Today’s Gospel is the perfect selection to prepare for Lent. We are reminded so clearly that good deeds must flow from a good heart. Luke’s genteel, gentile audience would have endorsed this heartily but would have been bewildered by how Luke thought a good heart would be formed and how it would be tested and shocked as to how it would be expanded. 

All the examples of ethical living in today’s passage may be found in classical authors. Other New Testament writers such as Matthew or Paul may show familiarity with the moral theories of their day, but Luke is quoting them, and he knows that his highly educated audience knows that he is. They would have enthusiastically agreed that for ethical excellence a person must seek out a good teacher who is wiser and more experienced than he or she may be. They understood that teaching was a dynamic activity. At first a novice would blindly follow the master but in time he or she would be “fully trained” and be like his or her master making mature decisions. Until then he was if not ethically blind, at least visionally impaired.  

Classical authors found the efforts of the poorly formed to act like a master humorous and worthy of derision. These were usually young men who acted as if they had wisdom that they did not, caused general chaos and, in plays, were usually physically injured for their impertinence.  

Most importantly the noble pagans would have agreed that moral education sought what we now call conversion: an interior change. A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit would have been understood by all  

How then is one formed into a good person? 

This is where Luke must show his genteel readers that they may be doing the same things, but they will be doing it for different reasons and for more people. 

A classical adage states “I hate and cast aside the vulgar crowd” (odi profanum vulgus et arceo, Horace). Contact with the ignoble would make a noble person base. The more contact with those whose hearts are not virtuous would challenge the virtue of another. This makes perfect sense. Classical people, indeed, most people up to the 18^th century, understood that we were formed by communities. A community which held out great virtues could lift a person up. Should one fall into a bad – literally vicious – community he or she would be dragged down. A good community would need to police itself so that those who lost their virtue would be removed without pity or delay. The noble romans would have included the poor, certainly the urban poor, and the uneducated among the base. We may find this morally unacceptable but at least they were honest about it. Our modern meritocracy often does the same but not as honestly or self-consciously. 

The power of groups is so great that this is a positive natural reaction. But Luke knows that there is more. There is the power of a loving God. Last week Luke told us to love our enemies. To make matters worse he said that the most high God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. His comments about the poor, which we have come to call a preferential option, would also be scandalous for them. The prosperous gentiles are told to be merciful to the very people the best pagan authors told them to cast aside. . This is possible and indeed desirable because the creator of the universe is more powerful than anything in the universe. The power of sin is great and without the risen Lord as Paul shows us so beautifully in our second reading this week it will triumph: indeed, with original sin, it did. The church speaks of sin of the world. Without Jesus, it will overpower us. By ourselves we are not good enough. Luke knows that this is not a mere doctrine on paper but a living and challenging reality. We are expected to love those around us – the good, the bad and ugly – every day. Let us remember here the tendency to find ways of including the financially poor and the poorly credentialed in this. This is how we connect most intimately to each other and finally to God. Immediately after today’s passage Luke writes: “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I command? (Lk 6:46). 

The people and world to whom Jesus gave the injunction to love their enemies and to do to all as they would have done to them is remarkably different from those to whom St Luke wrote. Still more different from us who are in this Church today, yet its message is crystal clear to all if desired by few. Let us see why we both need it but do not want it.
Jesus spoke to Palestinian peasants for whom the enemy would have been the Romans and the golden rule of doing to others what they would want done to them would have been directed to people of similar limited means and prospects. Luke wrote to people who were themselves Romans and would have had position and possessions. The scriptures tell us of a man who had many possessions who when he heard Jesus’ command to give them up, became sad and walked away. Luke is a man with many possessions who heard the same message, was filled with joy, and followed Jesus. We saw a source of this joy in last week’s beatitudes. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” He understood that what we have must be defended and to have nothing is to have nothing to defend and be free of anxiety and cares of stuff
He is writing to people, both his original audience and ourselves, who will not give up our possessions but would like to know how they, if not a blessing, will not become a woe. His message could not be clearer or more relevant.
… love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. (Lk 6:27–28).
These words are eternally true but especially pertinent in the age of social media. It is so easy to express hateful thoughts. I say this as someone with no footprint in Facebook, Instagram, twitter, and the like. This was originally not for any moral or even technical concern; I simply didn’t want to broadcast how boring my life was. But now I just don’t want to be exposed to any more hatred than I must. Yet, even without a social media presence I am sent selections from media outlets which call themselves Catholic which are truly vile and hateful.
You do not have to be Catholic to experience this. Our politics have become toxic and divisive. We do not share the same facts and are increasingly living in different worlds. People we might once have seen as honorable opponents can so easily be treated as hateful enemies. Woe to us who are rich in opinions and burdened by speculation. These are as much possessions as property and investments and they offer even less consolation and no peace.
Jesus’ message frees us as it did people 2000 years ago: love those who have become our enemy. Bless those who may be cursing us and pray for those who may well wish to mistreat us. This alone is the way to peace and the blessings which following Jesus offers.
Luke though has a more specific message for the members of his class. If we compare this section with the parallel from St Matthew, we discover that Matthew is speaking about religious practices and Luke is taking about money.
Early converts to Christianity took many risks depending on where and when they entered. For Jews there was the likelihood of being expelled from their families and the loss of civil protection. Jews were exempted from the law to worship the emperor. Once they became Christian, they were subject to the death penalty for “atheism.” Prominent citizens who became Chistian faced social ostracism and a distinct loss of status. As is usually the case, however, poor people who made such a radical change in life were the most vulnerable. They could have lost their support system and become dependent on their new community, the church.
Lukes’s readers are reminded of their responsibility: do not lend, give outright and do not be stingy: For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”
Put some gold behind the Golden rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” When the comfortable became Christians, they took on some vulnerability, Luke is exhorting them to recognize the far greater vulnerability of others and to assist them.
This love is mercy. But it is the Jewish understanding of mercy not our contemporary one.
Mercy for us often has the sense of a person of superior status condescending to someone of an inferior one. A creditor may show mercy to someone in his debt by reducing the amount owed. A judge might have mercy on a young offender. These are good things to be sure but it not what the Jews meant by mercy
Mercy comes from the same root as womb. Mercy is the recognition that people share the same life. Our idea of compassion – suffering with – comes close but is not as physical. St Matthew writes that we should “Be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect.” This is a legal idea of doing one’s work well. St Luke says, “Be merciful, just as (also) your Father is merciful”.
The Father has not kept anything back from us. He is sharing “womb love,” his very life, his very son. In this he shows us the way to truly live. Luke reminds us today that God himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. This is unimaginable for a well-brought-up Roman, indeed he would have seen it as vice not a virtue. But that is a great theme of Luke, Jesus turns the world upside down. He calls us to direct our attention, indeed our very lives outside of ourselves. This is the challenge of the Golden rule and the mercy that comes from it true charity points not to the earthly donor but to our heavenly Father.