Hospitality to those different than us

Introduction and Scripture

Matthew 5:43–48 NIV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Pray.

I got to know this family really well in my previous church. They were those volunteers that showed up to everything. They were involved in foster care and student ministry and greeters and prayer team. More than that they loved in a way that was so embracing. I spent some time trying getting to know them and their story a little.

They lost their college aged son after a night of drinking too much he died in his sleep. They came to find out that fraternity and school systems made way for this kind of tragedy and fraternity brothers influenced and encouraged the behavior that led to his death. 1 guy in particular provided all the alcohol to this underaged young man.

This pain was too much to bear for them, and yet God grabbed a hold of them in ways they never could imagine. In the years since, they have advocated for the young man responsible for all of this. They have supported him through his probation and punishment. I even got to pray with the dad the day before he met the young man at the gravesite of their son, because he was going to give him a bible, tell him about the love of Jesus.

This was amazing. Love your enemies.

We have a lot of enemies.

COVID, Politics, Church disagreements. Our own mediums of communications are built on disagreement.

I get it. strength’s finder, belief.

How do we love in this time…and more important who?

Background of the text

Sermon on the mount, one of the most well known blocks of teachings from Jesus and this context is at the end of some specific teachings that are grouped together by similarities of the types of teaching, beginning with Matthew 5:21

you have heard it said, you shall not murder.....but I say do not be angry

you have heard it said, do not commit adultery....but I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery

you have heard it said anyone that divorces their wife must give her a certificate. But I say.....

you have heard it said, do not swear an oath.

You have heard it said eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, but i say....if anyone slaps you give them the other cheek

and there are other smaller ones in the middle of these....

Then our text: you have heard it said, love your neighbor”, hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

What Jesus is doing in each one of these situations is mostly pulling parts of the torah, of the law and these practices that have been with them. The first one on murder is straight from the commandments of course.

And what he has already said in this teaching is that he has come to be the fulfilment of the law....not to replace it.

So in other words, do not murder intended address the negative emotion that leads to murder. Anger and resentment. I some since it is an amplication but in others it really is fulfilling what God has called them to from the beginning and that is to be holy and different than the world around them.

Love your neighbor…even the enemy

Now, let’s breakdown what Jesus is getting at in our passage.

You have heard it said love your neighbor, hate your enemy.

Now this is not exactly the quote. Love your neighbor is from Leviticus 18 and is used when the greatest commandment is asked of Jesus..... Love God with all you got and love your neighbor. The hate your enemy is never explicitly said but it would have been the assumed justification from torah teaching. This is how we treat our neighbor....we have to love them, but we can hate our enemy.

So Jesus says, love your enemy, pray for the one who persecutes you....and check this out,

Matthew 5:45 NIV

that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

(leave it up)

Jesus says....this is what it means to be children of the Father. To have love for your enemies. Identity and characteristic.

Why would we do this?

For that Jesus sets up two reasons:

Because God does (and remember you belong to him)

And because what you are doing....that bar is so low even the pagans and the tax collectors abide.

This is the way God loves

look at 45 again...

Matthew 5:45 NIV

that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Even God provides general grace and life to those who are evil. And I am getting ahead of myself but in a moment Jesus says you are to be like God.

This is a hard reality, i know....

Years ago we were in the Dominican Republic with high school kids and we were working with some missionaries from our church that were helping a community with medical care but also an organization that was helping Haitians living in DR to move from tent homes to cinderblock homes. Explain economics of DR.

Things were rough.

Our youth group wanted to build a house for a family. So we raised the money before we went and then while we were over there, we would meet the family, actually begin construction of the home including building out the foundation.

So we build out this foundation one day and then the organization says hey…that house was not the one yall paid for. Do yall want to come back tomorrow and actually dig the one for your family and meet who yall are sponsoring.

Myself and a couple of the other leaders go to the tent home where the family was…and we were in a shock when we met them. Inside was christmas line around the tent and the bed. When we met the wife and the daughter they had their nails and hair done and was dressed differently than anyone else we saw in the village. It started to become clear to us that there was something more to the family. And a missionary confirmed it for us that the dad and husband had been clearly trafficking his wife and at least oldest daughter.

I remember being so frustrated that we were building a house for this family. Can we move on to the next one? Can someone do something about this?

But after spending some time in prayer we knew God sent us to build a house for this family. To pray with them and love them.

This is the radical love of God.

Love greater than the world

The second argument for why we love our enemies, he does something rhetorical in arguing from the other side. After taking our attention to God’s love he swings us back to the other end of the spectrum.

Matthew 5:46–47 NIV

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

Jesus says our bar is much too low. How do you know? Well look at how low it is....

Even the tax collectors and the pagans are nice to their neighbors. The dudes that beat up your grandma for her taxes and then takes even more to pad his pocket. That guy....he waves to his neighbor in the driveway when he goes out to get the paper. Do yall read the paper anymore?

Even the pagan; meaning even the person who does not know God....they love this way.

They will know us by our love

See here is the thing. How we love makes all the difference. We spend more time freaking out about abortion legislation or COVID politics, or arguing with our crazy aunt karen that critical race theory is problematic than we actually do loving people....and we fail to see how that diminishes our credibility in the world.

Ed Stetzer wrote a book called “Christians in the age of outrage” and in it he sites some data on the perception of evangelicals.

I know evangelical carries some baggage today, but as evangelical is defined historically, that is us. We believe in scripture, in the need to be born again in Christ, etc.

Stetzer found that non-evangelicals with at least 1 evangelical friend:

41% hypocritical

32% intolerant

22% arrogant

21% racist

non-evangelicals with no evangelical friends (positive traits):

only 8% principled

6% compassionate

5% charitable

4% ethical

The world looks at conservative evangelicals and says....if that is Christian, then i want nothing of it.

Is some of this unfair and cultural changes that are antithetical to Christianity?, sure, some. But I would argue that we know more about what we are against than what we are for.

And listen to me, your hot takes on XYZ on facebook, they will get likes and comments from people in your own echo chamber, but they will dismiss you from other conversations and most certainly will not introduce Christ to anyone.

They will know you by your love:

In John’s gospel we have this wonderful section from John 13-17 called the upper room discourse. It is presented as all one night but would have probably been carried out over days but it is Jesus preparation for the disciples for what is about to happen in the cross and then in his ascension and their commissioning.

In this section, his first indication of his impending death and his leaving brings about his first major imperative:

John 13:34–35 NIV

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

This is how the world will know that you belong to me, by how you love.

Perfection is a high bar

As if the bar was not raised high enough. Jesus includes this almost tagged on-out of no where line....

Matthew 5:48 NIV

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Perfection gets us all in a tizzy. We get cold sweats and try and move past these parts of the bible. It is a whole separate sermon to unpack this. But for now, perfect has God is perfect is extreme. Used probably for some shock value. But also this word means whole. It means complete.

This is the goal of the Christian life, to let the love of God so permeate your life that you can love without expectation of reciprocation and that you can love even if costs, and that you can love even those that might harm you.

Wesley: a command in scripture is a promise that it can be done.

But it requires that we are positioned in his love.