7th Sunday after Epiphany

Luke 6:27-38

[Jesus said:] ²⁷ “But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; ²⁸ bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ 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 asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you.
  ³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³ If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴ If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive payment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. ³⁵ Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

  ³⁷ “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; ³⁸ give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap, for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

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A Very Tall Order

Grace to you, beloved of God, and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Tough Word, tough Word, pastor, some of you would say. I hear you.

Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you. Victims stewarding trauma will likely find the last one particularly disturbing. Who can blame them? 

It continues. Allow me to paraphrase the text a bit. If someone strikes you, stand up in non-violent ways; if someone who is in need robs you, let them have more than they originally took. I have things I worked hard for robbed a couple of times. It is such a devastating feeling of violation. These are a very tall order. 

I always thought the idiom had to do with the restaurant business. I imagined a hell kitchen situation when everything is behind and you are one cook short. Then comes that huge order from the patron that you don’t want to disappoint. To my surprise, and according to ChatGPT, “a tall order” did not originate in the food hospitality industry.  The phrase “a tall order” refers to a request or task that is challenging to accomplish. Depending on our life circumstances, it can be nearly impossible, even painful, to be asked to love those who have intentionally hurt or abused us.

Our siblings of the Jewish tradition may offer some clarity on the matter. They wonder if Luke portrays a hyperbolic Jesus in the love statement here in the same way they— and a lot of us— hear hyperbole when Jesus says that those not willing to hate their entire family cannot be his disciples (Luke 14:26). Based on passages of Hebrew scripture like Prov. 24:17, which says, “Do not rejoice when your enemies fall and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble,” or Prov. 25:21, which says, “If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat; and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink,” rabbis understand that there is a divine expectation for God’s people to aid and be merciful even to their enemies if they are in need. Paul echoes that in the “Marks of the True Christian” when he instructs the disciples in Rome to provide water and food for their enemies and leave any possible vindication between them and God (12:19-20). Paul finishes those exhortations by asking Christians to conquer the evil done by their enemies by doing good (21). 

Helping and showing mercy to one’s adversaries when they would not, or in other words, taking the high road, would be a little more palatable for us mere humans. It’s still a tough pill, depending on the situation, but it’s doable. The problem is that the kind of love Jesus is using here is the same kind of love he demonstrated at the cross when praying for his assailants (23:24). Therefore, when Jesus turns to the disciples in the sermon of the plain, and after laying down the blessings and the woes, commands anyone wanting to hear to love their enemies, do good to them, bless those who cursed them, pray for those who abused them, offer the other side of their face in non-violent defiance, and not to try to recover what is robbed from them, when Jesus does that, he is asking us to act like he did when he was betrayed, tortured, and crucified. 

During text study this week, upon reflecting on these texts, we confessed that none of us were capable of such love. If we were honest with ourselves, we would always make such a confession. None of us walks willingly to the cross on behalf of anyone bound to see us removed from the face of the earth. Mental health professionals have a name for this behavior in humans; they call it Messiah Complex. No, we are not the Christ and will at least fight to defend ourselves. That is why we all dust and fall short of his glory. That is why we are about to confess for 40 days that we are bound to sin and cannot free ourselves until we celebrate the day that Jesus resurrected us from dry bones.  That is why there is only one Savior. That is why Jesus is our Lord.

However, halfway through this passage, Jesus shows us some loving kindness. First, he gives us our own standard to follow: “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (6:31). That sounds less alien and more intuitive to us. He moves on to explain why we should always strive for his kind of love and then gives us a simple recipe for practicing this love so we can perhaps get a little better at it. 

Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven: give, and it will be given to you. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful to us. That is doable. That is life-giving and not life-taking. That may even allow those who once hated one another to sit at the same table as a beloved community and celebrate Jesus’ free, sacrificial, and unconditional love for us all. Thanks be to God. Amen.