love us, I do not always find it “easy” and I think for most people it can be a tremendous struggle at times. Loving your enemy, then, seems like such a Herculean task.

What eventually grounded me in this passage was Jesus stating that God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous”. This moved me deeply because it conveys God’s infinite love and generosity to all of us. Before thinking about this as it relates to how I might love my enemy, I thought, I need to fully embrace what it means that God loves me with all of my many flaws and shortcomings.

Like most, I tend to judge myself when I have thoughts or engage in actions that disappoint me and don’t demonstrate my values. Sometimes, rather than turn to God for guidance in these moments, in haste I will distance myself from these transgressions because they are distressing and causing me bad feelings. Of course, this also creates distance from God. Although perhaps not the intended message, this passage serves to reinforce that God loves us for who we are in our entirety. If God can love the unloveable parts of ourselves then we can too. And if we are able to acknowledge these difficulties to ourselves and God without judgment, then we can begin to understand them, and with compassion, begin to change.

Starting small and within myself, has helped me begin to understand how we move closer to the perfect place of loving our enemies. By understanding my own failings as a person but being able to accept and work on them with compassion guided by God’s help, I am better able to extend this love and understanding to others. To “Be perfect” then is really to accept that we are all anything but.

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Matthew 5.20-26

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.” But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire. So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

This always seems like an intimidating reading to me, like we’re being called to an unattainable standard: to be more righteous than the scribes and the Pharisees, to not even be angry with anyone...I feel like I’m angry with someone every day! The Pharisees had a hard time following Jesus, though; as I understand it, they were caught up in their rituals and laws, rather than seeing the love in action Jesus was calling them to. Perhaps being more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees means living in community with our human family with patience and love, rather than checking off boxes of church services attended, and checks to charities sent, and calling it a day.

When confronted with someone doing harm in our community, instead of stewing in our righteous anger and name calling under our breath, or appealing to some higher authority to get our neighbors back in line, we can try to rely on God’s grace to have the patience necessary to reconcile with our neighbor ourselves. I can think of many uncomfortable conversations I’ve avoided with my family because I want to keep the peace, and enjoy the time I have to spend with them, but in doing so, I’m slacking my duties as a Christian.

During Lent, we’re called to reflect on where we’ve fallen short in our journey following Jesus, and to seek to grow closer to God and more Christlike. This reading reminds me that often it’s the sins of omission that stand between me and building the kingdom of God. We are called to challenge ourselves to actively seek to meet this high standard Jesus sets for us, with the understanding that Jesus is there to help us attain it, and forgive us when we fall short. It’s not a standard I’ll ever be able to meet in this lifetime, but that’s the beauty of grace.

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Esther C 14.1, 3-5, 12-15a, 19

Then Queen Esther, seized with deadly anxiety, fled to the Lord. She prayed to the Lord God of Israel, and said: “O my Lord, you only are our king; help me, who am alone and have no helper but you, for my danger is in my hand. Ever since I was born I have heard in the tribe of my family that you, O Lord, took Israel out of all the nations, and our ancestors from among all their forebears, for an everlasting inheritance, and that you did for them all that you promised.

Remember, O Lord; make yourself known in this time of our affliction, and give me courage, O King of the gods and Master of all dominion! Put eloquent speech in my mouth before the lion, and turn his heart to hate the man who is fighting against us, so that there may be an end of him and those who agree with him. But save us by your hand, and help me, who am alone and have no helper but you, O Lord. You have knowledge of all things. O God, whose might is over all, hear the voice of the despairing, and save us from the hands of evildoers. And save me from my fear!”

The story of Queen Esther is the story of exile and of naming names. At the time of Esther, the vast majority of Hebrew people were living in exile in Babylon, Judea having been conquered by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who’d destroyed Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. The lamentations of the Hebrew people were expressed in songs and psalms, perhaps none so eloquent as Psalm 137, which begins:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

And now we find Esther, a daughter of exile, pleading with God to “put eloquent speech in my mouth” so that she, in turn, might plead with King Ahasuerus to save her people from Haman and the pack of haters who want to deny Jews their fundamental civil and human rights. A familiar story, yes?

If I recall the story correctly, King Ahasuerus doesn’t know that his queen is Jewish. He loves her and has raised her above all women in his kingdom, yet he doesn’t know this fundamental truth. But when Esther and her cousin Mordechai tell him the truth and point out the evildoer in their midst, Ahasuerus sides with the righteous and Esther saves her people from death.

It doesn’t always work this way. Often, in the bible as in life, those who speak truth to power are killed. But the need to speak out against persecution and injustice? Regardless of the dangers, that need persists. “I can’t breathe,” many of us cried—and continue to cry—after the murder of George Floyd and far too many others.

Contrary to the kinds of children often portrayed in television shows and movies, most children have difficulty speaking out when they’re in pain or when someone has said or done something hurtful. After all, grown-ups hold all the power; if children express their anger or pain, a grown-up might punish them. As the only child in a family of harried adults who frequently didn’t realize just how hurtful they could be, I turned to writing as a way to voice my pain. I found a notepad and a pen, locked myself in the bathroom, and wrote. The first thing I wrote was a list of people who were kind and a list of people who weren’t. I named names! Somehow, when I began to write things down, I began to learn who I was.

I am a Jew. I am Black and I am proud. I am gay. I am trans. Jesus says, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Light.” When asked, God tells us, “I Am That I Am.”

I am a Jew, actually! My grandparents came here before World War II, as exiles from the Pale of Settlement, where Jews were victimized—robbed, murdered—during the pogroms. In addition to their “daily” names, most Jews are given Hebrew names at birth. My Hebrew name is Judith Esther. I was named for two women, a great-grandmother and a great-aunt, murdered in the Holocaust. The biblical Queen Esther, my original namesake, was an exile; by the time of her birth, many Jews had become so assimilated within Babylonian society that they gave their children Babylonian names. The name Esther derives from the Babylonian Ishtar, goddess of fertility. (The word Easter, by the way, also derives from Ishtar and the ancient pagan fertility festival involving rabbits and looking to the east in the early morning!) Moses was an exile. And Jesus—Yeshua—, a Jew from Nazareth, was an outsider, a noncitizen of the Roman Empire, a rabbi (teacher) apart from the Temple and its Roman-corrupted set of priests in Jerusalem.

It seems to me that outsiders, even if assimilated, are especially blessed—and cursed—with an ability to see injustices and imbalances of power within the societies they inhabit. Until we recognize ourselves as children of God, all of us are outsiders looking to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; but our savior Jesus Christ tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is here. Inside. With one another. We may have forgotten. We may have forgotten our names. We may have suffered through the sins of the world and lost our way. It might take a tragedy like exile—like murder, slavery, or genocide—to begin the lamentations and the calls for justice, but let’s. Despite our fears, let’s remember who we truly are. Let’s write it!