Even Tougher Teachings
Luke 6:27-38
Rev. Dr. Mary Alice Mulligan
Next time you are wondering what to read, pick up the Gospel of Luke. You frequently hear that Luke is our Gospel focus for this liturgical year. The first chapters will be familiar lessons you hear every December. Pregnant Mary amazed that through her pregnancy, God is scattering the proud, bringing down the powerful and lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry. But then you’ll read, “In the days of Caesar Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria, everyone was required to go to their hometown to be registered, so Joseph and Mary, his pregnant betrothed, went to Bethlehem…” These familiar passages should warm your hearts. Did you notice, Luke sprinkles real life details throughout his writing? Augustus Caesar and Quirinius, like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Such details help you realize he is reporting real events which happened in real life. God was at work in those actual happenings. Luke isn’t writing Aesop’s fables; he is reporting God’s actions in our world, so we can see Jesus was a real person, walking around, getting dusty, sharing bread, and teaching God’s vision for this reality.
Last Sunday, we heard some tough teachings from Jesus. First, we heard Luke’s version of Jesus’ Beatitudes (blessings), but then we had to sit through Jesus’ teaching the woes, which caught most of us in the “woe net.” Painfully we even learned many of us are in the global 1% of wealth, which means Jesus has a special warning for us, the rich. For most of us, those were tough teachings. Today, we continue listening to the Sermon on the Plain, where the teachings get even tougher. One of the commentators said, “No one comes to church on Sunday already thinking, ‘I would really like a challenge today; perhaps I will be asked to love my enemy.’”[1] Too bad. From the 6th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, listen for the word of God.
“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 begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
We don’t want the tough lessons. Jesus’ difficult teachings are not very attractive. Who wants life to be harder? We like the more nebulous teachings when Jesus says something like, we should be compassionate or feed the hungry. People hear these directions as guidance for occasions when faced with others in need. Hand a dollar to someone with a sign at a stoplight or put $50 in the plate during the month the over and above mission is All Faiths Food Bank. But love your enemies? Lend money to anyone, expecting nothing in return? Suddenly following Jesus seems much more difficult, maybe even a little crazy.
If our pool cage still has damage from Milton, and getting on anyone’s repair schedule has been near impossible, when our neighbor tells us he is hiring a guy to fix his, we talk to him too. He can do the two cages beginning next week, so we give him the standard 50% to start, and then we never see him again. And we are supposed to just let that go? As if we loaned him the money knowing we would never get it back? (even if Jesus still allows us to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, are we supposed to be content knowing we would never get any money back?)
A minister said he appreciated the invitation to think through who his enemies actually are. Then he can focus on those specific people as ones he needs to pray for; ones he needs to work on himself – to see them as beloved children of God, to admit he doesn’t want to love them, but to know Jesus expects him to anyway. In case we have trouble believing Jesus really means what he says, he says it twice. At the beginning of the passage – I say to you who listen (as if he knows there are some who will not pay much attention) but to you who do listen, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” And then after more tough directions and comparisons between what he expects from his followers and what regular people do, he says once again, “But love your enemies…” Apparently Jesus is not kidding. We are supposed to pay attention to these very difficult teachings, which we do not want to follow.
But we try anyway. There’s a key. If Jesus tells us to behave in a certain way, we feel we should try to obey him. So we put some effort into praying for those who disgust us, or who hurt us, or stole from us. We don’t want to behave in the same way they did. We can try to imagine the childhood of the one who abuses others. How easy it is to picture an adult hurting them, breaking their spirit, resulting in their growing into an angry adult ready to strike out at anyone they choose to. Or to imagine those who selfishly acquire as much as they personally can: designer clothes, fanciest car, biggest house. Isn’t it easy to see their parents’ ignoring them as children, even as the child does everything they can to get the parents’ attention, the parents’ love? When we see the forces at work which hurt a person’s development, we may still detest their behavior, but it becomes easier to pray for those broken children, especially when we see we are all broken. Every one of us is cruel at times; selfish, mean-spirited. But since God decided to love and forgive us, we appropriately put energy into praying for others, trying to forgive whatever they did to us, and even loving them.
Martin Luther King Jr. very helpfully made a distinction between loving someone with God’s love and liking them. Jesus never said we had to like them, which King says would be impossible when they are bombing your house and threatening to hurt your children. But Jesus says we have to love them, so we put our willpower into doing as Jesus says. When people in power seem happy to hurt the powerless, take what legal protections the least have, and threaten provisions we have, we cannot like them. But we can try to realize the person is precious to God no matter what they are doing, which actually may be a start to being able to love them. Of course it goes against our better judgement to love the unlovable, but nevertheless, there we are. We are called to behave imprudently; forgiving those who hurt us, giving when we know we will never be repaid, loving when the person is repulsive. Jesus calls us to a higher standard, so we put our energy into doing as he asks.
Then we find ourselves changing. There is the amazing gift from God. God works within us, shaping us into what we might call people of the Realm. Think of it. We already know people can be shaped by hate. Some people just look hateful, don’t they. The chip on their shoulder is so big they almost tilt when they walk. Their face and their whole posture look ready to pounce at any moment. Hate has been at work in shaping who they are for too long.
Well, God’s love is stronger than hate, so shaping can happen with love, too. As we are loved by God and God’s people; as we try to love those who are almost impossible to love, our efforts at love affect us. We are called to allow God’s love to shape us. Let God’s Holy Spirit get inside and go to work. We do that by working to love those unlovable folks, opening ourselves to God’s transforming love. And what happens as a result? When we respond to hate, injustice, and repulsive power-grabbing, with divinely empowered love, we are transformed. God enables us to love, to forgive, to give without expecting anything in return. But not only are we changed. Our loving reactions are acts of resistance in the world. Hear this. As we act from God’s love, the love of God drips off us, out into the world, spreading the goodness of God’s vision of the world the way it is supposed to be. Our behavior is resistance because it slathers the power of God’s Realm around us. Just imagine the good resulting from such behavior. God’s love changes the believer and then through believers leaks out into the world, splashing over everyone. God’s love changes the world. Love wins, we might say.
But wait. There’s more. An empowering truth is also that when we love the unlovable; when we are merciful to the unforgivable; when God’s love leaks out; not only are we changed, and God’s love goes splashing around on others. Another amazing thing can happen. In our resistance to evil, an unlovable person can be changed. Our yes to God’s love says no to hatred and oppression; no to cheating, lying, selfish acquisitiveness, and spirit-crushing meanness. God’s love can change anyone into a generous, merciful, love-slathering witness to love.
[1] Vaugn Crowe-Tipton, “Homiletic Perspective,” Luke 6:27-38, Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 1, (WJK, 2009), 381.