Monday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.

In the ongoing discussion about this verse – the discussion that began with Jesus and will continue until the end of time – questions usually begin with “What if…?”

What if my enemy beats me up? What if my enemy ravages my mother? What if my enemy kills my family? What if…?

All of those what-ifs are supposed to add up to a good reason to ignore Jesus’ teaching, even when they are not very plausible.

In response I ask other questions:

How often does a homeowner have to stand in his front yard to defend his family against The Enemy? When was the last time you did it? True, you see it happen in movies all the time. It makes great entertainment; but how plausible is that scenario?  

We often think of enemies as imaginary people who live far, far away and the farther the better. We can hate, resist, sabotage and destroy them with neither remorse nor regret since they are Evil. God has decreed they are evil and I certainly agree with God!

But if we remove the implausible questions and the unbridgeable gap between us and our enemies, we soon find they’re just folks with different aims and identical fears.

Far more often I deal with my loved ones, coworkers and neighbors as if they’re the enemy – and I offer fierce resistance.

I believe that if we address the people who are close at hand – family, coworkers, and neighbors – welcoming their hopes, dreams, fears, ambitions and so forth – allowing them to speak, and allowing misunderstandings to be clarified, we might never need to deal with the extreme situations, the so-called what-ifs.

Permit me an undocumented quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

“The easiest enemy to deal with is the British. My own people are far more difficult. But the deadliest enemy of all, the most implacable, sinister, unscrupulous and insidious is myself.”