7th Sunday after Epiphany – Year C
February 23, 2025
Gospel Lectionary Text
Luke 6:27-38
6:27 "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
6:28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
6:29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.
6:30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.
6:31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
6:32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
6:33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
6:34 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.
6:35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
6:36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
6:37 "Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven;
6:38 give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back."
Context
Welcome to the 7th Sunday after Epiphany. In this week’s text, Jesus calls us to love our enemies — the heart of the Gospel. It sounds nice in theory, but it’s rarely popular in practice. And for good reason: there’s no guarantee it will change our enemy, at least not right away. It may even cost our life.
But what if loving enemies isn’t about fixing them, but transforming us? When we choose love, we reclaim the humanity our enemies deny, and in doing so, we leave space for them to rediscover their own.
The tricky part is not turning this into a moral burden laid on the backs of those who already suffer, adding trauma upon trauma. That’s not Jesus’ way. Instead, He reveals something that truly sets us free: the Father’s mercy.
“Mercy” in Hebrew and Aramaic means “womb-space” — the place that gives life. We can’t imitate God’s mercy without first receiving it. In that womb-space, we’re born again, and we become midwives for others being reborn. By imitating the Father’s mercy — even if it costs us dearly — we come face to face with God’s radical love for us.
As we are called into being through mercy, something amazing begins to happen: we discover the capacity to “do to others as we would have them do to us” (v. 31). We find ourselves living out the ethic of mercy that has given us life.
Question
How does seeing mercy as "womb-space" reshape your understanding of it?
Reflections
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
an excerpt from Prophetic Imagination
by Walter Brueggemann
As Brueggemann reminds us, the Gospel invites us, along with the prophets, to...
"get up and utter a sub-version of reality, an alternative version of reality that says another way of life in the world is not only possible but is peculiarly mandated and peculiarly valid. It is a sub-version because we must fly low, stay under the radar, and hope not to be detected too soon, a sub-version because it does indeed intend to sub-vert the dominant version of and to empower a community of sub-versives who are determined to practice their lives according to a different way of imagining.”
Prayer
Our Father who is in heaven, holy is your name. May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
