A University of London study published recently discovered something we know but often deny: we humans like to “take the easy way out.” Of course, this isn’t unique to humans. Everything takes the path of least resistance: water, electricity, even Google maps. Wolves, the study notes, evolved into domesticated dogs because it was easier to scavenge on human trash than to do the hard work if tracking down prey.

In literature, we see the same dynamic. In Aesop’s Fables, for example, a fox eyes some delicious, ripe grapes along a vine high up in a tree. After realizing he can’t reach them, he decides they’re sour anyway. This gave rise to the ditty: “A hungry fox some grapes did spy as on a branch they hung on high. He leaped to get them but in vain. Again he tried but failed again. Turning away “They’re sour, said he – such trash as this is not fit for me! How many like the fox despise those heights to which they cannot rise.” While the easy way out may be more satisfying, it rarely builds character. This attitude often results in resentment against the item or person we once prized, simply because it demands effort, exertion, and the surrender of the natural impulse of our ego.

In Sunday’s Gospel passage from St. Luke (6:31-36), Jesus teaches us a lesson about taking  the easy way out. He casts his teaching not in psychological terms, but in spiritual ones, not concerned in the first instance with building our character, but rather in tending to the health of our soul: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.”

Jesus’ point is this – loving those who love us, doing good to them, giving to those from whom we know we will receive back – all of this is taking the easy way out. It is, He said, what even sinners do for sinners. That is certainly not what is expected of the disciple.  There is a higher, more exacting standard for those who follow the Lord. Like the disappointed fox in the fable intimated, Jesus tells us that there are greater more demanding heights for us to reach.

Metropolitan Sotirios of Pisidia expresses it thusly: “The Lord wants us to love not only those unrelated to us and outside of our personal circle of family and friends, but also our enemies. This is the basic difference between the Christian and non-Christian. The non-Christian will not love his enemy; he will apply “an eye for an eye” if he does not do something worse, and “hate your enemy” (Matthew 5:38 and 43). But the Christian is called upon to apply Christ’s new command of love, which no one has ever imagined: To love the whole world without distinction as to whether he is a friend or an enemy; whether he loves or hates you. And not just a sentimental show of words, but actual works: “do good,” even to enemies!”  St. Tikhon of Zadonsk is even more clear: “How do we know whether a person abides in God and is sincere in his Christian faith? There is no other way of ascertaining this other than by examining the person’s life to see if he loves his enemies. Where there is love for one’s enemy, there also is God.”

This is the height to which you and I are called – beyond the easy effort to love those who love us, Jesus summons us to love those who hate us, bless those who hurt us, welcome those who wound us, show mercy to those who have not been compassionate to us and even love and accept those difference from us. Far from the easy way out, we may bristle against these sentiments as too difficult and unrealistic.

Our egos will seek their pound of flesh, sweet revenge, and self-justified arrogance. Striking out against one who has hurt us acquires a certain “respectability.” It makes sense to us in our warped way of thinking. Yet these are not the path the Master walked. His way is self-deprecating love. His word is one of forgiveness and mercy. His expectation of us, His disciples, is to trod the same path, step by step behind Him – no excuses, no rationalizations, no questions asked!  He said: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6)

There is little doubt but that loving those who hurt or offend us is difficult.  Our natural ego wars against such a move.  Yet it was our holy father St. Maximus the Confessor who tells us why it is necessary for our spiritual growth: “The nature of things is measured by the interior disposition of the soul; that is, the kind of person one is will determine what he thinks of others. He who has attained to genuine prayer and love no longer puts people into categories. He does not separate the righteous from sinners, but loves all equally, and does not judge them, just as God gives the sun to shine and the rain to fall both on the just and the unjust.”

Before you reject Jesus’ counsel to love your enemies as unrealistic, think upon St. Maximus’ words which are rooted in the actual preaching of Jesus. They call us to new heights, to jump for that upper branch, to work hard to seize those grapes, to make our reach exceed our feeble grasp. They call us to move out of ourselves and enter the sacred precincts of “the other” – taking off the “shoes of our hearts”, aware that we stand on holy ground, and knowing that if we only try wholeheartedly, we will enjoy life in the presence of the Divine Other. This is part of ascesis — doing the hard spiritual work.

How can you and I accomplish this, given our natural instinctive response to enemies in our lives?   Firstly, you and I must heed literallythe words of the Master. They are not poetry or the words of some idealistic preacher from history. They are the words of the Son of God and not heeding them has real and serious consequences. “Love your enemies….” He said.  Not ignore, not pass by, not resent, not hold a grudge, not dismiss – but love. Love the man who makes your misery his policy, who dogs your steps, who sets snares for your feet, who twists your words, who is always pointing out the fly in the ointment, and who is never happier than when he is slowly dropping bitterness into your cup; your enemy: love him. Love him for My sake, says Jesus. Love him “even as I have loved you.”

Secondly, look beyond the surface of the one who hurts you.  Love him also because your enemy is first of all an enemy to himself. The bitterness that he drops into your cup has, first of all, poisoned his own cup.  We need to forget the superficial injury he inflicts on us and think instead of the fatal injury he is inflicting upon himself. In all likelihood. He creates bitterness for us that springs from a deep hurt within himself that is ultimately self-destructive.

Lastly, you and I need to remember an important lesson hidden in the preaching of the Master: love is the only force capable of transforming my enemy into a friend. Returning hate for hate only multiplies hate. Judging another only serves to create more judgment and divisiveness. Love is the only thing that can break the vicious cycle. Love is the boost we need to reach those demanding heights, snatch that glorious fruit, and finally achieve genuine peace in our hearts. Why?  Because we have loved another just as Jesus loved us.

My prayer is that we take Jesus at His word, make a deliberate effort to welcome our enemies and those who have offended us and perhaps has caused a long-standing resentment in our hearts.  I leave you with the words of the Monk Thomas (Merton) of blessed memory. They put into living perspective the reason why we should listen to the Master’s words. Why love our enemies?  The Monk writes of seeing what is not apparent to the human eye:

“Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depth of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in the eyes of the Divine.  If only they could all see themselves as they really are.  If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. I suppose the big problem then would be that, startled by the beauty we see in him whom we have branded our enemy, we would fall down and reverence each other.”

Faithfully in the Lord Who loves us,

Fr. Dimitrios