Lukan Beatitude, pt.2

I once knew a man who preached on the things he wished Jesus had never said. Think about it. In all of the hard teachings of Christ, what do you struggle with the most? If after listening to the Beatitudes part 2 this morning you are thinking to yourself, “it sounds good, but it’s just too hard,” you aren’t alone.

Just last week we heard all of the blessings and the woes. We listened to the tale of the poor and the rich, to a vision of a radical reordering of power. But what might the Beatitudes look like in everyday life?

Perhaps when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, we might wish to see Jesus talk about revenge, rebellion, or an upheaval. Jesus was in the middle of his woes, about to get to the good part where people really get what they deserve when all of a sudden....

One of the holy buts comes along. But I say to you that listen, as in “Is anyone still listening?”

There are a lot of holy buts in Scripture, and each time Jesus says but, he is saying “Pay attention. Lean in. Listen. This is important.”

But love your enemies. Bless them. Pray for them. Lend to them. Be kind and merciful to them. It really isn’t all that hard to love those who are already your number one fans after all.

Jesus had just said blessed are those who hate you, exclude you, revile you, and defame you. And now he is saying to love these individuals? It feels impossible. It’s just ...too...hard. Life already feels too hard lately. Hard news. Hard results. Hard lines drawn. Enemy love on top of it all feels out of touch and out of place. There’s no way. Why did you have to go and say this Jesus?

Hate seems much easier. Hopelessness and anger feel much more accurate. When my youngest gets angry or self-righteous about something, she breaks out into a personality she calls The Fire Queen and is ready to unleash the full weight of her 5-year-old fury. I’m not here to downplay or trivialize the hard stuff or the very real emotional responses you may or may not be feeling. Those emotions have a reason and a purpose. But if we aren’t careful, our hate and unforgiveness can turn us into our own worst enemies. The hate we absorb becomes the hate we give.

The way of Christ will never be the way of vengeance. The great reversal isn’t about conquering others by getting even or power moves, but about laying power down for the sake of love. There is important work to be done to witness as followers of Christ, but if our witness is built upon hatred, then we sound no different than the ones we criticize.

This passage talks about turning the other cheek and forgiving. This passage talks about doing hard things. But I want to point out that this is not some trivialization or acceptance of abuse or injustice. This isn’t about being a doormat for God. Then how on earth do we love others when the others are seeking to harm us?

Walter Wink was an American theologian and activist who did a tremendous amount of work around the theology of peace and nonviolence. He wrote a piece called Nonviolence for the Violent in which he says any movement towards peace must first begin with our own inner soul work on realizing that we all have violence within us.

He explores the concept of what it means to turn the other cheek. When you hit someone on the cheek during this time, you would have done it with the right hand. the left hand was considered unclean. So how do you slap someone in the face using your right hand? You can’t do it unless you use the back of your palm. That’s the only option. And to backhand someone is to seek to put them back into place, to put them in line. Jesus is saying “refuse to accept this kind of treatment. Turn the other cheek.” But what happens when you do this? Walter Wink points out that then the nose is in the way. What happens when you turn the other cheek. The left cheek is exposed. This is a prime opportunity for a blow of the fist. But Wink says only equals fought with their fists. And the last thing an enemy wanted was to see their inferior as an equal. Wink says “By turning the cheek then, the inferior party is saying “I’m not inferior to you. I’m a human being. I refuse to be humiliated any longer. I am your equal. I’m a child of God. I won’t take it anymore.”

Michael Beck shares the story of a woman who was a regular at a small group. She stood up and calmly said “I heard something this week that really hit me," she says, her gaze focused on the floor. "Unforgiveness is like holding onto a burning piece of coal hoping it will hurt the one who harmed us.” Her eyes lift, meeting the eyes of those around her. "I used to think if I held onto my anger, if I stayed mad at the people who wronged me, I’d be punishing them somehow. But all it did was hurt me. It burned me up, kept me stuck.”

She pauses, taking a deep breath, as if the words are sinking in, and a few others nod, relating to her pain. The room is quiet, everyone processing the weight of those words.

“I’m starting to realize that forgiveness doesn’t mean saying what they did was okay,” she continues. “It’s not about them at all. It’s about me letting go of that burning coal.” Her voice cracks slightly, but she pushes forward. “I want to be free of that pain.”

All too often we think we want a king when what we really need is a savior. Benjamin Cramer says “we want the warhorse. Jesus rides a donkey. We want the eagle. The Holy Spirit descends as a dove. We want to take up swords. Jesus takes up a cross. We want the roaring lion. God comes as a slaughtered lamb. We keep trying to arm God. God keeps trying to disarm us.”

John Pavlovitz says we have to say no to the hatred, saying,

“We are not hell-makers for other people.We aren't going to be defined by the pain we manufacture for one another, by the people we exclude, by the burdens we pile on the already burdened.” What shall we be defined by then? What kind of community is Christ calling us to?

Pavlovitz says “We're going to be defined by the compassion we show, the help we give, the tables we expand, the walls we destroy, the outsiders we welcome, the beauty we exchange, the peace we make, the huddled masses we embrace.”

We are going to be a people who trust the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.

Psalm 37:1-11 was the psalm for this week’s lectionary readings. When I first read it, it pierced my heart. Just like last week’s Jeremiah passage, it continues to call us to wait upon and trust the Lord. It gives instructions like “do not fret because of the wicked. Trust in the Lord and do good. Take delight in the Lord. Commit your way to the Lord. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently. Do not fret.

When you combine the two it sounds something like “Don’t worry. Trust me. The evil that you are surrounded by won’t have the last word. Allow my love to flow through you, even to your enemies. Forgive. Do Good. Lend a hand. For that is the measure that really matters.

In the midst of all of this hard stuff where we live in hard times and try do to hard things, how do we live and love and resist and not become hopeless?

Christy Berhoef in her Wheat and Willow substack was sharing an article recently about being in London. She felt guilty for even being there with the craziness going on in the world, but she committed to try and staying off the news. And then she broke down and checked it and there was a flood of bad news. And so she retreated back into the joy of simple things like chocolate, a cup of hot tea, and a street violinist. said “I need chocolate.” And so she began to take delight in chocolate and tea and a street violinist. She even came across a statue of a woman named Hope with her eyes gazing into the sky.

While chocolate and tea and music didn’t take the reality of the world away, it did remind her of sweetness in the midst of it. She says “pausing to absorb the tender swell of sound from the violinist didn’t separate me from the cries of injustice, but it did remind me to not allow the dominance of the dark to prevent me from lifting up the truth and light that still exists even when the world tries to make us forget it is there.… The world is hard right now. Don’t let it harden you too.”

So how do you resist?

Loryn Brantz says:

“In a time of hate

Love is an act of resistance

In a time of fear

Faith is an act of resistance

In a time of misinformation

Education is an act of resistance

In a time of poor leadership

Community is an act of resistance

In a time like this

Joy is an act of resistance

Resist. Resist. Resist.”

What might resistance look like for you? Lately for me I have resisted in the joy of baby cuddles, in jumping into the freezing waters of the ocean, long coffee chats, in random and ridiculous games, in sweet affirmations, curious questions, bedside visits, and in reading about and remembering that God is faithful.

Let us do the hard thing, to resist and to keep choosing love, not because it is the way of the enemy, but because it is the way of Christ. And in the end, I really believe that the love of Christ is the victory over sin and death.

As Dr. Martin Luther King said in his sermon “Love Your Enemies” in 1957, ““I love you. I would rather die than hate you.” And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed. And then we will be in God’s kingdom. We will be able to matriculate into the university of eternal life because we had the power to love our enemies, to bless those persons that cursed us, to even decide to be good to those persons who hated us, and we even prayed for those persons who despitefully used us.

Oh God, help us in our lives and in all of our attitudes, to work out this controlling force of love, this controlling power that can solve every problem that we confront in all areas.”

We need the hard teachings of Christ, because in loving, forgiving, lending, and doing good, we find the softening of our souls.