Jesus Preaches (part 2)

Sermon by: Rev. Mary ALice Muligan, Ph.D.

Scriptures: Psalm 37:1-11, Luke 6:27-38

You don’t need me to tell you the world is not the way it is supposed to be. Some new atrocity seems to sprout up every day. Fresh lies get passed off as reality. And cruelty seems to be more and more acceptable as a way to get what one wants in life. How are you supposed to live in a world where so much evil is thriving? How are Christians supposed to stand it?

We who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ readily acknowledge the presence of evil in the world, but we also look to Jesus to tell us how to live in spite of it. After praying through the night (which is a good start), Jesus comes down from the mountain to meet the crowds assembled on a level place. He knows their struggles, their deepest needs. They need to have their physical ailments healed, but Jesus also wants to fix them at a deeper level, so he offers more serious teachings for those who will follow and serve in his name. Last week we heard him spell out the blessings and woes. Now he pushes into what is even more difficult to hear, knowing some will follow and some will not. Open your Bible and read Luke 6:27-38. 

In a movie some years ago, God appeared to a man in our modern society. Afterwards, the man talked about God with the woman in his life, finally asking her, “Don’t you believe in God?” She replied, “Of course I believe in God… but not that he exists.” How many people seem to live in a similar way? They claim to believe in God, but not so their lives are any different. Not that God actually exists. Like believing in Jesus, but not paying much attention to teachings we don’t like. We skim over his pointed sayings which concern parts of life we absolutely don’t want to change.

Jesus gives hard directions. You have to admit these sayings pack a wallop. In case you are tempted to sneeze when he says, “Love your enemies,” so you aren’t quite sure you actually heard what he said, he says it twice within a minute. “Love your enemies.” Treat those who hate you with mercy. Ask God to bless those who try to harm you, even those who succeed in damaging your welfare. And Jesus goes on and on instructing irrational compassion. Every different kind of rotten person out there, you are supposed to help in any way you can. Forgive whatever meanness they commit against you. Cancel any debt they owe you. Figure out how to love them. 

Then, in case the ideas are not clear enough, Jesus gives specific examples. If you just treat your buddies well, so what? Cut-throat scoundrels treat their own buddies well. But Jesus doesn’t even stop with your interactions with people. He meddles into your personal finances, seemingly telling you to give your money away. If you lend money to someone you know will pay you back, that just makes you the equivalent of Bank of America. Nothing laudatory there. Instead, Jesus specifies, lend freely, expecting nothing in return. Nada. 

Then he calls you to be kind, generous, even merciful to the most wicked.  Probably you have no trouble thinking of someone wicked. The teenagers who beat an old man to death, the politician who lies and lies and lies about caring for working people, the telephone scam artist who wiped out the nest egg of the widow taking care of her disabled child. Jesus says, “Do not judge. Do not condemn. Forgive.” These ideas may sometimes sound admirable, but the truth is, such directions seem impossible.

And, we don’t want to follow. We don’t want to try. Who can blame us? No one wants to forgive those who abuse us or steal from us. We’re supposed to release people from the recriminations they deserve? That just sounds wrong! 

Each of us is probably thinking, “Good people should be rewarded; bad people should be punished. What goes around should come around.” After all, we have committed to being truthful and kind and generous, because we want to follow Jesus. But then he tells us to love our enemies? Such an idea rubs against our sense of fairness. 

Consider: We take our tax information to a new accountant who gets our taxes filed in record time with the promise of a significant refund. Hurray! We happily pay the significant preparation fee because the person has been so helpful and the refund is lovely. But then in early summer, the IRS notifies us that our tax forms are all wrong. We owe additional taxes and fees for being late. The preparer has meanwhile disappeared. And we are supposed to what? Love her? Forget the money we paid her? Who in their right mind could just walk away from such robbery? Because even if we can’t ever track her down, we will always remember how she did us wrong. All that time and money and our reputation? Forgive her? Sounds crazy. 

And what about the people who keep shouting lies, claiming they are truths – about vaccines, about our elected officials, about our children’s proper education, about women’s health care? Should we just ignore the lies? Of course, Jesus doesn’t say treat lies as truth. We need to keep speaking the truth and pointing out lies. But we are supposed to love the liars. Wish them well; treat them well. People who are awful, we are supposed to treat as friends? Jesus shouldn’t expect to find anyone, anywhere, who is willing to do what he asks. Who could love those who act like enemies? And why should we even try to love them? The truth is, we don’t want to follow Jesus’ difficult teachings.

But here’s why we should follow his teachings. Through the teachings of Jesus, God is showing the future. This is the serious heart of the passage. Jesus is sharing God’s vision of the Realm. Sort of like learning the language of a country we are getting ready to move to. Jesus is teaching us how the Realm will be in its fullness, when God has God’s full way with the world (and each of us). 

Are the rules Jesus is teaching difficult? Absolutely. But fortunately, we can keep listening to Jesus who is giving us directions which point us towards the full Realm. Think of the outlandish generosity Jesus calls us to share. That’s what the Realm will be like. All the rotten things we do to each other, the secret meannesses we perform, the deceptions, the harm we intend at times. All of that, forgiven. Not that we deserve it.

And (ahhh!) there it is. We don’t deserve the mercy we receive, so we are called to live out of mercy, spilling grace all over onto others, who don’t deserve it either. Because Jesus says eventually grace and mercy and love will flood into every corner of Creation, even our secret corners. So, he calls us to prepare ahead, learn the language, the customs, like even setting our watch to the new time zone before getting on the plane, so we are partly functioning according to the new place, before we get there. 

The Holy Spirit can help us reject hatred; can help us love even our enemies and give without keeping track, because eventually we will all live there. As we attempt to follow the hard teachings of Jesus, every inch of success we accomplish holds evil back. Every forgiveness we give for something unforgiveable is an act of resistance to evil. When we refuse to hate, when we push ourselves to love the loathsome, then evil is disempowered and the life-giving power of God is manifest. In such actions, bit-by-bit, the world is being transformed. 

A minister recently told about two farmers in his congregation who agreed to time-share the use of one man’s huge harvesting machine, with the understanding that the second man (who didn’t own a harvesting machine) would return a portion of his profit to pay back for the use of the equipment. Unfortunately, after harvest, he neglected to pay anything. When the minister learned of it, he asked the man who owned the machine if he wanted the minister to step in to help him get what was owed. The man shook his head. “If he can live with it; I can live without it.” Hear it? Holy forgiveness, pushing back evil. Someone once said: “God wants everyone, even the wicked, to join the movement toward the Realm.” Forgiveness breeds forgiveness. Love encourages more love. 

Remember when skating rinks had periods restricted to couples’ skating? All the kids would stand around the edge, leaning in, waiting. And then the announcer finally called out, “Everybody skate!” The divine plan is like that. Not just the saints or the do-gooders, but everybody in. So if we want to get prepared for the Realm, then we should work on Jesus’ teachings, because they are showing us God’s future.

The Realm of God will come, not by our doing, but by God’s purposes erupting into reality by God’s will. However, in preparation for the Realm, we can move towards living according to the really difficult teachings of Jesus, like accepting every person as a child of God, attempting to love even the people who hate us, and sharing what we have with those who don’t have a clue how to be grateful. And every time we inch forward with those, the more the entire world reflects God’s vision of the Realm.