Monday of the 11th Week in Ordinary Time

"Another Way To Measure?"
 
We use that famous line about “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” in our language to signify vengeance and retaliation. Actually in the Law of the Jews it was an attempt to limit retaliation. Instead of gouging out both eyes of enemies, smashing all their teeth, this law was urging restraint and limitation. An eye for an eye, no more! Don’t do worse to your foe than your foe has done to you.
 
The New Moses, Jesus, goes much further: “offer no resistance” to injury. Jesus is attempting to push the Law of Moses further along the path of compassion. The actions of Ahab and Jezebel in today’s reading from the First Book of Kings go further along the path of cruelty and self-seeking. Not only do the two plot to get this piece of property but they also kill the rightful owner to boot.
 
We can read of and witness the same ruthlessness on the part of the powerful throughout human history and among the tyrants of our day. Seeing such callous injustice to others on the part of the powerful and privileged must make ordinary people at times think that it’s just we peasants who practice any self-restraint or forgiveness or kindness.
 
As a famous member of the powerful and privileged of our time has said, “Only the little people pay taxes.” We’ve already been told at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew’s gospel, that the little people, the mourning, the poor, the meek, the hungry – these are the truly blessed!
What is big or little in the eyes of the world is pretty irrelevant when it comes to our relationship to our loving and merciful God. So, let us “measure things” humbly in God’s way and not in the way of the world no matter how flashy, glamorous and super-spectacular the presentation may be!