So,
Do you have any enemies? People who dislike you, perhaps intently?
Are there people out there that perhaps you dislike rather strongly?
An author told this story about enemies. He said:
“A priest was giving a homily based on Jesus’s command to love your enemies.
“Now,” he says, “I’ll bet that many of us feel as if we have enemies in our lives,” he says the congregation. “So, raise your hands if you have many enemies.” And quite a few people raise their hands.
“Now raise your hands if you have only a few enemies.” And about half as many people raise their hands.
“Now raise your hands if you have only one or two enemies.” And even fewer people raised their hands. “See,” says the priest, “most of us feel like we have enemies.”
“Now raise your hands if you have no enemies at all.” And the priest looks around, and looks around, and finally, way in the back, a very, very old man raises his hand. He stands up and says, “I have no enemies whatsoever!”
Delighted, the priest invites the man to the front of the church. “What a blessing!” the priest says. “How old are you? “I’m 98 years old, and I have no enemies.” The priest says, “What a wonderful Christian life you lead! And tell us all how it is that you have no enemies.”
“All the (bastards) jerks have died!”
Okay! Problem solved!
Of course, not where the priest was going, but understandable.
But that still leaves us with this incredible teaching Jesus made in the Sermon on the Mount.
“Love your enemies”.
As Bill Cosby said in that old Noah and the Ark sketch, “right!” Or maybe, “no way”, or “yeah, that’s impossible!”
Jesus teaching seems so far beyond the realm of reality that we dismiss it.
But be careful, because Jesus is very serious!
So, what is Jesus going for here?
Jesus wants us to understand God’s nature and the way of God’s kingdom> he wants us to live in relationship with others in the way that God lives in relationship with us.
Even though we are not very good at loving God, in fact, sometimes quite terrible at it, God chooses not to judge us on that basis, but rather on the basis of God’s own love for us.
And we love because God first loved us!
One of the great joys of being a follower of Jesus, is to realize that even though at times I am really not a very good disciple - that I don’t live in ways or act in ways that please God - God still loves me, forgives me, and counts me as a friend.
And one of my great struggles as a follower of Jesus is to realize that even though you too are not a very good disciple, God still loves you too.
And that is essentially the challenge, to see people from God’s perspective and to treat them accordingly. To understand way down in the depths of our souls that God loves folks we don’t love and that don’t love us.
And to understand that we are to love others in the manner that God loves them, no matter what!
Not with a wimpy, irresponsible, mushy love, but with the strong, clear and purposeful love of God. We are to love others as a way of both being kingdom people ourselves and revealing kingdom values to others.
And for clarity, remember that the word for love here is the Greek word agape, a word that describes self-sacrificing, giving, and forgiving love.
This is not about doing for another person something to appease them or to change them; it is an act of kingdom presence all by itself.
Love your enemies, for by doing so, we reveal God’s kingdom to be present!
I read this past week a commentator who was noting that in the original Greek New Testament, the sentence that says “if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to them the other.”
It is a different reading than in our pew bibles where the CEV reads, “If someone slaps you on one cheek, don’t stop that person from slapping you on the other cheek. The CEV makes it sound as if having been struck once, you should offer yourself for another.
But the author suggested that instead of understanding the passage just from the words, perhaps what we should do is imagine the setting where someone backhands you across the face as an insult.
The command then is, don’t leave the same check there to be slapped again.
Instead turn the other cheek, making a backhanded slap less likely, and therefore the insult less likely, and begin instead the intentional process of loving them as God does, not with acquiescence or anger, but with real practical tough love.
Offer to help. Offer to carry their bags, offer to do for them whatever it is that they need, offer to listen, offer even to get out of their way.
But don’t retaliate. Instead, seek, as best you can, their redemption!
My wife Sue tells a great story of a crabby, angry old woman who worked at one of the nutrition sites she used to help with when she worked for the office of the aging.
There’s lots of good stuff in between in this story, but the end of the story is that the crabby old woman was transformed after a hip replacement and all her horrible aches and pains went away!
Jesus says, Don’t judge.
Don’t assume.
Don’t retaliate.
And do act like a kingdom person and love your enemies!
Amen.
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