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In today’s Gospel we see how Jesus is aware of the many ways in which we all go around believing ourselves free, and in charge of life, when, in fact, we are very often trapped. We can think that earning more money will free us – that our buying power and future choices will be increased. We believe that this is where happiness lies. And, whilst ambition and earning a good living may not, in themselves, be bad things for us, they can become our “masters.” What Jesus warns is that, when this happens – when all our energies and time are given over to these masters – we are drawn away from serving God. To commit ourselves to living under God’s mastery is actually to live our lives in a radical trust, and so come to know a greater happiness and freedom. The call that Jesus makes to us today – not to worry – is a call, above else, to a relationship of trusting love in His Father and ours. God desires that we should be free from anxieties, so that we can be free for joy, love, service – and rest!

We all have things we have to do each day, to earn a living, to care for others in our families; and, in truth, we all, at some time or another, have properly worrying things in our lives. God, who knows “the secret intentions of our hearts,” knows the realities of our lives. As we live in this world, which is so often dominated by material ambition and anxiety, Jesus reaches out to us with a promise of freedom, peace, and the time, space and energy to get to know Him better, and to love and care for one another more. This is a call we can respond to, even in the real business and pressures of our daily lives. We can each ask, at the start of our day: Is there one thing I feel I must do today, which actually I could let go, without it mattering? Perhaps if we placed that time and energy we would have used, trustingly and peacefully, in the Father’s love, we might each find that we became a little freer for whatever it is God is wanting us to do. And this will make us freer, happier and better stewards of Christ’s mysteries.

Jesus was aware of the way the Jews demonized their enemies, such as the Samaritans. He knew that in the Jewish scriptures there were passages that talked of hatred of enemies but He also knew there was another tradition which forbade such hatred. Our first reading, from Leviticus, insists that we are not to seek vengeance and bear grudges in our heart. When Jesus teaches the values of the kingdom of God in the Sermon on the Mount, He builds on that tradition. He tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. But why should we do something that seems so contrary to the way of the world? Because that is what God does. The God of creation shows grace to all His creatures, whether they are sinners or saints; God causes the rain to fall on honest and dishonest people alike. Jesus wants us to be holy as God is holy. And so we are to love our enemy. This is how Jesus put His words into action, by reaching out to sinners and those who were despised, to both rich and poor, and in the end forgiving those who were killing Him. Loving enemies is not easy and it ended with Him nailed to the cross.

At the heart of our faith is the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount; and yet we may be tempted to ignore it because it seems so radical and difficult. But our vocation is to imitate Jesus and His teaching, just as Stephen did when he forgave his enemies as he died as the first martyr. In a world that is so full of hatred and vengeance, both at the individual and national level, can we follow the teaching of the Gospel? Jesus tells us to be perfect just as our heavenly Father is perfect. What does this mean for us today? We cannot be morally perfect in this world, but we can respond to Jesus with an undivided heart and faithful devotion. When we try to turn the other cheek and love our enemies we bear witness to the graciousness of a heavenly Father who wants us to embody the amazing love of His Son in our lives.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus critices those whose “virtue goes no deeper that that of the scribes and Pharisees,” that is, whose whose faith is only skin-deep. The word “virtue” here has overtones of “justice” and “righteousness” – it refers to something you do, not simply something you believe. So Jesus gives examples of what it means to have virtue, that is, how to put faith into action. When it comes to adultery, Jesus criticizes the inner ugliness that allows us to treat others as objects which we can discard when we have finished with them. Divorce was solely a male prerogative. A man could divorce his wife for trivial reasons and so remarry – leaving the divorced woman ashamed and destitute. Jesus goes to the inner meaning of the commandment against adultery: it is never right to objectify another person, to treat people as a means to an end. And in His teaching about others, Jesus goes beyond the debate about what binds or compels us to tell the truth to say that it is our whole lives, not just our words, that need to be truthful.

In our daily lives, our faith – our virtue, justice and righteousness – is to be more than skin-deep, it is to go to the very core of our being. Faith that is authentic is faith that is lived out. And just as it is possible to increase our attractiveness by improving our social skills, so we can learn to be more virtous, just and righteous, as the first reading tells us: “If you wish, you can keep the commandments.” To think that we have only to tick the boxes of God’s commandments – avoid killing, adultery, lying, and come to Mass on Sundays – is to treat our faith in a superficial way. Christ challenges us to live life at a deeper and more authentic level. To “get into the kingdom of heaven” means allowing an inner beauty to shine through – by our willingness to forgive and to reconcile; by our commitment to justice in our dealings with others, respecting the dignity of every person we meet; and by living lives of integrity, in which we try to express outwardly – in acts of forgiveness, compassion and honesty -the faith we hold. If our faith is truly rooted in God – the God of mercy, love and truth it is God’s beauty that will shine through our lives.