Jesus said to his disciples:
“You have heard that it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father,
for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?
Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only,
what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

After reading that, I watched the video reflection on the U.S. Catholic Bishops site. I almost skipped it when I saw that today’s commenter was Deacon Arthur L. Miller from Hartford. I love the guy and also gain value from his insights, but they tend to be about twice as long as those from others. I listened anyway, and once again gained value.

That happened when he shared a thought that was the same thing I had wondered about when I had read the passage. As you may have noticed, Jesus frequently used this rhetorical device in which he would cite Scripture (Old Testament Scripture, from our perspective) and then add a new insight into its meaning. (He had done it earlier in this same sermon, with such concepts as “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”)

Deacon Miller was thinking the same thing when he read, “You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” As he said:

You know what dawned on me? … I looked up where was it that Scripture said — you know, in the Hebrew text, in the Old Testament — where did it say that we are to hate our enemies? Well, it doesn’t say that.

Then he realized that what Jesus was saying there was, “you have heard it said.” In other words, “something that was often used by the people of that time…”

Well, that certainly sounded familiar. But it didn’t make me think of “the people of that time.” It made me think about a certain person in our own time who uses a similar phrase to justify the things that he chooses to believe. This was first widely noted early in the 2016 campaign:

‘A lot of people are saying . . . ’: How Trump spreads conspiracies and innuendoes

In case, like that certain person, you prefer video to the written word, you can look at this NBC clip from 2018.

I suppose the folks I’m obviously addressing here are those who say they are Christians, and yet have voted for that certain person on multiple times. Basically, a guy who justifies himself by saying that a lot is a guy who follows the precise opposite of Christian teaching, which is that we are to “love one another as I have loved you.” And not just your friends, but also “those who persecute you.”

That is the Christian message boiled down to as few words as possible. The rest is elaboration on the idea that we are to love God, and love each other as ourselves.

So I’m harrumphing at the MAGA people, there’s no denying it. But I’d be pretty thick if I didn’t see that the rest of us are enjoined to love the MAGA people, too.

That’s the tricky part, you see. Simple concept, difficult to carry out. I expect to be working on that for the rest of my life. I am obliged to do so, to put it mildly…