Unlimited Love - 2/24/19

The New Revised Standard Version Love for Enemies

27 “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 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. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 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. 35 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. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

A word of caution

Today, we’re going to talk about a very dangerous kind of ethic found at the heart of the Christian way. It is dangerous, provocative, unsettling, in that it pushes against all our inclinations and expectations for how the world is supposed to work.

So here is your word of caution: I do not believe we can follow this central teaching of the Christian. Not unless…we have God’s help. Put another way, we cannot love as we are meant to love, loving enemies, praying for those who persecute us, giving up our coat or shoes or home to those in need. Not unless we have learned to embrace God’s abundant love for ourselves. Not unless we have learned to come alive in Christ. Not unless we, like the disciples a couple of weeks back, have found ourselves with our nets overflowing and we are able to turn to Jesus and say — you are Lord and have provided for all my needs, I will turn and follow you.

I don’t mean to sound negative — actually, this turn toward God’s abundance is something we can encounter quite readily and God provides ample entrance into this way. The truth is, though, we have to accept it, to come alive with it, to encounter God’s “unlimited love” for ourselves.

Friends, when we do, when we have experienced God’s abundance and accept it for all the goodness and liberation and freedom that it is — when we have encountered the goodness of God in the land of the living — we are set free to live in a world filled with evil and backstabbing and persecution and thievery and pain — and still turn toward the other, toward our enemy, toward our family and our friends and our pewmates and live in unlimited love to them.

Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Aslan and the White Witch. Batman and the Joker. Jerry Seinfeld and Newman.

Harry Potter fans — I want to bring to mind the relationship between Harry Potter and his nemesis, Draco Malfoy. Throughout the 7 books of the Harry Potter series, these two boys experience a growing disdain for one another. They mature into their own skills as wizards at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry and compete against each other in all kinds of ways, academic, extracurricular, and even in the battle between good and evil. Harry — the model of the good, the hero. Draco — the archenemy, the smug, spoiled dark-wizard-wannabe.

When we talk about enemies, let’s keep these two boys in mind — oppositional forces.

The Text

So let’s dive into the text — Jesus is teaching what it means to live in this life of abundance, this life in the Reign of God, this way of being fully alive. And he shares an ethic that is so opposed to how we think we have to live as people who are trying to just get by in this world.

For those who are paying attention, Jesus starts like this...

Love Your Enemies

The New Revised Standard Version Love for Enemies

27 “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

I don’t know about you, but I immediately what to qualify this first statement: “Yeah, but really…which enemies? You can’t mean...”

Let’s think about enemies.

Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Aslan and the White Witch. Batman and the Joker. Jerry Seinfeld and Newman. There are examples of enemies in pop culture.

So let’s think about this for a second — who are your enemies? Who persecutes you? I like lists. How about these people:

Politicians? The Justice Department? The Right-Wing, the Left-Wing? How about racists, neo-Nazis, homophobes? How about the Russians? The North Koreans? How about the mentally ill? The homeless man who yells at you on the street? How about the boss who won’t let you get ahead at work? Or the co-worker who is always talking behind your back? Maybe it’s the School District Administrators or the Teacher’s Union? Is it an abusive spouse? A destructive child? Someone close to you who tears you down? I sometimes find that folks who look like enemies to people in my role, to the clergy, often are the ones who seek to undermine God’s work, those who speak accusation and confusion, those who speak soft words but ultimately seek their own will ahead of God’s will.

Who is your Draco Malfoy? Who is your Darth Vader? Who is your enemy?

Ok — got those folks pictured in your mind?

Let’s hear Jesus’ words again — “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

OH COME ON! These enemies — forget them! I’m not going to love them! I’m going to resist.

Sorry — the message points the opposite direction. Love them.

We’ll talk about resisting evil in a moment, so don’t worry — but hear this: Love your enemies, love the haters, love the ones who you shouldn’t love. That person you’re picturing right now — your call, out of the abundance of Jesus’ love for you is to turn in love to them.

How in the world do we do this?

Let’s move on to what Jesus says next, as it starts to unpack this...

Turn the Other Cheek

The New Revised Standard Version Love for Enemies

29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also;

Oh great, now they’re hitting us! Aren’t we supposed to fight back, aren’t we supposed to stand up?

Offer the other cheek. For real? Let them hit you again? Yep.

Are you ready to walk out on Jesus yet? Well, don’t, because here’s where it starts to get good and starts to get subversive.

Let’s talk physics and force and blows to the head for a second: When you’re struck on the cheek, your body should turn away from your attacker. It’s a perfect opportunity to run away, to high-tail and run.

However — the ones who live out of the abundant love of God, who understand that there is more to the story than simply letting evil win, but rather seek to love and embrace enemies — what do they do? They turn back, all the way in the opposite direction — and show the other cheek.

You hit me? I’m not going to retaliate. Actually, I’m going to find a way to regain my footing and show you my vulnerability again. I will defy your hatred. I will resist your evil. I will stand bearing my other cheek because your attack, while it injures my body, does not break my resolve to return and look you in the face with love.

In the life of God’s abundance, we are not threatened by attack. Our stability does not come from our own retaliative might — our hope and stability come from a grounding in the Spirit of God who is at work restoring all things, and ultimately wins the battle.

So, we have faced our enemy. We have resisted their attempts to break us down and continue to return to them in love.

A quick note here: This ability to turn the cheek back to the enemy must come from a place of grounding found in God’s love and a place of strong resiliency and self-worth. If we live in the love of God, our hope and foundation is rooted there and is unshaken by such blows. But if we are unable to work out of this abundant well of love, we should be cautious about entering into conflict again. Instead, we should find others who can support us, strengthen us in prayer and presence. We should not place ourselves into harm’s way without this kind of firm foundation, this well of strength. So, like I said at the beginning — we must work from God’s abundance and nothing else.

Alright, back to our enemies...

Give Your Shirt with Your Coat

The New Revised Standard Version Love for Enemies

from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

So, they’ve hit you and you’ve turned your cheek. Now they try to steal your stuff.

Your enemy starts stealing your stuff, shouldn’t you stop them. Sure, absolutely. And how you do this makes all the difference.

Why does someone steal? Because they want your stuff, right?

Actually, I think the drive to steal, to take what isn’t yours, to skim off the top or covet that guy’s jacket or unearth someone’s private documents on their computer or get into their bank account — I think this impulse comes from a deep place of pain and lack. Hear what I’m saying — thievery comes from a pain and an emptiness in the stealer.

As people who live from God’s abundance, we don’t have to operate out of the pain. So, you want my jacket? Fine, I have what I need, God provides for me. Here, while we’re at it, take my shirt. You must need this more than me. You must need the approval of having power more than I do. Because here’s the deal, my life is not about what coat or shirt I have. Those things can be replaced. In the Reign of Christ, we have each other around us to pick up the slack when we are hurt or stolen from. I’ll get another jacket. Someone here will help me out. And I’ll do the same.

Again, what looks like giving in to evil actually looks like subversive resistance. I don’t give up my shirt out of spite — I give it out of a place of abundance — I don’t need it.

And your hate, your thievery, your violence — it speaks to your brokenness, your pain, your trauma. Your hatred and loneliness bind you. And with the heart that has known grace and God’s abundant love, we look at that pain with empathy, with compassion, and with hope that we can actually impact such a person from a place of love.

Speaking of Love, Jesus goes on...

Love the Lovers, so what?

The New Revised Standard Version Love for Enemies

32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

How we react to our haters says a whole lot more about where our hope is found than how we react to the lovers. Do you love those who love you? Awesome…but there’s more to do. Keep that up. And…love unlimitedly…love the haters.

In fact…give to them...

Jesus continues...

Lend, expecting nothing in return

The New Revised Standard Version Love for Enemies

34 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. 35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.

This, like the part about the coat and shirt, is continuing along the line of God’s abundance — we lend not expecting return because we don’t need the return…we have it in God alone.

The first century world was filled with systems of quid pro quo — you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Let’s help each other out so we both get ahead.

And while there are many great reasons for this kind of financial transaction — it falls short of what the Way of Christ looks like. Instead, in the Way of Jesus, lending and giving is done for those in need, regardless of their ability to pay it back. If we have, we share. Not because we expect a little fringe benefit in return or a little kickback and return on investment. We give to help, we give to aid in others’ flourishing. We give because we know we have enough and God has, is, and will provide enough.

So, love those enemies — give them stuff, help them out, embrace them in their pain, perhaps, somehow, helping them realize they are loved and can find this kind of freedom themselves.

Oh yeah, and by the way…this kind of living does have a reward — life to the fullest.

Living this way brings great reword — life as children of the Most High

The New Revised Standard Version Love for Enemies

Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

I just said that we live this way not expecting anything. But there is a reward to it. It’s the kind of reward that comes from being released of all burdens of needing reward. Said another way — what we find in this way is liberation from need, a letting go of the fear that we lack, a hope beyond the stability of our body’s wellbeing or our own financial status — we find that we are able to be released into God’s goodness and freely live unattached to wealth or power. In loving our enemies — we undermine the whole system that some need to get ahead or hold power. The love of enemies (as well as neighbors, friends, people we hold dear) — this unlimited love reorders the world.

It is a love of invitation. A love of expectation. A love that trusts God is up to something and God is setting people free — through love.

Living out of unlimited love

It is from this place of abundance, this place of receiving God’s grace and fullness, by coming fully-alive — it is here that we work from as we enter into the world to love our neighbors.

As I began today saying — we cannot love our enemies, truly, if we do not accept God’s love for us and the abundance it brings.

Think about your enemies

In closing, I want to ask you to do something courageous. Remember your enemies, the people we considered moments ago.

What does it look like to draw closer to them in the days ahead? To love them, to offer grace to them. To realize that their evil, their hatred, their enemy-ness — it’s coming from a place of hurt, a place of wounding. What would it look like to stand firm in your trust in God’s love and move toward that person in care and Christian friendship?

Could you take a small step in that direction? Could you, as one who has found your reward, engage mercy like Christ calls us to?

If you do find a way, know that you are equipped to do so not from your own power or goodness, but, blessedly, hopefully, by the abundant love of God which equips you, strengthens you, heals you, establishes you, and compels you forward in love.