A certain monk was praying under a tree beside a river. As he prayed the tide was coming and the river was rising. Then he noticed a scorpion at the foot of the tree struggling for dear life as the surging waves tried to drown him. The monk stretched out his hand to pull the scorpion to safety but each time his hand came near the scorpion tried to sting him. A passerby saw what was going on and said to the monk: "What are you doing? Don't you know that it is in the nature of a scorpion to sting?" "Yes," replied the monk, "And it is in my nature to save. Must I change my nature because the scorpion refuses to change his?" Today's gospel urges Christians to remain true to their nature to love even when the people around them remain adamant in their nature to hate.

Today's gospel continues the Great Sermon of Jesus from where we left off last Sunday. After speaking about the persecution and violence that will be visited on the disciples, as was done to the prophets of old, Jesus now speaks to the disciples about how they are to respond to the hostility. He begins: "But I say to you that listen..." (Luke 6:27). What follows is not a general code of conduct for all and sundry but a standard of behaviour for those who follow Jesus and listen to his teachings. If Christianity is a superior religion, the way to show it is not by endless arguments and debates about the true religion but by the superior moral conduct of Christians.

But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who asks you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. (6:27-30)

What does Jesus mean by "love your enemies?" Does he mean we should have enemies and then, in some mysterious manner, love them at the same time? Or does he mean we should not have enemies at all? Taking into consideration that Jesus is speaking about the disciples and their persecutors, we see that "enemies" here means those who hate the disciples, not those whom the disciples hate. Disciples are to hate no one. If by enemies we mean those we hate, then Christians should have no enemies. But if by enemies we mean those who hate us, then we cannot help having enemies. We cannot control how others treat us, we can only control how we treat them.

The disciples lived in a society that hated them and treated them with hostility. What Jesus is asking them in today's gospel is that they should not return hatred for hatred or hostility for hostility. This is an attitude that the church in all its 2000 years of existence has hardly understood. It took godly men like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr to reawaken Christians to the importance of non-violence as the norm of the Christian response to persecution, oppression, abuse and injustice. Jesus remains the greatest teacher and example of non-violence, for even as they were leading him out to a shameful, public execution on the cross, he was still able to say, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).

We can more easily forgive and offer non-violence to our enemies – those who hate us, not those we hate – by reminding ourselves that they are living and acting in ignorance and that one day the truth will overtake them. Non-violence is not limited to social movements; it is required also in family and interpersonal relationships where we can become victims of verbal and physical violence. While we should do all we can to put an end to an abusive situation, the gospel reminds us today that, in the words of Gandhi and King, an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. If there is in our lives a scorpion of hate that delights in stinging us, let us, like the monk, remain faithful to our commitment to love.