Matthew 5:38-48

One morning in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr looked out at his front lawn, perhaps to get the day’s paper, perhaps to check the mail, perhaps just to greet the day. He looked out at his front lawn and saw a familiar sight. Planted in his yard, for all his neighbors to see, was a burning cross. The burning cross, of course, was a threat, a warning, a hateful act meant to evoke fear and intimidation. Now, Dr. King at this point in his career as one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement was no stranger to these threats. In the past five years alone his home had been bombed, he had been stabbed, and of course imprisoned countless times. And after every grave act of evil and violence that he and his family and his associates endured by people who hated him, the world watched for his response. How would this man who is so thoroughly unwelcomed by his peers, treated so unjustly, how would he respond?

Can we agree that love is one of the stupidest words in the English language? I mean it is one of the most useless, unhelpful words we’ve got. Think about all the different things it can mean. When I say, “I love a good meatball sub sandwich,” I’m communicating that this sandwich makes me feel happy and satisfied. I like it. I love Atlanta, I love summer. That one way we use the word. But then I say, “I love my wife,” and that is so much more than just saying I like her or that she makes me feel happy, but there’s this deep wellspring of care, affection, and loyalty that I feel towards her. I love my child. I love my family.

And so again on this morning in 1963, the reporters and journalists were waiting outside his home, as Dr. King came out with his iconic suit and tie. He picked up the crude, blackened cross and he began to say a prayer - not for his family or his cause or his safety or vindication. No, unthinkably, he began to pray for God’s blessing and favor to be extended to the people who lit that cross in his yard.

In our culture today, we honor this man by naming streets after him, we’ve got a national holiday, we listen to his famous speeches. But though our culture honors him, I don’t think they really understand him; because the way that he is presented is simply as a champion of nonviolence resistance, civil disobedience, and an inclusive society. And it is absolutely true that he was all those things, but they miss the reason he championed those causes and methods. What was it about this man that enabled him to respond to the vilest forms of hatred and evil with patience, compassion, love, and empathy. What could possibly have given him the capacity to pray for people who wanted him dead? It wasn’t his commitment to an ideal or philosophy. It was his commitment to a person, a person who Dr. King spoke about time and time again, no not in the speeches that get the most air time, but in his countless letters and essays and articles.

It was obvious to anyone who knew this man that Dr. King, though a deeply flawed man, sought to fashion every part of his life on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and perhaps no other teaching of Jesus was more important and more challenging to him, and now to us, than this one right here. Friends, this teaching gets to the very core of what the kingdom of God is all about. And while we will most likely never face the same degree of injustice as Dr. King, the challenge of how we are to respond to the harmful words and acts of people who do not like us and who we don’t like either, is a challenge that every follower of Jesus will face many times in their life. And in our increasingly polarized and divided cultural climate, we desperately need to heard these words of Jesus.

So let’s look at it together, beginning in verse 38:

English Standard Version Chapter 5

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

Today our culture honors this man and what he stood for

“Eye for an eye” is a concept that we understand pretty well. “Eye for an eye” means that we are entitled to fair compensation when someone does us harm - whether physical, emotional, mental. If someone harms us, we are entitled as human beings made in God’s image, we are entitled to fair compensation. That’s how the world works, or at least that’s how it should work.

But then Jesus starts giving some case scenarios. Suppose you’re humiliated in front of everyone when someone backhand slaps you right in the face. Maybe you weren’t able to pay your taxes, and the tax collector, this traitor who’s sold his soul to Rome, has just straight up back handed you. What is a disciple of Jesus supposed to do? Or what if your out and about by the lake enjoying the day, and a troop of Roman soldiers comes over the hill, carrying heavy packs and supplies for the garrison in town, and they command you, as is their lawful right, to carry their things for them. What is a disciple of Jesus supposed to do?

But then Jesus gives some

But Jesus counters.

And some people when they hear what Jesus does say to do, what they hear is that Jesus is telling his followers to do nothing. When Jesus tells us to not resist the one who is evil, he’s really just saying to be a door mat, do nothing, just submit, be passive, and let people take advantage of you. That’s what many people hear when they read this teaching, but that is not at all what Jesus is saying.

Jesus isn’t calling for his followers to shrink away from the one who humiliates you, or to just whimper in defeat at the hands of the Roman soldiers, or to just let your accuser take the shirt from your back. The response that he calls for is not passive - but rather he’s calling for his followers to respond with an intentionality that is so incredibly unnatural for us, butt according to Jesus is absolutely possible. He’s calling for an active response to the injustice and evil and hatred that we are dealt. And Jesus calls this active, intentional response to the evil that we are dealt, he calls it love.

Chances are in your Bible, like it is in mine, verses 38-42 and 43-48 are separated into two separate paragraphs with two separate headings. It’s important to remember that chapter and verse numbers and headings were added later on as a helpful tool for readers like us - but they were not a part of the original text. So while the format of our Bible make it look like we should take these sections separately, they are actually meant to be read together. In fact, when Luke recounts this same teaching, he blends these two sections into one.

Think about it: who is the one who would slap you across the cheek, or sue you for profit, or force you to carry their load? Your enemy. And what word does Jesus use to describe how we respond to our enemies doing enemy things? He calls on us to love them.

Now, love is one of the most unhelpful words in the English language. It’s so unhelpful because it can mean so many different things. I can say, “I love a good meatball sub.” And what I mean is that I really like meatball subs - they make me feel all warm and satisfied. But then I can say, “I love my wife.” And now we’re talking about a deep wellspring of care and loyalty and affection. Same word, two completely different meanings. And the problem is that our understanding of love is primarily attached to a feeling or an emotion.

But Jesus means something very different when he uses the word love. Jesus is not asking us to generate the warm fuzzies for the people who humiliate us and hurt us. We don’t have to have close feelings of affection or even preference for the people who treat us terribly. Love in the way that Jesus is talking isn’t about a feeling, it’s about a choice. It’s about choosing to respond to that person with compassion, empathy, kindness, and generosity. This isn’t doing nothing, it’s about choosing to love, which is one of the hardest things Jesus will ever ask you to do.

Look at verse 43:

Now for this to be possible

English Standard Version Chapter 5

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

To help us

This is one of the hardest things Jesus will ever ask of his followers: to choose to love those who hurt us, who oppose us. Like, how can he possibly expect us to be able to do kind acts for those who want to hurt us? And almost like he knew that question would enter our minds, Jesus speaks to our concern by pointing out a fundamental truth about our world that we can see in weather. He says that in God’s world, the sun rises on the good and the bad. In God’s world, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. In God’s world, the farmer that is pious, generous, loving, and faithful gets the same weather as the one who is wicked, evil, and unfair to his workers. They get the same rain and sun.

What is Jesus getting at? He’s pointing our attention to the boundless generosity of God. He doesn’t treat people according to how they behave. If that were the case, than we should be able to tell just by looking at a field who was righteous and who was not. But we can’t, because God doesn’t give his gifts to people according to how they behave. Now, for sure Jesus firmly believes that there will be a time when God will put everything to rights and hold people accountable for what they’ve done, but this moment right now is all about grace and God’s generosity that is not constrained by any boundary.

God’s world doesn’t operate on “eye for an eye,” it operates on grace. And Jesus says that if we’re going to be able to love our enemies, to do good to those who treat us terribly, then we have to adopt this view of the world. And truthfully, the only way to adopt this view is to experience it first hand.

Jesus says that

I firmly believe that every single teenager needs to work in the service industry for at least a year. Like, let’s just make that a mandatory educational requirement. Because I’ve worked as a bank teller, frozen yogurt shop, fast-food, coffee shop, clothing store, you name it and I’ve worked it. And let me tell you something, when I go shopping for clothes, and I’m at that wall of pants, or that display table with all the sweaters, if I pick something up to look at it closer or check the price or size, there is a furious obligatory burden in my soul that forces me to fold that thing back up and neatly place it back on the stack. When I go to the check out line at Starbucks or anywhere, I give the clerk my full attention. I have to. Why? Because I’ve had the experience of spending forty-five minutes folding everything on that jean wall, only to have a couple thirteen year olds decimate it in a matter of 45 seconds and buy nothing. I know how soul crushing it is to be completely ignored as a cashier, and because I’ve experienced it.

But at the same time, I’ve experienced the exact opposite. I’ve seen customers fold their clothes back up, I’ve had lovely and amazing interactions with people in the check-out line, and because I’ve experienced these things, the way that I interact with people in stores and shops and restaurants is profoundly different than I would otherwise.

Well the truth is that God has not treated you according to how you deserve, and this is exactly what Jesus shows us. Though you do not deserve it, though your actions and behaviors and your heart opposes God, he has chosen to love you. He has chosen to love you, because his generosity is without boundary. The world doesn’t operate on just compensation, because God doesn’t operate that way. He operates on grace, and if you’ve experienced that grace first hand, it changes you. And the more you understand and live into that identity as one who has received God’s grace in Jesus, the more you live into that identity that God has chosen to love you, the more you’ll be able to respond to your enemy with love.

And this is what Jesus means when he says that when we love our enemies we are like children of our Father who is in heaven. When we choose to love our enemies, choose to respond with generosity and kindness, we reflect our heavenly Father. And in fact, we are never more like God than when we choose to love our enemies. We are never more like Jesus than when we choose to love our enemies. Because when we do so, we are participating with the very essence of the kingdom of God. This is it. This is what it’s all about.

And if we resist or ignore this call to love those who do not deserve it, it will become harder and harder to know and accept the love of the Father for yourself. The more you engage this teaching and strive to show love and grace to the undeserving, the more you’ll know and experience the assurance of God’s grace and love for you. But the reverse is true: if we harden our hearts towards our enemies, it becomes harder and harder to know the boundless grace of God.

We live in a very divisive time, and the walls between groups of people are higher now than they’ve been in many years. We are very practiced the art of loving those who are in our group, in our tribe. But the challenge for the follower of Jesus is to tap into the boundless love that the Father has shown you, to tap into that wellspring of grace as we engage with both neighbor and enemy. This is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do as a follower of Christ, but it is at the very center of what it means to live in the Kingdom of God. But the thing is, God has chosen to love you, and if you believe that, you have everything you need to be able to have the strength to love your enemy. Let’s pray.