Measure for Measure. That is the title of a play by William Shakespeare, a work which dramatizes evil done by men out of lust and greed, sins which are concealed by lying and cheating but which are finally overcome by love and sacrifice. Shakespeare’s title, Measure for Measure, is also a reference to the closing words of today’s Gospel, taken from the Sermon on the Plain as recorded by Saint Luke.
The phrase ‘measure for measure’ does not mean merely that the punishment for wrongdoing should be proportionate to the wrong done; it means, rather, that the good deeds which overcome evil, especially mercy and love, will not only be matched by the unbounded generosity of the mercy and love of God but they will also be magnified by the superabundance of divine grace.
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:37-38) Measure for measure.
In Matthew’s Gospel, the Sermon on the Mount takes up all of chapters five, six, and seven, and there is general agreement that Matthew took the words of Jesus from different times and places and put them together for narrative reasons into a single discourse. Saint Luke’s account of the Sermon on the Plain, which also combines various teachings of Jesus into a single oration, is contained only in chapter six of his Gospel, and so Luke’s version is much shorter than Matthew’s.
But common to both texts are the Golden Rule and the list of blessings that come from a life rightly ordered towards both God and other people, and at the center of a rightly ordered life is the love of one’s enemies, the refusal to engage in rash judgment of others, and the readiness to forgive others when they injure us.
Last week we heard Luke’s account of the beatitudes, and today the Lord Jesus teaches us how to respond when injury and injustice are inflicted on us by others. This teaching of Christ was a revolution in human affairs, and for the disciples of Jesus these words fundamentally changed the way conflict is understood and managed. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” (Luke 6:27-28)
The Savior, of course, would do these things himself when the hour of his suffering and death arrived, and in his Resurrection Jesus revealed that love is stronger than death and that mercy always triumphs over vengeance and hatred.
But while the teaching of Jesus is beautiful and inspiring, it can still be extremely difficult to feel the power of love when we are confronted with suffering caused by the malice of others, especially when that suffering is not our own but that of someone we love. And it is precisely when we are in the crucible of suffering that we must attend with particular care to Christ’s words: “as you wish that others would do to you, so do to them.” (Luke 6:31)
But even as we strive to surrender our hearts and minds to the liberating power of mercy and love, we must also take care not to misunderstand what Christ is teaching here. Injustice is objectively real, and injustice does not magically become justice simply because it is forgiven.
So, when injustice can be prevented or overturned, it should be, even by Christians who forgive injustice. And we have a solemn duty to overturn injustice because loving God and our neighbor always require us to speak the truth in love and then do everything we can to see that each person receives that which he is due because that is the very definition of justice.
This is why even Christians must use right reason to distinguish actions that are in keeping with human dignity from those which are not. This is why even Christians must have laws to preserve the common good and must have police forces with jails to protect those who abide by the law from those who do not. And this is why even Christians must support every nation’s right to self-defense and the maintenance of the armed force needed to vindicate that natural right against those who would infringe upon it with violence.
Love of one’s enemies is a revolution in human affairs not because it nullifies the difference between right and wrong but because it overcomes the cruel logic of hatred with the transforming power of mercy, measure for measure. But even on the Last Day when love triumphs and all resistance to the Kingdom of God ends, that which is wrong will still remain wrong.
And that is why ‘judge not’ and ‘condemn not’ do not mean that we must cease calling injustice and immorality by their proper names. The Lord Jesus is not asking his disciples to cease speaking the truth in the face of wickedness. No, ‘judge not’ and ‘condemn not’ mean only that we since cannot know the depths of the human heart, we cannot know the interior disposition of persons even as we must measure their words and deeds against the objective standards of truth and justice.
Moreover, we must always be ready to forgive others when they do act or speak unjustly so that we will also be forgiven for our transgressions, measure for measure. And what is the measure of the mercy for which we hope? The Savior tells us: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:26)
Mercy of just that kind is on display today in the first lesson. David was on the run for his life because King Saul had formed an unjust and jealous hatred for his young protege, despite David’s constant devotion and loyalty to Saul.
According to the common understanding of morality, David would have been justified in taking the life of his enemy in self-defense against unprovoked and deadly injustice, but David would not do so and wanted Saul to know this. So in stealth David took the king’s spear from his camp as evidence of his power over Saul’s life, a power which he would not wield. In this way, David revealed mercy to his enemy and so made peace in place of hatred.
King David would later rejoice in the divine gift of mercy in the psalm we sang today: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all my being bless his holy name. He pardons all your iniquities, heals all your ills. He redeems your life from destruction, crowns you with kindness and compassion.
“Merciful and gracious is the Lord. Not according to our sins does he deal with us, nor does he requite us according to our crimes. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.”
And so, friends, we rejoice that from the tender mercies of God, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be poured into our laps, even as we know that the only way for us to be merciful in the same measure as our heavenly Father is by our union of Word, Sacrament, and service with him who is divine mercy incarnate.
That union of faith, hope, and love is forged in us by divine grace with the living and infinite measure of the Father’s eternal love made man: the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the text of my homily for 23 February 2025, the 7th Sunday of the Year.
Fr Jay Scott Newman