A Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Exodus 22:20-26 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10 Matthew 22:34-40
God has promised you so much! If you made a list of all the pledges found in sacred Scripture, it would be long. But here is one you will not find: God has your back.
We all know what the phrase means, that in some difficult or dangerous situation, the one making the promise takes your side and will be right behind you, saving you from ambush. But nowhere in sacred Scripture does God promise to have your back.
Do not get me wrong. God is certainly the sort of fellow who would defend you, come what may, and that promise is indeed found in sacred Scripture. But the promise of having someone’s back means that you already know what side the one making the promise is taking: yours. And you already know the common foe: them.
Most of us, even if our faith in God is rather weak, nonetheless presume that, come conflict or trouble, God is on our side. Or, to use another common phrase, that ours is “the side of the angels.”
Nowhere in sacred Scripture does God promise to have your back.
But why? Why do we presume that we are in the right? The converse of that assumption is that the other, the one on the opposite side, is in the wrong. Is that always the case? Have you never later discovered that you were wrong? At least to some extent? If not, you are either an extraordinary person or you cannot recognize your shortcomings.
And God does not promise to have your back even when you cannot possibly be wrong. Why not? Because you have misconstrued, missed God’s location in the strife. God is not behind you; God is standing in front of you, asking you to engage and respect the other person.
God does not enter your struggles by promising to take your side over that of another. God promises to care for you, to protect you, and to love you, right or wrong. But God has made the same promise to the person who stands opposite of you. So if you are going to presume that God has your back in every adverse relationship of your life, then you had better also accept that God also has the back of everyone with whom you struggle.
God does not enter your struggles by promising to take your side over that of another.
What is true of individuals is true of groups, even nations. How offensive to God, to suggest that another group of people, even those we would correctly judge to be wrong, to be real perpetrators of evil, are inhuman monsters.
We should never call anyone a monster, whatever the evil that he or she might have perpetrated. A monster does not come forth from divine providence. It is an abortion, an aberration. So, to call someone a monster is to deprive them of their humanity, to deny their origin in God.
We owe nothing to monsters. We have every right to destroy them, and that is why people, even the worst of humans, are never monsters. God gave them life. God cares for them. We may indeed need to oppose their actions and their attitudes—and with all our might! But make another a monster, deny another their rights and dignity, and you deny the very God who created him or her.
God does not have your back. God stands behind the good and the wicked. God created all of us. God loves all of us. God cares for all of us. And however challenging you may find the command, God calls you to love and to care for your enemies.
