Sunday B’ Luke
(Luke 6: 31-36)
We should seek for our enemies, find them and love them
“And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise” . I wonder how many christians pay attention to the real essence of these words and delve into it. And also, how many christians have the intention to lead their lives according to these words? The Lord is absolute. You can’t be a little bit of a christian, you can’t believe in God a little bit, you can’t, some how, communicate with Christ just a little bit. God, who is in us, through the Holy Spirit, wants us to belong to him in an absolute way. Because not only did he create us, but also re-created us by surrendering his own self to death, so that by stirring our conscience he brings us to a state when we eventually give ourselves up to him. If you feel the love of God, it draws you to him, attracts you and you move towards God and towards other people. You don’t distinguish yourself from the others.
To move on, the Lord asks us not to be influenced by the secular spirit, which is treating others the way they treat us. This basic principle should reside in our heart: we shouldn’t seek our comfort, nor should we take care of not losing one pleasure or being deprived of another. But we should surrender to God, we should surrender to death. Still, while you think that you have destined to die, that you are actually dying –that’s how you surrender– on the other hand, you are truly living. This antinomy should permeate our life. The minute you are denying yourself, then you really find your true self in Christ. The minute you are losing this life, this very minute you have found it. You find true life, which the grace of God creates in man. It’s the very same life which we will live eternally, which is life according to Christ, and it begings on earth.
Next, the Lord asks of us something even harder and he asks for it quite firmly, and gives an explicit mandate: “Love thy enemies”. We should seek for our enemies and find them very specifically and love them very specifically. We shouldn’t just do something for shows. Within our hearts, we should feel love for the other, we should feel strongly about the other finding salvation; our hearts shouldn’t be affected at all by our “enemy’s” bad attitude.
With these words, the Lord is urging us to become the same with God and so be the true children of God.
Transcribed talks by Archimandrite Symeon Kragiopoulos
From: Holy Hesychasterion “The Nativity of Theotokos” Publications.
The Golden Rule
