I'm sitting watching a rainy morning in Amagansett, NY (out on Long Island-- if you get to Montauk you've gone too far) and reflecting on the Gospel readings from yesterday and today.  They are from Luke's Gospel (6: 20- 38) and are a portion of the "Sermon on the Plain," Luke's somewhat-shorter version of what we know in Matthew's Gospel as the "Sermon on the Mount."
          The call from Jesus, of course, is to be better than the "sinners," who lend expecting to get payment back, and who are kind to their friends, but not their ennemies.  Jesus talks of not judging, of not condemning, and of forgiving.  
          We might reflect on the question of to whom Jesus is speaking.  We always leap to the conclusion that Jesus is talking to us, and that is true to an extent, of course.  
          But if we look carefully, we see that Jesus is speaking particularly to a smaller group. The context of these instructions is that Jesus has a crowd around Him, and has healed a great many people.  He has spent the night in prayer and then has seleted the 12 Apostles.  
           While He could have addressed the entire crowd when He gives these instructions , he doesn't do that.  He turns specifically and directly, and in a sense exclusively, to His "disciples" (the 12 He has selected).  He is calling them in particular to a higher holiness, a profound interior change.
         Why just them?
          Perhaps it is because these people are going to be the leaders, the ones to set the standard, the most-specific presence of Jesus after He returns to heaven, the teachers.  By extension the people to whom Jesus is specifically speaking in this call to higher holiness are the clergy of today-- deacons, priests and especially bishops.
          Sometimes it seems like thngs are just backwards these days, that the judging and condemning, and the lack of forgiveness, comes from those who are most specifically and directly called to behave in the opposite way.  
           We might consider holding those in leadership in the Church to the standard Jesus has set for them.  That means less judging and condemning, and more forgiving.  It means loving ennemies, not shunning them.  It means giving to those who ask, and always being merciful.  It means giving up the privileges of power and authority (doing what Archbishop Etienne just did in Seattle when he announced that he was going to sell the Archbishop's luxurious residence, use the money for the needs of the Church, and live simply).
           And if the shepherds of the Church behaved that way, don't you think the members of the flock would follow?  Wouldn't solve all of the Church's problems, but sure would be a good start.