In today’s gospel, Jesus’ words today are challenging. But more that a list of dos and don’ts, this is an invitation to enter a countercultural way of living: a lifestyle that meets antagonism with mercy, scarcity with generosity, and selfishness with abundant love. It is not a call to passivity or silence, to complicity in injustice, or to acceptance of the way things are in order to avoid conflict. Instead, it is a call to let God’s merciful justice and compassionate grace define our stories, our relationships, and our very existence so that we might be agents of change. It it a call to experience the freedom that only Christ can give. It is a call to join God as co-creators of a new kingdom where Christ reigns, all in all.