For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? The reduction of love to reciprocal affection — loving only those who love back — is not love in the kingdom sense but transaction. Tax collectors were Jews who collected taxes for the Roman occupiers, widely despised as collaborators and extortioners, yet even they love those who love them. The kingdom's love exceeds this transactional baseline precisely by extending to those from whom no return is expected. The reward that is in view is not material but the family resemblance with the Father of verse 45: what you gain by enemy-love is not a benefit from the enemy but a likeness to God.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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