Happy Father’s Day.  Happy All Saints of Rus’-Ukraine.  Happy First Day of Summer (although the weather may give us new evidence in support of the Old Calendar – at least here in New England).

Continue the theme from last week: charity.  I tried to explain that charity demands that we refrain from anger when someone’s actions have offended us or caused us harm.  That rather than assuming that someone meant to offend us, we should offer them charity and look for the good within them.  I pointed out that this would not be easy, but that if we only offer this kind of charity when it was easy, then we are only being part-time Christians because we are only being good when circumstances make it easy.

Today I want to develop this theme a little, and respond to a common criticism of this approach: that it is naïve and simply enables bad behavior.  If it is naïve, then it is naïve in the same sense that it is “cowardice” to respond to anger with love.  As Christians, we shouldn’t care what fallen men consider to be appropriate, because fallen men did not create the world.  If they had, then hate would be justified and the law of revenge would have some legitimacy.  But God made the world, and He made it so that the Law of Love would reign supreme.  And we can pretend that it runs better based on spite and stubbornness, but listen to what St. Paul says about this in his Epistle to the Romans (this part, 2: 1-8, comes right before today’s reading);

1. You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.
   

It may be inevitable that as we get to know people better, that they will disappoint us; that their faults will become obvious to us; that their actions will cause us harm.  But this only increases our obligation to love them and to sacrifice our own comfort for their perfection. 

God knows you down to the last hair on your head.  He knows your sins better than you yourself do; he knows your sins and the damage they do to you and those around you.  But rather than give you the condemnation that you really do deserve, He does something unexpected; something that the fallen world cannot comprehend: though having Himself done nothing wrong, He suffers and dies on the Cross so that the spark of good within you might become a powerful flame; so that the image of God within you and not your faults would become your defining feature.  As Christians we bear His name and we wear His cross.   We must also share his sacrifice and His love.  Far from enabling evil, this kind of charity changes lives.