Robert Barron - Give Expecting Nothing Back
Peace be with you. Friends, our Gospel for today is from the Sermon on the Plain, that’s Luke’s version of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. So we’re getting the essential teaching of Jesus, which means our ears have to perk up. It means we’ve got to really listen attentively. And this section we have in the reading today is extraordinary. It’s saying something not only about our moral lives; it’s saying something very, very profound about God. And so let’s attend to this. But I want to get at it from a different angle, or a somewhat interesting angle, I hope.
In the 20th century, there were a number of philosophers who reflected on what they call the aporia of the gift. Aporia is a fancy Greek way of saying the kind of difficulty or even impossibility of the gift. That it’s really, strictly speaking, impossible to give a true gift. Now you say, «What are they talking about»? Well, let me give you a famous example, drawn, in fact, from sociological studies of primal peoples. There’s an instance of a tribal chieftain, who gives a banquet to his kind of rival tribal chieftain. And the banquet is extraordinary. He goes all out, spends a fortune of money on the food and entertainment and everything else.
Well, the rival chieftain says, «Now, wait a minute, wait a minute. He’s just shown how extraordinarily generous he is. I’m not going to be put in a second position, so I’m going to give him an even bigger banquet». And so he does. Spends more money and more extravagant entertainment. Well, the first tribal chief says, «Now, wait a minute. I’m not going to be put in second place. I’m going to give him an even more stupendous banquet». And on and on it goes until the two chieftains are bankrupt. So, it’s their rivalry in giving gifts that eventually destroyed them. The idea here is: Is it possible to give a gift that’s truly a gift, meaning with no strings attached? Freely given for your benefit, and I’m expecting nothing from it. Or do we find ourselves almost invariably caught in this kind of desperate exchange?
So I give to you, and you don’t accept it simply as a pure gift, you now feel obligated to respond in kind. Think even of something as simple as a thank-you note. So you get a gift and you say, «Hey, what a wonderful gift». Freely given. Well, don’t you feel at least the obligation now to write a thank-you note in return? And let’s be honest, the person that gives the gift, are they happy? Just gave the gift and «You know what? I never got any acknowledgement. I never got a thank-you note. They never said any…» No, most likely the one that gave the gift is kind of resentful if you don’t send a thank-you note back. I’ve had this experience when it’s an anniversary or it’s a big event of some kind in your life, and people give you gifts.
So you get cards with a check in them. And so, okay, I have to write a thank-you note in response to this gift. Well, when there’s a lot of them, let’s say it’s your ordination anniversary or something, there’s a part of me that says, «Oh, please, I hope this is just a card and they didn’t put a check in it, because with the check now I got to sit down and write a thank-you note».
So, I’ve given two examples, the tribal chieftain, which is kind of on a grand scale, and then this much smaller scale. But the same dynamic, see. The aporia of the gift. It just seems impossible to give a true gift, because we’re always in this back and forth of exchange and expectation. I’ll give you one more example, my own experience. Cardinal George had just come to Chicago. And he was attending a hundredth-anniversary Mass for a parish. And he’d just gotten there. Maybe he was six months in the diocese, so he didn’t know the place very well. And he celebrated the Mass. And at the end, he thanked a number of individuals and groups who’ve contributed to the life of the parish. Beautiful. He thanked a whole slew of them. But he forgot one or two, or overlooked one or two.
Well, I remember going to the celebration afterwards and there were people, they were livid. They were livid that the cardinal hadn’t thanked them. And I thought, «What if you saw your contribution to the parish as just a pure gift and that you weren’t expecting something in return for it»? This is the aporia, or the difficulty, even impossibility, of the gift. Okay. Any way out of this? The answer is yes. Because there’s one great exception to this tendency, to this dynamic, and that is the way God gives. So, think of the gifts of God. It’s a basic theme in the Bible. God gives existence to the world. God’s the creator of the world. God gives the gift of his Law and Covenant to his people. God gives the gift of his only-begotten Son. God’s giving gifts all the time.
In fact, the Holy Spirit is called the Donum Dei, the Gift of God. But now watch. What’s God looking for out of this? What’s God trying to gain from all this? We give gifts all the time expecting something in return, but God is God, utterly perfect in every possible way. God needs nothing. Nothing. He’s seeking no advantage from what he gives. Therefore, God alone, it seems, can truly give a gift. Okay? Now, let’s take another step. Who is the Christian supposed to be? Well, a nice, morally upright person. Yeah, okay. Person with a heart of gold, as Flannery O’Connor said. Well, yeah, okay, it’s a bare minimum. But see, it’s a much more radical game, Christianity.
Paul says, «It’s no longer I who live. It’s Christ who lives in me». The Church Fathers said over and over again, «Deus fit homo ut homo fieret Deus». That means, God became human that we humans might become God, meaning, sharers in the divine nature. Ah, now we’re onto it. The Christian is meant so to take Christ into his or her life, that he or she now can act in the very manner of Christ, not just imitating him as a moral exemplar from long ago but Christ living in us, enabling us now to live as he lives. Remember, in Matthew’s version of the sermon, «Be ye perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect».
See, if Christ is living in us, extraordinary thing to think about, everybody, we can now act in the very manner of God. Giving purely, freely, and without expecting return. Giving with no strings attached, giving not expecting some advantage from our giving but truly loving. Remember, I’ve said many times, Thomas Aquinas says, «To love is to will the good of the other». You see, it’s to escape from this desperate exchange. I’m not doing something that I might get something from you, I’m loving you, I want what’s for your good.
All right. All of that is an introduction to reading this great text. And please, get out your Bibles at some point, Luke chapter six, and find this text. With all this in mind now, listen to the words of Jesus. «Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you». In other words, give your love to those from whom you’re expecting no return. Those who hate you, people hate you, they’re not going to give you something back. Those who curse you, so they’re not going to bless you in return, bless them anyway. Pray, for whom? Those who mistreat you, they don’t like you. They’re not going to pray for you. Pray for them anyway. Listen now as he goes on. «Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours, do not demand it back».
It’s a revolution, see, in this language, everybody. Give anyone who asks of you. It’s not a game of like, «Well, let’s see now. Who will I give to? Well, this guy, I can get something out of him. Or if I’m nice to, I might…» No, no. Give to anyone who asks, the good and the bad. Those who might respond and those who are unlikely to respond. What’s happening here is we’re moving into an entirely new spiritual space. And then, how about this? With everything I’ve said in mind, Jesus now is saying, «For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same».
You see what he’s doing here? By talking about sinners, he’s moving us into that space I’ve been describing, the space that most of us live in most of the time. One hand washes the other. I give that you might give back, tit for tat, give and take. That world of exchange and expectation and so on. No, no, break out of that, because you’re meant to love the way God loves. Sinners love those who love them. Don’t you want to be more than a sinner? Yeah, you are a new person.
Listen, you’re not just a slightly improved version of the old natural person. You’re somebody new. You’ve been supernaturalized through incorporation into Christ. So you’re not living just in a sinful way. No, no, in a different way. Again, what I love here is I think the Lord knows we’ve got to be knocked out of this old consciousness, because he keeps coming back to it. «If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount».
Exactly, exactly. You’re caught in that old natural pattern. No, no. How should you love? Like the Lord God, who makes his sun to shine on the good and the bad alike. He makes his refreshing rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. He’s not playing a game of calculation, not playing a game of this for that, tit for tat, I give and you give me back. No, no, no, no. He’s like the sun. It shines on Mother Teresa and it shines on the worst sinner. Okay. That’s how we should love.
And so listen to the summary statement. And I’ve always said this, both in Matthew and Luke, it’s the rhetorical high point of the sermon. «Rather, love your enemies, do good to them, lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be», listen, «children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked». All those listening to me right now who are baptized, this Christ is alive in you. I mean, whether you’re aware of it or not, whether you’ve tapped into that reality consciously or not, it’s true. Christ is living in you. You are equipped, therefore, to love in this divine manner. That’s living in a new world. That’s living as an entirely new person. And God bless you.