Targeted Love

 Read Luke 6:27-28

He is not here. He is risen.

He has gone ahead of you to Galilee.

Tell the disciples and Peter to meet me in Galilee.

Why do you look for the living among the dead.

He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!

Up from the grave he arose with a mighty triumph over his foes.

He arose the victor over the dark domain and he lives forever with his saints to reign.

A week ago, many of you arose early for a sunrise service. We couldn’t wait. We were excited, plus there was breakfast.

Some of you, most of you returned to worship this morning and Tom has the audacity to preach love your enemies on the heels of Christ arose.

What’s up with that?

Love your enemies.

Here is the escape clause.  Here is the golden parachute for those who are not up for this whole love your enemies business.

What’s that?

Jesus didn’t say this for everyone. He was not talking to everyone.  Well, to whom was he speaking?

But to you who are listening I say:

Really? That seems a little flimsy.

Jesus said, I’m really only talking to those who are actually listening.  Who is listening?  Those who profess Jesus is Lord and are ready to put his words into practice. That’s who Jesus was speaking to—those who were ready to hear his words and put them into practice.

Lord, I am READY to trust you completely!

Those who were listening wanted to understand more so they could do more.

But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

This is not for the Christian tourist. It is not for the casual follower of God. It is not for the slightly interested until something comes up.

This is for those who have professed Jesus is Lord and who know and understand what that means, and they embrace it. We embrace that profession. Jesus is Lord!

  Jesus is not an app that you go to when things get tough. That’s too transactional.

We do go to Jesus in times of trouble, but it is a short trip for he is our Lord and he is already with us and we are already doing the things he told us to do. We are walking with the Lord.

Let’s see where this pericope lands us.

This chapter tells us that Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.  The religious leaders were so fixed on the rules that they forgot the relationship with the Lord was what was central. They followed the rules and missed God’s heart.

This chapter tells us the names of all the disciples.

This chapter parallels the Sermon on the Mount and Beatitudes found in Matthew 5, at least as it concerns suffering and persecution.

This is the chapter where we find love your enemies and most of us say, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Life is hard enough without loving those whom we are perfectly equipped to hate with all of our hearts.  What’s an enemy for if you can’t hate ‘em.

Today, I will tell you that loving your enemies is not really an impossible command. It is overly practical. It blesses you as much as your enemies.

Sure. In the eternal realm, I will be blessed for loving my enemies. Yeah, OK, whatever.  In the meantime, my enemy is running all over me.

Really?

How many times do you have to contend with an enemy?  I proffer that it is much less that we might think and surely less than we advertise.

When is the last time that you were face to face with someone who wanted to kill you?

When is the last time that you had to check and see if you had enough ammunition to make it through the night?

When is the last time that you had to defend the perimeter of the school against all enemies foreign and domestic?

Our troubles do not lie in our enemies. Our Lord and Savior has overcome our enemies. Our struggles lie in the heavenly realms. Our struggles are with evil as it has occupied the world and has too many encampments in our own hearts.

Our struggle is very seldom with an enemy of flesh but with one of darkness in our own hearts.

Our struggles are so often so close to home that we are blinded to them.  Who can hurt us more—someone we don’t know who would just as soon shoot me as speak to me or someone that matters to me?

Really, who can hurt us the most?

The guy or gal or kid who philosophically has been conditioned to hate you for being an American or a Christian or someone who speaks up for good morals and ethics…

Or

Someone close to you? Someone near and dear to you? Someone that you love very much?

Over the past several years, I have proffered the following statement for your consideration.

The law as given for our own good—that’s straightforward in writing stuff right there.  But I also ask us to consider that the law mitigated the evil in our hearts. To mitigate is to reduce the effects of something and it doesn’t go far enough.

Jesus wants us to cast aside our hearts of evil and stone and receive the divine heart of our Lord, whom we know mostly through the Spirit.

Jesus uses hyperbole on a recurring basis but this statement is not one that says pluck out your eye is it offends you. It is one that says demonstrate love and care and kindness for someone that we don’t know very well.

What does that mean?  It mostly means pray for them. Pray for those who hate you or persecute you or are otherwise lost in the ways of the world.

Our direct involvement with those whom we might lump into the enemy category is minimal.  We spend most of our time sorting out our own hearts and minds as we deal with people that we say we love.

Jesus expands our thinking. If loving your enemy is even possible, how much more can I love those that are flesh and blood?

Can we not do a better job of caring for each other?

We do a lot in that area, but what if we posed the question in this way.

How can I take the time, money, energy, and effort that I currently expend on enemies that I will never see and use these valuable resources to love my friends and family?

And there you have it. Tom managed to work in the Parable of the Talents yet one more time.

What did you do with what God gave you?

We have gone from He arose the victor over the dark domain and he lives forever with his saints to reign to Discipleship Time.

We are saved.

He is risen and so too will we be risen.

We take the good news to the world and along the way, we learn to love one another. Loving your enemies seems absurd, but it actuality, it just practical.

Don’t spend your time on that which does not profit you and your discipleship. Where will your love produce the biggest return?

With you and your demeanor and countenance and readiness to do what God tells you to do.

Imagine taking your money—however much that is or isn’t—and going to a financial institution to invest it. The fund manager says that 75% of your investment will make great returns but 25% is just being thrown away on stuff that we know is not profitable or productive.

Do you not look elsewhere to invest what you had to work hard to get? Don’t you want a return on your full investment?

Love your enemies is practical. Hating them takes too much time and effort that could produce good results at home.

That’s not the case for everyone. Some are called to take the gospel into the heart of enemy territory. If that is you, then love your enemies takes on a more personal nature.  But for most, we just need to pray for our enemies from afar and love those who matter so much to us, who are likely much closer.

Does this lessen the intensity of the command?

On the contrary. Our best efforts for those who have declared us as enemies is to pray for them and then be known by our love wherever we go.

Love your enemies. That’s an easy one.

Focus your time and effort of loving, forgiving, blessing, and living this life to the full with those whom you say you love.

If I am already praying for my enemies, then loving those whom I really want to love becomes so much easier. It begins to become our nature.

If I can love those far away by praying for them, how much easier is it to help the kid or the family or the traveler when we encounter them in our own neighborhoods.

How much easier is it to forgive those whom I love and don’t want something brewing between or among us? How much easier to forgive and love and embrace those whom I love when my enemies don’t suck one iota of energy or life from me. I will pray for them.

This is not adopting the pagan practices of loving those who will love you back. This is not tit-for-tat. This is targeted love.

I will target my enemies with prayer. I will be faithful in those prayers.

I will target my friends and family and those who just happen to live on the same part of the planet as me with very intentional or purposeful love. Yes, that will include some prayers but it will also include the hugs and smiles and forgiveness and assurance that we are a forgiven people.

To target my love when I am led to deliver it is grace lived out in our lives.

Love your enemies. Love those whom you want to love even more.

Jesus has raised our sights. We pray for those whom we will likely never see and we pray for, forgive, and rejoice with those whom se see almost every day.

Amen.

Are we truly known by our love by everyone?

 Read Luke 6:27-28

God loves you. Love one another. How easily do the words roll off our lips now, but do we mean it? Do we really mean love one another? C’mon, there’s some bad people out there

It’s the Sunday following Resurrection Sunday. The faithful are here. Many that were here last week we might not see for a while.

We remembered Jesus the way he told us to remember him and then we had a big celebration. Now, it’s a week later and we are back to putting the words of Jesus into practice.

But to get back on course, we get a major course correction.

Love God. Got it. I’m in.

Lone one another. Yep. Good to go. Let’s do this.

Love your enemies. There’s always a catch, isn’t there.

So, if we can do the Bible math, we get our most straightforward answer of answers.  It’s love, love, and more love for the one who truly wants to set aside the gods of this world and seek the one true God.

Love God, and love each other, and that includes those who we don’t like or who don’t like us or who might be on the other side of the world saying bad things about us.

Love the person who if they could would be outside your front yard with an RPG ready to make your day. Chances are, those who might call you an enemy won’t ever show up on your doorstep, but they would still love to do you harm.

Love everyone made in the image of God.

Let’s put it this way. Many of the people who rejoiced at Saul’s conversion were the same people he had persecuted.

Some of those people were dead. Then realize they were on Saul’s welcoming committee in heaven. Now, that’s some words into practice right there. Now, that’s some known as his disciples by your love right there.

We are defined as a people by our love. God loves us and we love others so much so that people know that we belong to God by that love.

We are defined as a people by our love

In the days of Abraham, the sign of circumcision was given to indicate the men among God’s Chosen People. Today, we have a sign in the spirit.  God’s Spirit lives within us.

God not only told us to love him and each other—everyone—he lives within us to help us do just that.

The default setting for the Christian must be love. Yes, we are:

·       Wise

·       Discerning

·       Generous

·       Faithful in a few things

·       Ready to serve our Lord in many things

·       Good stewards of our time, talent, and treasures

·       People who speak the truth in love

·       People who desire to please our Lord

·       People who long to hear Well done good and faithful servant from our Master

·       People who know some scripture and have much of it written on their hearts.

But our nature above every nature that tries to dwell within us is love.  God is love. We are to be known as his disciples by our love. It must be love that governs if Jesus is really the Lord of our lives.

That includes those whom we don’t like. That includes those who don’t really know us. That includes people who would just as soon that we get hit by a meteor or by lightning than receive our daily bread.

But we are called to love them.

And we can’t do it, at least not on our own.  We must submit to the spirit of God that resides within us to be able to love those who seem unlovable to us.

So the question of the day is:  Do we love God enough to love those who don’t love us and we would like to go on hating?

This is trust God over our own understanding once again.

This is putting what God has given me to work to produce a good return in this case that return is love for others.

This is the pastor gets off easy day.  Preach love, love, and more love. It’s for everyone made in the image of God. It must be love.

Love everyone.

Amen.

Matthew 5 - Part 6

 

Read Matthew 5

How many Bibles in a stack of Bibles does it take to make your statement true?  Does the version or font size or binding of the Bible add to the veracity of your statement?

If people don’t believe you because you have given them good cause, will swearing on your grandmother’s grave put your promise in right accord with those whom you want to persuade?

I went to high school with a kid who would finish his sentences with, “I ain’t lyin’.”

What did Moses say to the leaders of the tribes of Israel?

When a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said.

That’s some straight-forward stuff right there.  If you promise God that you will do something, then do it.  There is no fanfare.  There need be no ceremony.  There need not be ice cream and cake at a reception to follow.

Just do what you said you would do. 

If you have to add something to your promise or vow, that is not from the Lord. 

Have you ever bargained with God?  Most have.  Lord if you will do this for me, I will never drink again.  If you will just come through this one time, I will study more from now on.  O Lord, my God, if you will just put this one in the middle of the fairway about 300 yards directly in front of me, I will work on my foul language that gets worse every time I go in the trees.

We who are made in the image of God, need not bargain with God.  We need not add things to our word when we commit to God.  We need to be known by our integrity.

When we say yes, then we mean yes without reservation or qualification.  When we say no, then we mean no.  Neither word requires further explanation in most cases.

We should be known as people of integrity.  When people see us as people of God, they should see a man or woman who does what they say they will do.

We can be polite in our yes and gentle in our no, but we should not add anything to them that comes from the depravity of sin that thrives so much in this world.

All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Do you remember what we studied in James?

Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned.

Let your yes be yes and your no be no.  That’s some straightforward stuff.

But sometimes, people wrong us.  Sometimes, we need a little payback.  We need vengeance.  We need to retaliate.

Jesus knew the human heart.  He knew the depravity that was present in every living person.  He had taught much about the sins that are in the heart are the same as those manifested in our behavior. God sees the heart.

We can look to the Torah for God’s guidance as what to do when we are injured.  It’s an eye for an eye, right?  In some cases, God tells his people to show no pity to the wrong-doer. 

God told his people that fear of doing wrong was an effective strategy to prevent certain offenses from being committed in the future.

This is some tough guidance.  This is something that a depraved human heart would prioritize over other directives.  This is permission to get even.

We must understand that the Law of Retaliation, Lex Talionis, was meant to reduce retaliation.  Reduce it from what?  Reduce it from the retaliation of the unchecked and depraved human heart.

If you cut off the arm of a family member, then I will cut off 5 arms or kill some of your clan.  Unchecked, we don’t want to get even, we want to inflict greater pain.  Such is the depravity of the human heart.

Jesus said, it’s time to grow out of that mentality.  He didn’t say that you could not defend yourself or your family.  He said if someone is in a position to degrade you or put you down or cause you to be humble when you want retribution, then give these people what they want, maybe even more than that if ask of you.

If your boss slaps you in the face, give him or her the other cheek.  There is not much of this these days that is not sent to HR, but there are similar put-downs.

If someone is suing you for your customed ripped out jeans, give him the jacket that goes with them.

This isn’t about giving in to criminals, it’s about living by God’s law of love or by man’s law of what’s right in the world’s eyes.  Guess what?  You are not going to be taking those ripped out jeans to heaven anyway.  That’s in the next chapter.

OBTW—God’s way is often not what our human heart desires.  You really have to be seeking God and his kingdom and his righteousness to live this way.

You really have to trust in the Lord with all of your heart for this next part.  Love your enemies!

C’mon Jesus!  Isn’t that taking things too far?  Think back to John’s gospel.  We are to be known as disciples of our Lord by our love—by our love.

Everyone is known by their love.  People love those who love them.  Tit -f or-tat is so much our human nature.   It’s so natural.

Jesus noted that even the hated tax collections and the pagans had this part figured out.  How are God’s people different from the godless people if we use the same metrics—love those who love you?

Jesus said that we are to love those who don’t love us.  We are to love our enemies.

You can’t do this.  You cannot do this.  The human heart cannot fathom this.  Only in our belief in and searching for the one true God that we know in Christ Jesus can we do this.

The human heart needs to buttress it’s yes and no.

The human heart wants retaliation.

The human heart longs to hate our enemies.

The human heart seeks to satisfy the depravity that has found a home in all of us.

The human heart hates and lusts and covets and rebels even though God’s rules are set against these things, but rules are never enough to produce the right standing or right-minded or right decisions required by a holy God.

Only the blood of Jesus can bring us into right standing and only love can keep us there.  The fear of punishment is powerful but pales in comparison to the bond of love that is between God and us.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and understanding and knowledge but when perfection comes, fear no longer governs.

I believe in God.

I believe that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all my growth.

I believe that I am made right with God by what Jesus did for me.

I believe that I can live up to my right-standing only by living a life of love.

God is love.

I believe in love.

I can do what my human heart resists by believing in love.  When I believe in love, I can resist the urge to retaliate.

When I believe in love, I can love other believers, my neighbors, and yes, even my enemies.

When I believe in love so much that I am known by it, then my victory in Jesus has come.

I believe in love.

Amen.

Lex Talionis

Read Matthew 5:38-48

Where to begin?  These are some of the most discussed, interpreted, debated, and very frankly ignored scriptures in the New Testament.

 They have been interpreted literally.  If someone sues you and is awarded your cloak, then we throw in the coat at no extra charge.

They have been interpreted historically and culturally.  That is, in the day they were written and within the Eastern culture, it was acceptable to strike a subordinate or a slave with the back side of the hand.  This was a sign of dominance.  Turning the other cheek to the senior offered a dilemma.  

Striking the cheek now presented would require the use of the left hand or the open palm.  Left hands were used for unclean purposes and the open handed slap was something of a challenge to fight, such as in later years the slap to the face with a glove might demand a duel between gentlemen.

The exegesis continues with allegorical interpretations.  The circumstances described represent how to respond to physical abuse, legal suits, government direction, and financial requests.  Principles in each area can be extracted

The principles are good but sometimes a rough fit.  Consider the admonishment to give not only your tunic but your cloak as well in today’s litigious society.  Over twenty years ago I was in 29 Palms, California.  Don’t confuse this with Palm Springs which is about an hour away and the hangout of the rich and pampered.  I was at the Marine Base controlling a live fire exercise.  Every few days we came in from the field to quarters on the main part of the base.  Each room had a bed, a desk with chair, and a television.  Do you remember rabbit ears?  Your reception was dependent upon how well you could manipulate these small antennae.

Of course, it didn’t matter much because all of the stations had terrible programming and all were sponsored by the same commercials:  Sue somebody, divorce somebody, or come down off of drugs.  California was truly a trendsetter in pitting the nation against itself with legions of lawyers ready to do barrister battle on our behalf.

About ten years later, I was in the middle of government contracting.  This was best value contracting.  That meant the proposal evaluation included a review of the contractor’s ability to do the job, the price, and the track record of the contractor.  I assigned review teams to these.  They always made a good selection.  I like to look at one more thing just to see if there were any red flags among the competing bids.  I purposely left myself out of the evaluation process.  That liberated me to look at one other thing:  risk.  I liked to know how large the legal department was at each company.  A large legal department might signal a company looking to sue if they couldn’t perform he job, underbid, or just saw the government as an easy target.  Taking the principles from the Sermon on the Mount as stand-alone axioms just didn’t seem to fit in the modern world.

So how do we interpret these scriptures?  I suggest we look at the last verse in the pericope.

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

Jesus uses the word therefore to tie in what he is about to say to what he has been saying.  So how do we interpret these teachings?  As Jesus told us to, in the context of being perfect—being complete-as our Father in heaven is complete.

That brings us to the subject of:

Lex Talionis

Nice word, but few speak Latin these days.

 It means the Law of Retribution or Retaliation.

We need laws for vengeance?  It seems that the desire for revenge is seeded deeply within the human heart.  Who would come up with laws about revenge?

God.

Really?  God had to make laws to teach us revenge?

No.  He gave laws to limit the extent of revenge.  It seems that man’s heart was not yet ready for the perfect love of its Creator.  The law limited the extent of the revenge exacted.

You mean like an eye for an eye?

Exactly.

Tooth for a tooth.

Right on the money again.

What if someone lost a hand?

They may take a hand from the offender.

For a foot?

A  foot.

What about a burn?

A burn returned.

What about if one takes the life of another.

Then the law of retribution affords a like may be taken in return.

Where do you find these laws?

This set comes from the 21^st Chapter of Exodus.

I guess that pretty much kept things out of court.

Not really.

What else could there be?

Two men are fighting and they bump into a pregnant woman and the baby comes out but there is no further damage.  They must pay what the husband demands and the court says is fair.

You are making this us as you go along.

Nope.  Same chapter in Exodus.

At least the secular courts have some sanity to them and don’t follow these guidelines.

Actually, they do—especially those in the western world.

You mean I can get sued for an arm and a leg.

Yes.

I have never seen a judgment like that rendered in this country.

You have, but didn’t recognize it.  Up to a point early in the second millennia after Christ’s death and resurrection there were some interesting developments in English law—where we get most of our common law.

OK.

An eye for an eye and a foot for a foot makes for a nation of half blind people with a limp.

That humor is too arid even for my taste.

So the judges of the land started equating a foot with a monetary value.  They assigned a monetary value to a hand, a tooth, and even a life.

So every man does have his price.

Now who’s a little on the dry side?

It just seems sort of odd.

More so that cutting off hands and plucking out eyes?

Point taken.

The early English name for this was Wergild or  Wergeld.

Great, more words nobody uses any more.

It means Blood Gold.  Literally it was the giving of gold or its equivalent for the life or limb taken by an offender.  It was part of both Germanic and English jurisprudence.

I wonder if that’s where we came up with the tooth fairy leaving money under the pillow.

What?

You know, getting a quarter for losing a tooth.

No, no, no…You got a quarter? I only got a dime.

Don’t sweat it.  The rates have gone up a bunch since you lost any teeth.

I don’t think the tooth fairly has anything with assigning monetary value to body parts.

It seems that we have modified this whole compensation thing quite a bit these days in the good ole US of A.

Yes and in several ways.  First we have separated the criminal and civil law.  One for punishment and one for compensation.

And?

We also have expanded the concept of damages beyond reasonable compensation for actual damages and added something we call punitive damages.

You mean like the person gets eight hundred dollars to cover the doctor’s visit for spilling a cup of hot coffee on their own leg and eight million to teach the fast food restaurant that didn’t warn its customers that its coffer was hot as lesson they will remember.

Exactly.  That latter part is known as punitive damages.

Seems like a big step backwards.

How so?

Shouldn’t there be some boundaries on what people can get when something bad happens to them?

Some would say so.  Today the debate is called tort reform.

It’s about time somebody did something!

Actually, God did something very early.  Remember Lex Talionis?

Placing limits on what a damaged party is entitled to as far as retaliation.  Wow, the pendulum surely swings back and forth on this one.

Sure does.

So I guess that God wants us to go back to an eye for an eye?

No.

No?

God wants to bring the pendulum to a complete halt.

You mean like a compromise?  Stop it somewhere in the middle.  God compromising?  Who’d a thunk it?

Not a compromise—a revelation.

What’s being revealed?

God’s heart.

It’s a cardio revelation?

Some might call it a cardio revolution.

I’m guessing that another vocabulary word is heading my way?

Kharisma.

Sounds like charisma.

That’s one of the words we derive from its Greek roots.

And it means?

Divine love, from the Divine Heart, or another word you have heard often—grace.

How did we get from an eye for an eye to grace?

Jesus.

You mean the teachings of Jesus, especially those from the Sermon on the Mount.

Yes, but I also mean Jesus without any qualifying adjectives, adverbs, or other quantification.

Explain.

The world in all of its sin and rejection of God and his love deserved to be judged.  It—we deserved to be condemned. 

I guess the law of an eye for an eye would be more than we can imagine on a world wide scale—more than I want to imagine anyway.

We deserved condemnation but received love.  We received love that we did not earn, deserve, or in any way merit.  We just did not deserve either God’s love or his forgiveness.

But He gave them love and forgiveness.

Yes.  He gave us grace.

So what do we do now?

That’s a question that all Christians should ask themselves every day.  How do I respond to God’s grace?

Any suggestions?

Let God finish the good work that he has begun in us.  Let him make us complete.  Let him perfect us.

And how does this tie in with an eye for an eye?

We return hate with love.

What about persecution?

With love.

Apathy?

Love.

Rejection?

Love.

Unfairness?

Love.

Love?

Love.

I was trying to trick you.

It’s a foolproof formula.

Obviously.

So much so that even those without God know to return love for love.

Love for love:  That’s about all I can manage without getting out of my comfort zone.

We should all get out more.

So all we need is love?

That’s a good one.  What verse did that come from?

Actually it’s the chorus.

To what?

All You Need is Love.

Touché.

More vocabulary…

Matthew 5:38-48 (New International Version, ©2010)

Eye for Eye

    ³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ³⁹ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ⁴¹ If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Love for Enemies

    ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ 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. ⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. 

Love Your Enemies

Read Luke 6:27-36

It’s like a Geico commercial.  Everybody knows that if you are going to preach a few Sundays on love, you don’t start with love your enemies.  Everybody knows that you have to work your way up to that one.

Everybody knows that, well, maybe, except Jesus.  As you read through Luke’s gospel you get a Christmas story, Jesus presented in the temple, Jesus back in the temple at 12, the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus rejected in his hometown, Jesus driving out demons and healing many, sometimes even on the Sabbath. 

You get Jesus calling disciples to follow him.  You get Jesus teaching that he is Lord of the Sabbath.  He is getting people’s attention for sure, but the first time that he really teaches about love, he starts with love your enemies.

That’s crazy.  That’s graduate level Christianity.  That’s super-mature Christianity.  How can Jesus start with love you enemies?

It seems hard enough to love friends and family sometimes.  How can Jesus dive into this topic—this mega topic—of love with love your enemies?

Let’s begin with a very simple but provocative statement.  Jesus did not enter this world to blend in with this world.  He was on a mission from his Father.  He came with purpose.

As it turns out, I’m a big supporter of his Father’s purpose.  I love that Jesus came on a mission.  He came to save us.  God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save it through him.

There is something about being on a mission.  Having a little Marine Corps experience, I will talk first hand for the moment.  You have focus.  You have intensity.  Your whole force of personality is given to the mission.  What others not involved in the mission think becomes a blur.  It doesn’t even aggravate you.

You don’t sugar coat anything to others who are on the same mission.  You think that things might get nasty, then you tell your Marines.  This might get nasty.

If you have no good intel then that’s what you share.  We are going in here totally in the dark. Intel will develop as we run into people who like or they don’t. You don’t sugar coat anything.

If you are on a mission—have a purpose for your existence—tact and fluffy words and even a spoon full of sugar don’t help the medicine go down.  It is truth and truth administered the only way it is truly effective, and that’s full strength is what’s needed.

Jesus gave his disciples and those who would listen the same message about love.  Love must be administered full strength.  Love is not for one but not for another.

It’s easy to love those who love us back.  Even sinners and the ungodly know that.  Even the ungodly do that.  Tit-for-tat does not distinguish the one who follows Jesus from the one who belongs to the world.

Jesus said, they will know you are my disciple by your love—that you love one another.  Most of that love is directed at the covenant community.  We take care of each other because we are all brothers and sisters with Christ Jesus.

We do our best to live in one spirit, one hope, one accord and in love.  The family of faith that you know should be the most welcoming and accepting and loving place that you know.

We didn’t earn our way into this family. Jesus paid our admission fees in blood.  Jesus made us right with his Father so that we could live in this wonderful family of faith, but we know that our response is love.  We love one another.

And while we look at the history of the church that we know in scripture, we see most of the love expressed was within the covenant community.  That first century church in Jerusalem that you have read about in Acts, didn’t go out doing all sorts of things for the ungodly.  They did everything for each other.

The love of God is most fully manifested within the covenant community—within the family of faith.  But it doesn’t stop there.

We have a message of good news.  We have a mission to take that good news to the world.  For most of us that’s western Oklahoma, at least for folks that we see face-to-face.

And some of those people don’t like us.  Some might hate us.  Some might even get the classification of an enemy.  But our command as followers of Jesus is to love them anyway.

You see, the governing force here is not the nature of the recipient but the nature of the messenger.  We are messengers of good news and love.

The governing factor for us is love.  We carry and embody and deliver love because that is our nature.  That is the nature of the new creation that we have become and are becoming.  It’s a done deal but we are still working on it.  That’s a topic for another day.

The world’s model is if you like somebody and they like you, then you will probably get along.  You can do the tit-for-tat things.  It’s all about the other person and if you think they might be good enough for you to call friend.

Jesus tells us that it’s all about love not the nature of the people who receive our love.  We are the constant.  We are about love.

In the family of faith, love blossoms and grows and does things beyond our expectations.  The covenant community is a wonderful place to live.

In the ungodly world, love is often rejected.  Love is often repelled.  Love is not wanted.  Money, stuff, and the things of this world are always welcome, but love can just stay home if you don’t want to be treated harshly.

Jesus tells us to love them anyway.  The dynamic here is not the condition of others but of ourselves.  We are people of love.  Love governs.

And often, the reward for loving the ungodly is:

·       Being hated

·       Being cursed

·       Being mistreated

·       Disrespected

·       Condescending actions

·       Exploitation

Now in these cases, our response is…

Love.  It’s always love because that’s who we are now.  We were not always that way.

Many of us were very good at the tit-for-tat game.  We learned to navigate the one-thing-for-another world.  Our relationships were based upon what we saw as the value of others to us.

Let’s use one of Paul’s terms and call that the “old self.”

We are different now.  Love governs.  Love rules.  In the internal struggle that we sometimes face between the old and new person, love wins.

We chose love because we belong to a God who is love.

If you belong to the world and are hated, cursed, mistreated, disrespected, and exploited; then your ticket is punched.  The doctors will give you drugs.  The government will give you money.  Your ticket is punched.  You never have to deal with real life again.

That is until you find out that the drugs don’t really fix everything and your cravings for stuff have exceeded your allowance of free money.  The world is a cruel master.

But God is a God of love.  His deliverance is for now and for eternity.  We are his people.  We live in his love.  We love one another and enjoy being a part of the family of faith.

And…

We take his love to those who don’t love us, sometimes hate us, often disrespect us, and who will exploit us whenever possible; yet, we love them.

We treat them as we would want to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot.  If we were lost or blinded by the god of this age, wouldn’t we want those with eyes to see to help us even when we might be hateful towards the messengers of good news.

Wouldn’t we want them to keep coming back to try to rescue us?  Wouldn’t we want to be rescued even if we were being hateful towards our rescuers?

But the shoe is not on the other foot.  We are blessed.  We have eyes to see.  We have received the grace of our loving God.  Things are good for us.

We still have trouble in this world.  Jesus told us that we would.  We are not surprised but our hope is in Jesus and he has overcome the world and if we stick close to one another and love those in the family, then things seem to go pretty well.

So why do we have to deal with those who hate us?  I will give you the highly theological answer.  Take notes.  They will serve you well.  Why?

Because Jesus said so.

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Be like Dad.

While humankind was still loving sin, while we were rebellious towards our loving God, while people were still living an all about me life; Christ died for us.

Dad loved us when we didn’t love him.  Our Father in heaven loved us before we could muster a decent attempt to love him.  Dad loved us when humankind was not kind towards him.

Be like Dad.

Jesus did not get things backwards by starting with love your enemies.  The governing force here is love and that is the shape that the Potter is making our hearts.  How’s that for metaphor hopping.

Our hearts are being shaped like our Father’s heart.  Our hearts are becoming the heart of Love himself.  Love is who we are as this new creature that we are in Christ.

We feel a wonderful warmth when we love each other in the body of Christ.  We have a reward in the here and now.  But when we love our enemies, even if we don’t see any positive results in the here and now, God has an eternal reward for us.

Even when hate and disrespect and being cursed seem the continual response from those we love, our reward for doing exactly what Jesus told us to do is great.

Why would anyone love their enemies?

# 1  Jesus said so.

# 2  That’s just who we are.

Amen!