Tuesday in the 11th Week of Ordinary Time (II)
Reversing the Irreversible

Readings: 1 Kings 21:17-29; Psalms 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 11 and 16; Matthew 5:43-48
Pictures: CC cirofono

There is an obvious difficulty with the metaphor that we used yesterday. At least at the present time, Alzheimer’s disease is incurable. We can only treat the symptoms and slow the disease’s inexorable course. Reversing it is still beyond our grasp. And it is tempting to feel the same way about ourselves too, isn’t it? When we look at the situation in the world around us – the wars and conflicts, the huge disparities in wealth and resources, the environmental degradation – it’s enough to make us throw up our hands in despair. The same might be said for our own personal lives. Confessing the same sins again and again without any apparent improvement, praying for wayward family members who never seem to come even close to repentance, struggling without success to forgive someone who has hurt us deeply: these are all experiences that can lead us to discouragement and disillusionment. Perhaps, like Alzheimer’s, our situation is truly irreversible.

Which is why it is important to let our readings today caress our tired hearts like a breath of fresh air. For what we find here is precisely the reversal of the irreversible. In the first reading, the greedy, cruel and sadistic king Ahab repents in sackcloth and ashes. And in the gospel, Jesus invites us to consider the possibility that weak and fallen creatures like us can actually arrive at the perfection of God. But we must not be too quick to consider what we have to do to achieve such an incredible feat. The readings are more concerned with highlighting what God does. And it is God’s actions that we need first to contemplate.

God’s first move is to warn. Through the prophet, God paints for the king a fearsome portrait of the terrible consequences of his sin. Not just the king, but also his family members, will suffer the unthinkable curse of having their corpses defiled by wild animals. And the warning actually takes effect. Ahab repents. A possible interpretation of how this comes about is to think that the king is cowed into repentance by the horrific punishments with which God threatens him. That may indeed be so.

But Jesus’ words in the gospel invite us to consider another possible perspective, one with which good parents of naughty children will probably be able to identify. God's warning springs not so much from a desire to inflict punishment as it does out of compassion. This is the same thing that the psalmist asks God for: in your compassion blot out my offences. And this is also what Jesus invites his disciples to imitate. The Father’s compassion is such that he makes the sun to rise and the rain to fall on good and bad alike. In addition to issuing fearsome warnings, God seeks to reverse the irreversible by loving unconditionally, with heartfelt compassion.

There is, however, a limitation to the metaphors that Jesus uses in the gospel. Neither the sun nor the rain has a capacity to feel pain. And isn’t pain precisely the reason why we find it so difficult to show compassion? We shy away from difficult and abrasive people because we don’t want to be hurt. And it is precisely here that we find probably the most moving and inspiring example that God offers us. In seeking to reverse the irreversible, God willingly undergoes the painful humiliation of suffering and death. As we are reminded in the letter to the Hebrews: Son though he was, Christ learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him (Hb 5:8-9(NAB)).

Christ was made perfect through suffering. And it is in contemplating his suffering, in receiving his compassion, in heeding his warning, that we receive the power to reverse the irreversible, and to be made perfect as he was.

How does the Lord wish to bless us with this power today?