Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] February 20, 2022 “Love, Bless, and Pray” Luke 6: 27-38 – Common English Bible “But I say to you who are willing to hear: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. 28 Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other one as well. If someone takes your coat, don’t withhold your shirt either. 30 Give to everyone who asks and don’t demand your things back from those who take them. 31 Treat people in the same way that you want them to treat you. 32 “If you love those who love you, why should you be commended? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, why should you be commended? Even sinners do that. 34 If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, why should you be commended? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be paid back in full. 35 Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return. If you do, you will have a great reward. You will be acting the way children of the Most High act, for God is kind to ungrateful and wicked people. 36 Be compassionate just as God is compassionate. 37 “Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good portion—packed down, firmly shaken, and overflowing—will fall into your lap. The portion you give will determine the portion you receive in return.” This scripture text from the Gospel of Luke is a continuation of last week’s Sermon on the Plain. To recap: crowds of desperate people pressed in on Jesus seeking healing. With his eyes overflowing with compassion and his heart filled with love, Jesus pronounced blessing on the poor. Not the “poor in spirit,” like in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount focused on the teachings of Jesus. Luke focuses on the actions of Jesus who stands on level ground among people who are literally poor, hungry and weeping. And he calls them blessed. But then, as he looked over at the powerful observing him, he lamented, and pronounced woe to those who are rich and well fed and laughing. A reversal of fortune. Jesus invited them and invites us all to imagine and aspire to a new world called the Kingdom of God. This Sermon on the Plain then immediately continues with these words, “But I say to you that listen:” love your enemies, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you. Do good to those who hate you. And then he offers three practical, although not easy, actions: If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other as well. If someone takes your coat, give them your shirt too. Give to everyone who asks and don’t demand your things back from those who take them. Why? They sounds like instructions for how to be a doormat. But Jesus didn’t say, “Just take it.” He provided very concrete examples of the reversal of fortune for the poor and rich. And some ways how to do it. People understandably don’t like the idea of turning the other cheek, but what Jesus is saying is more complex than that. If someone slaps you, they are intending to humiliate you, not do you bodily harm. Therefore, if you turn your cheek, it means you refuse to be humiliated. The “victim” takes control of the situation and dares the offender to do it again – a humbling reversal of fortune in front of other people watching. Therefore, Jesus said, If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other as well. A reversal of fortune in the upside-down world made up-side right Kingdom of God. If someone takes your coat… Perhaps it’s a robbery. More likely it’s a Roman solider commandeering your property, which Rome permitted them to do. Poor people would often only have one undergarment and a cloak, meaning, if you took off both, you would be standing in front of the perpetrator naked. In the ancient world, standing in front of someone naked does not humiliate the naked person but the person who sees. It says to the robber or the soldier, I refuse to be a victim. Therefore, Jesus said, If someone takes your coat, give them your shirt too. Being a beggar must be an embarrassing experience, but in Jesus’ time it was simply necessary. Jesus eliminates the need to beg by giving to everyone who asks. And without expectation that it should be paid back. Sinners do that. No longer will the poor live in constant fear of debt. And, no longer will the rich feel superior. Therefore, Jesus said, Give to everyone who asks and don’t demand your things back from those who take them. Jesus further discusses this related to lending and debt. When it comes to the poor, Luke is very practical. Interestingly, Matthew doesn’t mention this part about lending or debt. Many of these instructions are very similar to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount in which each section begins by Jesus saying, “You have often heard it has been said.” For example, in Matthew, in parallel to the verses in Luke, Jesus said, “You have heard it has been said an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I say turn the other cheek, go a second mile, give your shirt as well as your cloak.” It’s subverts the power. The second mile specifically refers to soldiers who were permitted to force peasants to carry their packs for a mile. But they were restricted to only one mile. If the peasant carried it further, it subjected the soldier to punishment. According to Walter Wink, Jesus was teaching non-violence, not excusing abuse. Again, Jesus doesn’t counsel “just take it.” It’s a method for living under Roman occupation or Jim Crow laws in the South. Jesus takes the power away from the oppressor and articulates examples of living in a violent world without violence. Julio Diaz was walking off the train on a nearly deserted platform one evening when a teenage boy walked up to him and pulled a knife. Diaz said, “He wanted my money, so I just gave him my wallet and said, ‘Here you go.” As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be out here robbing people all night, you might as well take my coat to keep warm.” The teen looked at Diaz like he was crazy, but asked, “Why are you doing this?” “If you’re willing to risk going to jail for just a few dollars, then I guess you really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get some dinner. Hey, why don’t you join me? You’re more than welcome.” So they went to a diner and sat in a booth. The manager came by to say hi. The dishwashers walked past and called him by name. Waiters stopped to chat like they were friends. The teen asked, “Do you own this place? Why does everyone know you?” “I just try to treat everyone the way I’d like to be treated. Weren’t you taught to do that too?” The teen replied, “Yea, but I didn’t think anyone actually did it.” When the bill came, Diaz told the teen, “Look I guess you’re going to have to pay because you have all my money and I can’t pay for this. But if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.” Diaz said the teen didn’t even think about it. He just handed it over and I gave him $20. I hope it helps him. “Then I asked him for his knife and he just handed it over.” Jesus consistently taught that the reversal of fortune does not come about through violence, even though he himself was a victim of violence. He didn’t want this in return from his followers. And yet, Gandhi once said, "Everyone in the world knows that Jesus and His teachings are [about] non-violence. Everyone knows, except for Christians." As we honor Black History Month, we remember that civil rights activists were not excusing abuse. They were illustrating the absurdity of it. It takes greater creativity, skill, and strength of character not to meet violence with violence. Otherwise, an eye for an eye for an eye just leaves a lot of people walking around blind. Jesus taught another way – some creative methods to love your enemies without hating yourself, to bless those who curse you without letting their hate sink in. As Dr. King said, hate is too great a burden to bear. And to pray for those who mistreat you by subverting their abuse back on to them. Jesus said, you will be acting like children of the Most High act. “Because God is kind to ungrateful and wicked people.” I almost didn’t notice that line, but it especially caught my attention because we just read Psalm 37. “Evildoers will be eliminated. In just a little while the wicked won’t exist.” I don’t like those verses so I just sort of skip over them. So I went back again, “For God is kind to ungrateful and wicked people.” I wondered if other translations said it that clearly. We’ve seen many instances where a single word is translated in multiple, even contradictory, ways. The New Revised Standard Version says, “For God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” Traditionalists will consult the King James: “For God is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.” Evangelicals often the use the New International Version: “Because God is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” I looked at that verse in a list of about 60 translations and there was almost unanimous agreement that God is kind to people who are wicked or evil. I was glad to see that, and yet the Bible, in particular the Psalms, and especially the author of Psalm 77, say the opposite very clearly. 11 God is a righteous judge, a God who is angry at evil every single day. 12 If someone doesn’t change their ways, God will sharpen his sword, will bend his bow, will string an arrow. 13 God has deadly weapons in store. And for those who won’t change, he gets his flaming arrows ready! I googled “Does God hate wicked people?” To which Google offered 107 million results. Here’s one the top result: “Clearly, God hates the thoughts, deeds, and desires of evil people. But further, in some way he hates the evil people themselves. His soul reacts to them with righteous revulsion as his arm extends toward them in holy fury.” In an article entitled God Hates Wicked People, the author explained why: “God created humanity to be perfect and sinless, to live in joyful submission to him, to offer him pure worship.” Of course, I don’t agree with him. In fact, I find it revolting. And I was grateful that when I googled “Is God kind,” Google offered 1.2 billion results. Why, then, does it sometimes feel like there’s an almost cultural assumption that though God may be kind, God is only kind to certain kinds of people? I’m grateful Jesus made it so clear. “You have heard it has been said…” but Jesus just said, God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. I won’t get into who that may or may not be. These verses today are so rich and complex, I could keep going on. But I do want to offer one more of those subtle but significant contrasts between Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and Luke’s Sermon on the Plain. With Jesus teaching from a mountain, Matthew ends, “Be perfect as God is perfect,” as in righteous. At the end of the Luke’s Sermon, as he stood on level ground surrounded by hurting people, Jesus said, “Be compassionate just as your God is compassionate.” I find the difference absolutely fascinating. And for another day. Fascinating or not, Luke’s compassionate Jesus boils it down to this: I say to you, “don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” How is that about compassion? We don’t know what’s going on in the life of the person in front of us. Instead of assuming motivations, we have to listen first. And so we pray, make me a channel of your peace.
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