Unconventional Reciprocity!

Thursday, September 11, 2025

Col 3:12-17; Lk 6:27-38

Today’s Gospel highlights the unconventional reciprocity that Jesus commands of his disciples. 

While reciprocity is quite a relational practice, Jesus acknowledges the importance of it as a commonsense principle. However, he transforms the word to put on an unconventional dimension so that it becomes the Christian yardstick, which he himself applied in his life and death. 

Jesus explains unconventional reciprocity through three sets of three examples each. 

Three Examples of Forbearing Love: While conventional wisdom demands that we reciprocate to sustain a relationship, Christian discipleship requires that we reciprocate a relational gesture even to those who hate, curse, and mistreat us. In his teaching, Jesus holds that his disciples must be practitioners of Christian love, no matter what they receive back. 

Three Examples of Active Non-Resistance: Jesus also instructs that his disciples must practice active non-resistance, which is intended to gain our oppressors in love. Thus, turning the other cheek, giving the coat to the one who takes away the cloak, and giving to everyone while not demanding goods back when they are taken away are suggested as examples to live by. Jesus wishes that practicing these must become second nature to Christians. 

Three Examples of Walking the Extra Mile: Again, Jesus employs three examples to show how Christians must distinguish themselves from the rest. The statements that begin with ‘If you love those…,’ ‘If you do good to those…,’ and ‘If you lend to those….’ require that we have an actionable agenda to practice unconventional gestures of reciprocity because Jesus’ words are not directed at feelings but at actions. 

In sum, Jesus wants us to practice proactive and dynamic discipleship that will be renowned for mastering unconventional reciprocity because we were the recipients of the same from the Lord. 

In this sense, I find Jesus’ instruction echoing Gandhi’s statement, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’

Let us pray that we may be practitioners of unconventional reciprocity, following Jesus’ own example.

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar