The two readings for this day present an interesting contrast. In the Old Testament lesson we find that a group of people follow orders despite the harm which resulted. Naboth’s fellow citizens—the elders and nobles who dwelt in his city— did as Jezebel had ordered them in writing and killed him. In a reflection on how the German people cooperated with the horrors of Nazism, Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil.” If it’s somethng everyone else is doing we tend normalize it and just go along. In the Gospel, by contrast, Jesus instructs us to take personal responsibility for reducing harm. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. We are to break the cycle of violence by not becoming part of the violence. Of course, we live in a violent world and ending violence is a monumental task that seems beyond us. But Jesus asks of us to do what we can as individuals to reduce the violence that impacts me in the hope that it will ripple out into the larger world.
JUNE172024
By Church Staff
