"Love you enemies"-Sermon for Epiphany 7, Luke 6:27-38
Today’s Gospel lesson continues Jesus’ discourse in Luke’s Gospel that we call the Sermon on the Plain, which Demery so wonderfully introduced to us in her sermon last Sunday. She noted that in Luke’s version of this extended teaching, Jesus actually comes down from a high place to stand, if you will, shoulder to shoulder…to stand with and alongside…his friends and followers…those gathered seeking hope, healing and direction…before he begins his teaching. Specifically, Luke tells us after coming down from the high place, he looks up and begins speaking. In my mind, he looks up into the eyes of those gathered…connecting intimately and purposefully with each and all…sort of communicating with his physical body something like…I love you and I am with you as you struggle with all I have to say, for what I am telling you is hard…hard to understand and even harder to live out. Friends…Jesus is getting real here. This is rubber meets the road sort of stuff. This teaching requires us to enter into the deep places of the heart where meaning is made…where who we actually are, as those created in the very image of love, is shaped…and not just for our own benefit, but for the very life of the world.
Thus, you could say, in this teaching, Jesus is inviting us, with him at our side, into the crucible of love that created, shaped and orders the universe…that we might be transformed into the people we were intended to be from before time and forever. For the world’s hope and healing…its remaking into something that reflects more fully God’s own love, alive and active in our world, is depending, at least in part, on us…depending on us entering with Jesus into that crucible to come out the other side something altogether new…to be and become the life-givers and love spreaders that we were each made to be. For, I believe this teaching stands at the very center of our faith, and it might be, right now, as important a time, in our lifetimes, to dig deep into it…as challenging as that may be. For, as we just heard read, Jesus says to those gathered and to each of us, “I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also…”. And, to underline the centrality and importance of this very teaching that, make no mistake, importantly defines who we are as Christ’s followers, theologian Miroslav Volf writes, “If you take the 'love your enemy' out of Christianity, you've 'unChristianed' the Christian faith.”
The day after this most recent presidential election, I was speaking and praying with friends who like me were feeling lost, confused and, honestly, scared for what the results might mean for our nation and world…especially those in it who are among the most vulnerable. And, I noted that I have a close relative who was likely feeling very differently about the results of the election than we were. I told these friends something about my relationship with this relative. How differently we see the world. How remaining in that relationship was, at times, hard. And, when I say we see the world differently…I mean really, really differently…about really important things. We have even come to verbal blows over these differences. And, I love him…we are not enemies in a traditional sense…but I hate, and that’s a hard word for me to say, some of what he believes to be true. And, when asked how I could I remain in that relationship, I found my heart quicken and a visceral response, which I couldn’t really contain, emerge from somewhere deep inside of me. And, probably too passionately, for the friends I was having this conversation with were not suggesting otherwise, I said, “I will never let him go…never…not ever…I will never let him go.”
Now, in the months following, I have had the chance to breathe and calmly reflect on what that passionate response that surprised even me, from whom it flowed, was really all about. And, the conclusion that I have come to, which, honestly, I am still working out, is that somehow our very salvation, that is being saved from the power of sin, evil and hate, is all tied up in each other…his salvation and mine. I need him, and he needs me. And, that to give up on the other is to give into hate. If we walk apart, I no longer have influence on him, and he has no longer has influence on me…and we are both diminished. For, hate is always dehumanizing. It always makes the hated something less that fully human…and God does not make people who are not fully human. And, if we walk apart, all that is left is two people, on two different teams…who simply become more deeply entrenched in their differences and then enemies can be born…sides are taken…hate rules the day…and the ultimate outcome, as history demonstrates, is violence.
And, I think Jesus is suggesting to us a different way…a better way. To like him, come down from our high places where we gather with those who reinforce the rightness and righteousness of our own opinions and beliefs to meet…to seek to connect with those who, even and maybe most especially, feel very differently than we do about really important things…to meet on a level plain…look up into each other’s eyes…stand with and alongside each other…lean into each other…and do the hard, complex work of seeking the truth together that love alone reveals…for love, not well articulated arguments, not even being right, but love alone is the only cure for hate…love is the only power strong enough to transform a human heart. Thus, again, Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” And, not only to change the hearts of those we perceive as enemies or just profoundly disagree with…but to be changed ourselves. For our desire to participate in God’s work of recreating the world in the image of love…begins in our hearts. Thus, Jesus is suggesting that for love to reign supreme, to the mutual benefit of all of God’s people, the work begins with ourselves...love conquering hate in us.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., writes, “There's another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates…. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That's what hate does.” Jesus commands us to love our enemies because in doing so we are freed from ruin and injury that hate would like to wreak on our own hearts…such that love might literally save us. And, freed from hate, we find within ourselves the spiritual power, like Dr. King, to participate in the healing and salvation of those we love, enemies and neighbors alike…all those we meet on the plain, all those eyes we look into, all those we stand with. And, then, hope for real transformation…for resurrection…springs afresh…yes…for them…but also for us.
And, it is important to say here that love does not mean capitulation to sin, evil and hate…by no means. In fact, love often requires setting boundaries for unhealthy people, love often demands hard conversations, love often requires risking speaking hard truths…even to those whose powers we are ourselves subject to, especially, on behalf of those even more vulnerable than we. Thus, love is not weak but requires courage. It does not ask us to “go along, to get along” or always require us to hold our tongue…sometimes quite the opposite. But, love does ask us to speak the truth we have come to know and believe in…in love, and it does ask us to stay on the plain and not quickly retreat to our high places. And, though we cannot control the decisions of other, love always asks us to never give up on each other…never walk away from each other. Love dares us to hope all things, believe all things, including, believing that love always wins. Friends…hates defeat has already been inaugurated in cross and empty tomb. And, we must remember that the one we may call an enemy, or just strongly disagree with, is worthy of our love and empathy…for they too are God’s own beloved. As Dr. King also says, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” A sort of perfect love, beyond sadness, anger and resentment, poured out into this world and into our lives in Jesus, who stands with us, even now, as we work out our salvation together with those we love, enemies and neighbors alike, on the messy, complicated and hopeful, God-made, plain…that is life on this side of glory.
I have spent a lot of time recently with that relative that I mentioned earlier, as we have together cared for my father in his illness over the past couple of months. I have watched him love and care for my father with sweet determination and affection. And, he has seen me do the same. Our deep disagreements remain…and those disagreements continue to be about really important things…but they feel less urgent, as we share a common love for this family member we both share and are caring for together. So, for now, we are very much on the plain…standing shoulder to shoulder…sharing mutual love and concern for my father and for each other. He’s holding on to me…and I on to him. I love him and am grateful that he is a part of my life. I feel stronger knowing we are sharing this burden with each other. And, I really believe God is working out our salvation in important ways…growing each of us in important ways…in the relationship we share. This relationship may be a little thing in this sorely divided world, but I am finding in it glimmers of hope, stars twinkling in the darkness of night…pointing to the promise that choosing to remain connected matters…that love casts out hate…and love will be the end of all things…from forever to forever…through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.