Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle C
1 Samuel 26:2, 7–9, 12–13, 22–23
Psalm 103:1–2, 3–4, 8, 10, 12–13
1 Corinthians 15:45–49
Luke 6:27–38
Our view of the world is established by the “shape” of our vision.
Old-fashioned cartoons used to show this by allowing us to “see through” the eyes of a character, with the outline of the eyes as the shape of the world being observed. The implication was that we were viewing the world through the character’s particular way of seeing. We could understand better what the character experienced by seeing that way. This also allowed us to be part of the action, knowing what the character experienced more directly.
The Scriptures of this weekend invite us to see the world through the eyes of mercy, that is, through God’s vision. God sees the world in a way that rises beyond our experience of limitation. The whole Biblical story of David offers this perspective and serves as an example of how one who sees through the eyes of mercy can move beyond the desire for revenge.
Saul is out to get David, not knowing that God has already chosen him to be Israel’s next king. David has an opportunity to take revenge and overcome his rival with violence, but he chooses instead to acknowledge the anointing that God has placed upon Saul. He acts with mercy, in spite of the malice Saul has shown to him.
Paul reminds us that God has created human beings to live in a way that reveals the spiritual nature of humanity, rising above the merely earthly reality. Christ has given us a capacity to grow in the life of the spirit that must be put into practice. The Gospel expresses the Lord’s invitation to do just that.
To love with God’s love means to give all, to do good to all and to show mercy beyond expectation. Jesus invites all who hear Him, that is, those who are willing to accept His message and to make room for Him in their lives, to give, to forgive and to measure from God’s perspective.
God is a God of abundance. He gives all without measure, beyond expectation. To receive the fullness of life that is offered to us, our own way of measuring has to be abandoned. This does not mean that we are called to become door mats. Rather, we are called to acknowledge our own limitations and failings, but to realize that we have been given through Christ the capacity to move beyond them and to allow God’s abundance to flow through us.
In ages past, human beings measured the world with a natural way of seeing, not understanding the spiritual reality. In Christ, we are given a new way to live. What has been given to us is a hint of the good that is to come.
Our own way of measuring can be “stretched” through a grasp of the nature of spiritual things. When spiritual realities are shared, given away freely and without claim or measure, they grow, and we grow together through the act of sharing.
The life of God grows in us in proportion as we grow in our willingness to show mercy. “The Lord is kind and merciful.”
The spiritual realities that are being discussed here can be understood in only two ways, by analogy and by experience. Because they are by nature invisible, we cannot see them. We have to discover what they are like by a “stretching” of our minds to a different way of understanding.
Paul offers the analogy of “the first Adam,” created from the earth as a “living being” and “the last Adam,” Jesus Christ, “a life-giving Spirit.” This may serve to open a path to understanding.
Jesus invites those who listen to Him to enter into the way of experience for understanding. The quest to understand must be first a choice to follow in the way of the disciple. We are called to open our lives to the One Who is the life-giving Spirit by choosing to live differently, measuring not by our past experiences, but rather by the promise of a new life.
This does not mean losing our true selves but gaining the new life that is offered through a spiritual way of seeing.
Will you see as God sees?