Unlimited Love (Feb 20, 2022) Luke 6.27-38

Sometimes one has a hard time with the scriptures. We are told to do something that is hard and to do it now. But we don’t want to do it. It is hard and besides it goes against everything in human nature. But these are words that need to be heard and acted upon.

Some background very quickly. These words are part of what is known as the Sermon on the Plain. The words spoken here are similar to Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount but, of course, the location is different. And this is significant. In Matthew Jesus is shown as a new prophet, a new Moses, who goes up on the mountain to deliver a new command to those listening. In Luke, Jesus comes down from a mountain where he has been praying all night. He then begins preaching on a level place, a plain. Here all those listening are on the same level. There is not any hierarchy, none are above others.

Here it is that we hear the words that Jesus speaks known as the beatitudes, only these are known as blessings and woes. These words are not the “spiritual” words that we like to hear, but rather down to earth words that bring comfort to the afflicted and affliction to the comfortable. And one can see the crowd gathered around hearing the words and some are thrilled and others are not. But then Jesus drops the other shoe and gives us the scripture for today.

Vaughn Crowe-Tipton has this to say about today’s text: Congregations respond to this text in the same way my children respond to seeing cooked spinach on their plate at dinner. No matter how much I explain the nutritional value, no one around the table really wants to dig in. I suspect preachers are not terribly different. Even though we know enough to understand how texts can be bound by culture and time, we also know this text goes down hard, no matter when or how it is served. Perhaps we should not be surprised that professionals and neophytes in scholarship and faith struggle to swallow what Jesus served us in this text. Maybe he would have had an easier time of it if he had left this item off the menu. Goodness, Jesus, who wants to love an enemy? …No one comes to church on Sunday already thinking, “I would really like a challenge today; perhaps I will be asked to love my enemy.” Yet that is exactly what we are called to do with this text. We are from the beginning called to love our enemies.

To love an enemy was to love someone who was actively persecuting those to whom Jesus was speaking. These were people who would be hunting down those who were listening to these words. And Jesus is saying that they are to love them and to do good. What kind of nonsense is that? Why, they need to stand up and take a stand against those who are persecuting them, show them they aren’t going to take it anymore and fight back. Right? Jesus says, no. In loving the enemy, love is not a noun, but a verb. It is an action that goes to the very heart of the enemy and changes that person through the good that is shown to them. I know that sometimes this never happens, but we are called, no commanded, to do this. All the terms used by Jesus in this section are imperatives meaning that we are commanded to do them. Oh, it is hard to love those who hate. But when one does love one’s enemies, think about what happens. Abraham Lincoln was once asked what he was going to do about his enemies after the Civil War. His reply was to make them his friends. The shocked response was “Why would you do that? Why not destroy them?” Lincoln’s reply: “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” Loving your enemies and doing good.

And just who are our enemies? Are they those who are actively seeking our lives or to persecute us for our faith? Yes, but there are more. Our enemies are those who might not see our point of view, who might think differently, who cheer for a different team, who are on the differing side of the political spectrum. Just who is your enemy? I saw a truck last week with a flag that said to do something that is not mentioned in polite company to the president and to do the same thing to you for voting for him. Is that person my enemy? Probably so. But what am I to do about that? Call this person out, mutter under my breath about how there is so much talk about freedom until it does not match one’s views? What am I to do? According to Jesus, I am to love that person, do good to that person, pray for that person.

Again, all of these actions are imperatives in the Greek. That means we are to do them. Not talk about them and say how nice it would be if we could all get along or how nice it would be if we could actually do that. No, we are called to do these. Again, in these commands love is not a noun that would be nice if we were to do them. Love is a verb here and an action verb at that. We are called to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who abuse us. Is it easy? Of course not. Who likes to be abused, hated and reviled? (If you do, come talk to me and we will discuss some matters). None of us like those things. But we are called to not retaliate when all our instincts say that we must. We are called to show a better way.

Jesus continues: “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.[1]” These imperatives often get people into trouble. Are we to allow physical and mental abuse by someone to continue? No. What Jesus is saying here is that if someone insults you (the slap on the cheek was an insult as it was done with the back of the hand not the palm) you are to allow them to do so to the other cheek as well. But what about those who steal one’s coat? Jesus says give them the shirt off your back. Does this mean that we are to let dangerous criminals run loose in our society? Again, no. There is a story of an elderly lady who was taken hostage in her own car by a man who needed drug money. As he drove her to various ATMs for her to take out money, she asked his name and counseled him to get help for his problem, but also said she hoped he would be apprehended so that he could get help. When he was done, he did something unexpected. He helped back to the driver’s side of the car and then gave her a kiss on the cheek as he left. Something had changed in him. Now, he was apprehended and the lady did testify against him, but she also pleaded that he be put in a program where he could get help. Truly she loved her enemy, did good, blessed him and prayed for him. Can we do the same?

Jesus says to all of us: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”[2] This was not a unique saying to Jesus. There were others before him and contemporary to him that said basically the same thing. The biggest difference is that they all said it in the negative, “Do not do…” Jesus is calling us to be more than just not having something done to us. He is calling us to love our neighbors and our enemies as we love ourselves. He is calling us to do better. We are called to be a witness of positive love for those around us.

But wait there’s more. Jesus tells those listening (and us as well) that we are to not be like those outside the faith group. If we love expecting love, if we do good expecting others to do good, if we give expecting others to give back, so what? The text says “What credit is that to you?” The term used in the Greek is the word usually translated as grace. Jesus is saying “If you do these things expecting returns, what grace is that to you? Others, sinners, do the same. You can do better.” We are called, again, to love enemies, do good and to lend with no expectation of return. A hard word indeed. Mark Twain once said that it was not the parts of the Bible he did not understand that troubled him. Rather, it was the parts that he did understand that gave him trouble.

We are called to do all this because we remember that God is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. We might get all puffed up and proud when we hear this because we know that those outside our group are the ones who need the mercy of God. But we need to remember that we too are ungrateful and wicked. If God can extend mercy and grace to us, then who are we to say that we cannot extend the same to those who are around us? Because God is kind to us, we can be kind to others. Because God is merciful, so can we. It is God who makes us merciful because God is merciful. There is no other way around it.

You may ask what about those who have done us such severe wrong that there is no way we can love our enemies. Can we be like Joseph in the first reading. Can we forgive those who act for our detriment? Allow me to tell another story.

In 1994 there was a genocide in Rwanda. Tutsis and Hutus were killing one another by the tens of thousands. Now, think about this: at that time, Rwanda was considered the most Christian nation in Africa. Estimates are that 90% were considered Christian. And yet they went out and killed on Monday those with whom they shared the Lord’s Supper with on Sunday. A man named Gahigi, a pastor, lost 142 members of his family except his five-year-old son, who had an arm cut off. He and the boy made it across the border to a refugee camp where the boy later died. The pastor now had to face the question that every Christian faces every day and especially on Sunday: Is it true?

When the genocide ended, Gahigi went home, but “home” had become an entirely different world than what he’d left months earlier. Everything had been taken from him, and he needed to find a way to live in this new void. The default patterns of the heart pushed him toward bitterness and anger, because even though he was a pastor, he had a human heart like the rest of us. The difference for Gahigi was that he wrestled with these emotions, wrestled with this void, wrestled with God for answers. In other words, Gahigi prayed. His prayers were answered, but as is often the case with prayer, not how he’d have chosen or expected. It became clear to Gahigi that God had a task for him, that he was to go and preach in the prisons, to the perpetrators, about the lovingkindness and mercy of God, his capacity to both forgive and reconcile…. Gahigi came to see things differently. He saw his own desire for vengeance and retaliation not as understandable, or justifiable, but as sin. This conviction is rooted in the ethic of Christ, who calls us to non-violence, and forgiveness, and loving our enemies. Watching his son die in his arms served to reveal Gahigi’s own heart issues, his own hatred and incapacity to forgive. This is why he prayed and wrestled with God. And this is how he was transformed. He began visiting prisons with a mission and a message from God. By his fourth visit, after meeting prisoners privately the first few times, Gahigi spoke to a large gathering of perpetrators about getting right, both with God and with the families of those they’d murdered. One man approached him immediately after, weeping and asking for mercy. Gahigi recognized the man, who confessed that he’d both destroyed Gahigi’s house and killed his sister. “I spent many sleepless nights over you. I searched for you so I could kill you,” said the man. “But have mercy on me and forgive me.” Gahigi embraced the man, who continued to plead for forgiveness. As his sister’s murderer bitterly wept in his arms, Gahigi sensed God saying, “This is the purpose for which you are here, and you have seen it with your very own eyes.” That day Gahigi embraced not just a killer but what he believed was his calling to be a mediator.

(Dahlstrom, Richard. The Colors of Hope: Becoming People of Mercy, Justice, and Love (pp. 94-95, 97-98). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

Unlimited love calls us to act like Gahigi. We are called to love those who would do the worst to us. Not because we can do it on our own. No, we could never do that and if we tried, we would lose all grace and gain all self-righteousness. We can only do it because we have someone who did do this, Jesus. The one who calls us to love our enemies did just that. While on the cross, he prayed for those who put him there, those who reviled and jeered at him, those who had abandoned him. Can we not do the same for those who offend us by a flag they wave or because of a belief that they hold to? We can because of God’s grace to us and for us which reaches beyond all thinking and understanding. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.