Radical Love

Saturday of the First Week of Lent
Matthew 5:43-48
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022826.cfm

To be a child of someone is to carry on their genes. You carry on the image of your parents; it’s coded into you. Your nature is connected to your parents and the ones who raised you are responsible for how you were nurtured. To look like parents, people are able to see you are related. People can also see how you relate to the ones who raised you because you may act like them, talk like them, or you may have their mannerisms. When Jesus speaks of us being children of God, I see it in all of these senses. To be a child of God is to emulate God and to carry forth the image of God in how you live your life.

In today’s gospel, Jesus is calling us to love like God loves. It’s easy to love those who love you, but it can be a challenge to love our enemies and those who mean to cause us harm. God’s love is radical. God’s love is like the sun and the rain, it does not discriminate who it is given to. The good, the bad, the just, and the unjust are all included. Our love, like God’s, must go beyond what is normal.

While this is a challenge for us, Jesus is calling us to strive for it. He desires us to participate in love. This love doesn’t mean giving in or not holding on to your principles. This love does not mean we keel over to those who cause or mean us harm. What it does mean is wanting what is best for others, even those who are hard for us to love. We should desire and want their change of heart and their salvation. Jesus’s God is focused on redemption, not on retribution. Jesus’s God is perfect love. And Jesus calls us to follow that God, but doing the same. Jesus wants us to be children of Love.