(Seventh Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on February 22, 1998 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read 1 Samuel 26: 1-25; Luke 6: 27-38.)

"Love Saddam Hussein?"

The task of the preacher is to take the message of the gospel and apply it to the concrete circumstances of today’s world. With that in mind, here’s a contemporary rendition of today’s gospel text from Luke, chapter 6:

Jesus said to his disciples: "To you who hear me, I say: Love Saddam Hussein, do good to Saddam Hussein; bless Saddam Hussein and pray for Saddam Hussein. . . . 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, how can you claim any credit? Sinners do as much. . . .Love Saddam Hussein and do good . . . then will your recompense be great. You will rightly be called sons of the Most High, since he himself is good to the ungrateful and the wicked.

"Lord Jesus, you’ve got to be kidding!" "No,’ Jesus would say, ‘I’m not kidding. I’m quite serious. I’m talking here about your enemies--presuming that you will have people in your life who will identify themselves in that way. Saddam Hussein certainly qualifies. He’s identified himself as an enemy of your nation. I’m speaking here about people who hate you, curse you, and maltreat you. From all external indications, Saddam does the first two and would love to do the third, if he had the chance."

My brothers and sisters, the message of Jesus in this text is a radical, challenging message. Using Saddam Hussein as an example makes that abundantly clear. Now some of us were probably repulsed a moment ago when we heard the command to love, bless and pray for Saddam Hussein. Hearing those words upset us emotionally. And that’s quite understandable, given Saddam’s attitude toward the people of our country. But that reaction should teach us a lesson: it should teach us that we must never base our morality on our emotions--which is a mistake that’s often made in the modern world. People today tend to treat one another according to how they "feel" at a given moment—which is a very unhealthy and dangerous way to live. And if you don’t believe me, then simply watch five minutes of the "Jerry Springer Show" sometime. There you will witness morality rooted in emotion. One minute you’ll see couples holding hands, the next minute you’ll see those very same people hitting each other over the head with chairs!!!

The lesson of this passage from Luke 6—and the lesson of today’s first reading—is that our morality must be based on the truth and not on our emotions. In today’s first reading, David has the chance to kill King Saul—the man who was trying to kill him! Saul had been chasing David all over the Middle East for quite some time, with the sole purpose of destroying him. Why? Because Saul had been disobedient to God and had been rejected as King of Israel. And David was the man the Lord had chosen to replace him. As you might imagine, Saul wasn’t too pleased about that, and so he decided to take matters into his own hands. But twice during the time he was hunting David down, the tables were suddenly turned, and David had the chance to kill his persecutor. Today’s first reading recounts the story of the second incident. Now imagine yourself in David’s shoes for a moment: you’re exhausted; you’re tired of running away from this man who hates you passionately, and who wouldn’t think twice of nailing you to the wall with his spear! (In fact, he’s already tried to do that a few times.) And all of a sudden, there he is—right in front of you, sleeping like a baby! A sitting duck, if there ever was one! Tell me, David, what do you "feel" like doing? I have no doubt whatsoever that David "felt" like killing the man! I’m convinced that he "felt" like taking Abishai’s advice and nailing Saul to the floor—several times! But, to his credit, David’s moral conduct here was not rooted in his emotions, it was rooted in the truth. It was rooted in the truth of who Saul was! You see, David realized that Saul was still "the Lord’s anointed". Even though he had been rejected as king, he was still the man whom God had anointed. So David treated him accordingly—trusting that God would eventually exact justice.

Pope John Paul II, in a talk he gave in 1995, said these words: "This is precisely why modern society has an extreme need for truth, since it is possible to build soundly the edifice of moral and ascetical life only on the basis of truth. Only from truth is born authentic, objective and universal morality."

Which brings us back to the gospel. What is the truth about Saddam Hussein? The truth is: he was created in the image of God. (Like it or not, that’s the truth!) The truth is: he has an immortal soul. The truth is: Jesus Christ died on the Cross for his salvation. And so our actions toward him need to be undertaken with all of this in mind. We must never forget it, and allow our emotions to dictate what we do.

Does this mean that we have to accept the evil that Saddam does? No, it doesn’t. Does this mean that we should let him do whatever he wants to do? No, it doesn’t. Jesus says to us, "Love him." Now what exactly does that mean? This, of course, is the key question. Well, the first point that needs to be made here is that our society, generally speaking, has a warped, distorted, defective view of love. For all too many people, to love means "to be nice"; to love means "to be inclusive"—to say "amen," in other words, to people’s sins; to love means never to say a critical word about anything. My brothers and sisters, let’s be clear about it—that’s not the kind of love that Jesus is talking about in this passage. Simply put, to love someone according to Jesus means "TO HELP THEM GET TO HEAVEN." And so, if I love Saddam Hussein, I’m not going to accept the evil he does and I will do my best to stop him. Why? Because if I allow him to do evil and I accept it, then I won’t be helping him to get to heaven! I’ll be allowing him to endanger his eternal salvation—as well as the lives of other innocent people. It’s like a parent who lets his child do whatever he wants. That’s not real love. A parent who really loves his child is not afraid to say, "No" and "Stop", when the child is doing something wrong.

This is the kind of love that’s rooted in the truth. This the kind of love the world needs more of. Now in some cases, this love might involve legitimate self-defense. The New Catechism has a lot to say about this in the section on the fifth commandment. I encourage you to read it. In paragraph 2265, for example, it says, "Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life, the common good of the family or the state." And so, for example, the most loving thing we could possibly do for a murderer would be to render him incapable of killing again. If we really care--if we really love him with the love of Jesus--then we won’t want him to endanger his eternal salvation by killing anybody else. That means we should keep him behind bars. In a case like that, the most unloving thing we could do would be to let him out of jail so that he could commit more mortal sins.