The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Luke 6:27 “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who are abusive to you. 29 Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic from him either. 30 Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. 31 Treat people the same way you want them to treat you. 32 If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil people. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. 37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.” (NASB)
How would you complete these sentences? Revenge is __________. Don’t get mad, _____________. The thinking behind those statements comes naturally to us. When someone wrongs us, the desire to get revenge is instinctive. Is there anything more gratifying than getting even? It feels good in the moment to cut some deserving someone down to size. Someone disrespects you, you disrespect them back – that’s only fair. This morning Joseph, Paul, and Jesus teach us a different way, a harder way.
Today is the Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany. It is the final Sunday of the Epiphany season. Next Sunday will be Transfiguration Sunday, followed immediately by Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. The Seventh Sunday is a good transition from the Sixth Sunday to Transfiguration. This morning’s readings shifts our focus from earthly things to the things of the world to come. We move from how things work in this world, to how they work in the kingdom of heaven.
In the Psalm 113 (our introit), for example, we praise the Lord for His grace and promises and acknowledge Him to be the God who “raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children.”
In the Old Testament, Joseph puts at ease any thought or worries that his brothers might have over what they did to him when he was just a boy and what he might do to them now as the second most powerful man in Egypt. Instead of vengeance, Joseph forgives, kisses his brothers, and weeps. Joseph didn’t dwell on the sins of his brothers. He did not continue to hold on to a grudge. Rather he sees them as a part of God’s gracious providence and plan, which enabled Joseph to care for them (Gen. 45:7–8) and save the Hebrew bloodline from which the Promised Messiah would come.
The Epistle lesson like the Psalm and the Gospel is a study in contrast, contrast between this earthly existence and bodies and our heavenly home and bodies, between our treatment in this world and the treatment we shall receive in the life of the world to come.
The glory and the things of this world are pale in comparison with the heavenly glories that is to come in the resurrection of the dead. It doesn’t matter if one or both cheeks are beaten and bruised, because in the end they will be raised with a different, heavenly glory. “It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body.”
The Gospel lesson is the second half of the Sermon on the Plain. We read the first part last week. In the first part Jesus spoke “blessings” and curses. The moral of the story is not to put our trust in the things of this world, but rather in Christ alone. Jesus gives us our status before God and men and we are to find comfort in what He has given us and given us to be.
There’s an interesting verse in Acts chapter 20, specifically verse 35. There St. Paul quotes Jesus as having said something that none of the Gospels ever recorded Him saying. Paul writes that Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
While that exact quote doesn’t appear in any of the four Gospels, all four record teachings that contain the same basic message. In this morning’s Gospel Jesus instructs us to love, to give away, to be merciful, to do good, and to turn the other cheek not just to the deserving and our friends, but to the undeserving, even our enemies. The disciples had just heard that those who are poor, hungry, sad, and hated are blessed and those who are rich, well fed, happy, and popular are under God’s judgment of woe. (Luke 6:20-26)
But they, like we are all products of our culture. They lived in a culture where an eye- for-eye, tooth-for-tooth was the rule. They based that “get even” rule on Leviticus 24:19-20. But when God had Moses write 19 “If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him,” it had to do with the ruling authorities punishing the evil doer. It was not for personal use so one person could get even for wrong suffered at hands of another person. It was for the implementation of a retributive system of justice, which is justice. The eye-for-an eye principle is for public use by public officers, not personal use by private individuals.
Jesus outlines here a different principle for dealing with enemies and those who harm us on a personal level: “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who are abusive to you. 29 Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic from him either. 30 Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back.”
Jesus is pretty clear about what He is instructing us to be and there’s a part of us that isn’t happy about it. We want to get angry and get even when people we mistreat us, take advantage of us, take our money or property and don’t do the job correctly. We like telling everyone what happened to us and how we ended up getting what we were entitled to.
Now if we are going to be clear on what Jesus is instructing us to do, a review some other considerations is called for.
1) Jesus was not saying that we cannot speak up when we are wronged. Jesus Himself did when He stood before Annas on trial. When one of the temple officials struck Him, Jesus didn’t hit him back. Jesus did say: “If I have spoken wrongly, testify of the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike Me?” (John 18:23)
2) Jesus was not saying that we cannot defend ourselves or our loved ones from harm. The 5th commandment demands that we do so. “Thou shalt not kill.” What does this mean? We should fear and love God that we may not hurt nor harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need [in every need and danger of life and body].
3) Jesus was not encouraging lawlessness. He is not denying parents, teachers, police officers, judges, and others don’t have the right to punishment evil doers as God’s representatives. Romans 13 teaches us that God has instituted such offices and we are to recognize people in authority. The very word authority indicates that people in certain offices have the power of the sword, the power to punish wrong doers.
4) Jesus was not requiring Christians to support free-loaders by our charity. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 still stands: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.” We threw away that wisdom long ago.
Jesus teaches here that personal vengeance is sinful. We are to love our enemies, even when they act like enemies. If circumstances require it, we are to love them even when they are in jail for wronging us. Sounds hard to do. As Jesus interprets and applies the law, keeping these commands is impossible.
Not even Jesus, who gives us the commands to be pure, kind, forgiving, and compassionate to all peoples, especially to those who wrong and harm us recognizes the fact that we can’t and don’t do these things.
1 John 3:15, “Everyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.” Matthew 5:28 “I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”
The kind of love that Christ commands of Christians is the kind of love Christ Jesus had for us, “…having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
I know it doesn’t look like it, but up until a few minutes ago, Victor was an enemy of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He like, all babies was born in the condition of sin. “So then, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death also spread to all people, since all sinned.” (Romans 5:12) Victor, just like the rest of us needed a love that produces perfection, a love that is even for an enemy.
The love of God in Jesus Christ was a love not merely for His friends. He loved His enemies. He did good. He didn’t lend, He gave Himself for us and for our salvation, expecting nothing in return. He made us sons of the Most High. He is kind to ungrateful and evil people. He is merciful, even when we are not. He does not judge and condemn us, rather He pardons us.
John 3:17 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.”
Jesus knows how tempting it is to simply do as the world does. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that.”
This is the way of the world. In contrast the love of Christ is for us, to us, and is to flow from us to our neighbors. There’s a saying. It is usually not said in the proper context for the right reasons. It is usually said by someone who is frustrated or angry. “For the love of God . . .” What we have here, is a different saying for the right reasons. “From the love of God.
Jesus concluded: 37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”
What does all that mean? Imagine a trick or treater showing up at the house of a grumpy old man, expecting at best candy corn and at worst a command to get off the porch. Instead, he brings out a huge bowl full of full-size (not fun-size) candy bars. He doesn’t just give the kid one, he dumps the whole bowl into the bag and when the bag is full, he says tells the kid to shake it around a little to make more room for more, then pours more in.
That’s what God has given us both materially and spiritually. Trust Paul’s words: “do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)
When vengeance is called for, God will take care of it, if not now through His representatives, then on Judgment Day. But not so for you. Ephesians 2:3-5 “We too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved).”
Amen.
May the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.