Let us pray: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace. In the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God. Amen.
Today we continue with more of Jesus’ radical teaching. A quick recap of past episodes:
Jesus declares his mission statement and ours, as he reads from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
From there he goes on healing and restoring, bringing outsiders in and lifting up those who’ve been cast down. The word spreads and everyone wants to come see and touch and be healed and miraculous healing power flows from Jesus healing EVERYONE.
Then he begins his biggest chunk of teaching, The Sermon on the Mount or the Plain as he pronounces the blessings or beatitude and the woes. Blessings on those who are suffering now, with the promise of accompaniment and future satisfaction, fulfillment and joy. And although I didn’t get to them last week, the woes that Jesus’ pronounces on those who are already full, rich, satisfied and laughing. These warnings AND sympathetic words of Jesus for those who think they’ve found contentment and satisfaction, when they haven’t. When they’ve only found fleeting happiness outside of the sustaining presence of a relationship with God.
Today, Jesus continues with more of his countercultural pronouncements of how to live in kinship with God, one another, and creation. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. What? These are the exact opposites of what we’ve been taught to do, right? Or at least what society tells us, what society values. Turn the other check?
Jesus is holding up a different way. It’s the way of love. We’re to see and interact and treat others the way we want to be treated. Actually, that makes pretty good sense, doesn’t it? We treat people kindly and with respect and we expect them to do the same. But what happens when they don’t? Then we can get mad and be rude and disrespectful, right? No Jesus says. In fact, no matter how much we might want to, and recognizing how hard it can be, Jesus says that we are to treat them BETTER than they treat us, we’re to respond with kindness and blessings. Wow!
After all, Jesus says, if we’re only nice to nice people, how does that show the extraordinary love and grace of God? If we share with people knowing they’ll return the favor, what’s new or different about that? That doesn’t really take much effort or extra love, does it? But loving our enemies, wow, who does that? Who CAN do that? Have you heard these amazing stories about people forgiving others who have really harmed them or their loved ones? I mean, those are powerful, aren’t they?
Now I want to stop here for just a moment and be very clear that Jesus is NOT advocating remaining in abusive relationships. It is NEVER OK for others to disrespect our human dignity as children of God. And we can and should take steps to protect ourselves and others from abuse of any kind. BUT, what Jesus IS saying is that we don’t have to return hate with hate, nor disrespect with disrespect, nor evil with evil. No. What Jesus showed and taught and modeled for us is to love everyone impartially, respecting their dignity, and seeking the goodness and love with which they were created. This is how God treats us, right? Jesus says that we’ll be children of the Most High when we act this way. God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked, causing the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sending rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt. 5:45). Jesus calls us to be merciful as God is merciful. And he tells us not to judge or condemn others. Instead, we are to forgive, and in so doing we’ll be forgiven. Does this sound familiar? Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Jesus exhorts us to share what we have, if anyone asks us for help, as much as we can, we are to help them. What happens when we give and share and care for others? Aren’t we often JUST as much the beneficiaries of this giving as the one we’re giving to? Jesus goes further about what we’ll get in return when we act in love. He says, when you follow me in acts of love and kindness, watch out! It will come back to you in overflowing, unexpectedly abundant ways. You know when you’re baking and you just pack the brown sugar down into the cup, or you tap the flour to get more in? Jesus says our blessings from acting in love will be so great that they’ll come overflowing back to us, right in our laps! If we measure out God’s love, forgiveness, and mercy for others in our lives, then that’s what we’ll get back, plus some! Extra peace, grace, and mercy from our good and loving God.
I don’t pretend that following these teaching of Jesus is easy. But I also know that we don’t do it alone. We have each other. We have Jesus who knows how tough it can be. And we have the power of the Holy Spirit working with us, through us, in us and all around us. Finally, and this really helps me, I know that I don’t have to be perfect. I’ll repeat that. WE don’t have to be perfect followers of Jesus. We just have to try. Period. And God takes our efforts and the desires of our hearts and smiles on them, and on us, and blesses them, and they are enough. They are more than enough, as together we work to show and share a new way of being in relationship with others. The way of Jesus is a way that honors each person just as they are. A way that shows love and kindness, even in the face of hatred. After all, as follower of Jesus, we know that in the end, love will always win. Amen.
