Beloved in Christ,
Anyone who is paying attention to the state of our country can see that we are becoming increasingly divided from one another. Today, any kind of difference or disagreement becomes an excuse to hate the other person. Rather than being able to cooperate with and recognize the dignity of our fellow human beings, today we wage war on whatever disagrees with us.
There are many causes for this increased isolation and fragmentation. Studies have shown that social media lends itself to political polarization and radicalization. We expect modern technology to bring people together, to make it easier to connect with one another. Instead, our technology-driven lives are more and more isolated and lonely.
The division and hostility that we see in public life today is a symptom of the absence of Jesus Christ in our lives. Our Lord gives us a commandment that is shocking and distinctly Christian: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who despitefully use you," (Luke 6:27). When we refuse to work together in good faith with the other— whoever our 'other' might be— then we are refusing to live as Christians.
Jesus Christ himself gives us the example of what it means to love our enemies. As Jesus suffered on the Cross for us, he said of the people crucifying him, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," (Luke 23:34). He could have been angry at them. He could have been resentful for the harm they were causing him. He could have destroyed them. Instead, he expresses his love and his forgiveness.
Today's Gospel reading tells us that the sinners love only the people who love them back (Luke 6:32). There is no reward in that kind of love, which is self-serving and egotistical. But unlike the sinners, God loves his enemies. St. Theophylact of Ochrid asks the poignant question: "Which do you want, to be like sinners, or to be like God?" Let's make the decision today to be like Jesus Christ.
Living with Christ in our heart will always mean that we are walking contrary to the culture that we live in. Never in history— not even in Byzantium or tzarist Russia— has there been a culture that expressed in itself a genuine Christian ethos. As those who have been enlightened by Christ's presence in our lives, let us do all that we can to resist the division, fragmentation, isolation, and hatred that is so present in our society today. Let us do all that we can to put into practice the words of Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra: "The poor man, the prisoner, the sinner, and especially my enemy— especially the person who seeks to harm me— is Christ for me."
In Christ,
Fr. Jeremy
