But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.
Luke 6:35
I remember talking to my dad a long time ago about how good a Catholic I thought I was. I was nice to my friends. I helped my family with errands. But he said that was the easy part. It is easy to be good and nice to friends.
It is much harder to be good to strangers, to people who are different from us and to people who have hurt us. To understand them. To listen to them. To help them.
You would give a dollar to a friend or coworker so that they can buy a soda or snack. What about the homeless person who needs a dollar to buy his meal of the day?
You would say hello to your acquaintances at work, but would you say hello to the office bully or office outcast? Or say hello to the person wearing MAGA or Feel the Bern shirt, whichever is more different then from your view?
You would sit a table of your coworkers, but what about sitting at the table of the loner – the newcomer or the person with the accent, disability or who doesn’t blend in?
You would get mad at coworkers for not following through or for throwing you under the bus. Try to understand why they did that.
Luke’s passage reminds me that it is not easy to be fair, kind and thoughtful towards those who may have hurt us, lied to us or who are different from us. But isn’t that what we are called to do?
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.
Luke 6:35