Epiphany 7C
February 23, 2025
Luke 6:27-38
INTRODUCTION
If you thought last week’s readings were difficult, get ready: today’s are even tougher. As a reminder of where we left off, Jesus is still giving his sermon on a level place. He’s just finished all those blessings and woes that made us squirm last week, and now, he goes on to offer some of the most well-known and most difficult teachings in the Bible: hold onto your hats!
Our first reading is a part of the stunning conclusion of the Joseph Story. Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob, and despised by his brothers, who sold him into slavery and told their father he was dead. He was brought to Egypt, and a wild and at times traumatic turn of events has landed him in a position second only to the Pharaoh himself! Joseph, you see, was able to interpret the Pharaoh’s dreams, and anticipate and prepare for a seven-year famine across the land. When Joseph’s brothers show up at his doorstep, asking for help enduring the famine, he recognizes them, but they don’t recognize him. He has a little fun at their expense, but eventually he reveals his identity. And that’s the part we will hear today.
These lessons may be well-known, but they are not easy! There will surely be something in today’s readings that really leaves a pit in your stomach. Let it, my friends. That is the Spirit trying to tell you something. Listen to those urgings of the Spirit. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Well, if you thought the part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Level Place that we heard last week was difficult, this week, it gets even more so, as Jesus describes what life looks like when we take the previous blessings and woes seriously, when we really do strive to level the playing field and love the way God loves. In this sermon, Jesus urges us to do things that go against our sensibilities and our self-protecting tendencies, even things that may offend us: love your enemies, pray for those who abuse you, turn the other cheek, be merciful, don’t judge lest ye be judged, forgive, and of course the rule so important that every major religion has a version of it, so valuable that we call it “golden” – do unto others as you would have them do until you.
I am finding these instructions in faithfulness especially difficult to follow these days, and I know I’m not alone, because many of you and others in my life have openly expressed this difficulty! It seems impossible to be merciful and forgiving, to refrain from judgment, to pray for those who want to hurt us – and let alone to love all these people – when we are feeling angry, frustrated, or discouraged, when our concerns are belittled, when we, or our faith or values are attacked. How can we love someone whose beliefs, words or actions are actively causing harm to us, or to people we care about? How can we love our enemies?
These are important questions, worth spending some time on. So, let’s start with understanding a couple of key terms: love, and enemies.
First, enemies – what qualifies as an enemy? Theologically speaking, “the Enemy” is Sin, or, the sinful human condition, which causes us to turn away from God and act in ways that bring about brokenness in our relationships with God and others, rather than the healing and wholeness God desires. With that in mind, someone might be seen as an “enemy” if something about our experience with or perception of that person stands in the way of us living out the gospel, living in the way God calls us to live. Let me say that again: someone might be seen as an “enemy” if something about our experience with or perception of that person keeps us from living in the way God calls us to live.
Now, that can look a lot of different ways. An enemy may simply bring out the worst in you, so you find your thoughts less charitable, and even vindictive. They might push your buttons in ways that make you lash out in anger, causing harm not only to your relationship with that person, but with others, too. An enemy might cause you to feel hopeless and despairing, losing sight of your faith in a loving God who always wins. An enemy might not care one bit about you, or even know you exist, yet they have a power over your heart and your life that makes it difficult to practice more loving, gospel-like behaviors – like compassion, or empathy, or simply sitting with another in their pain and listening, or even seeking forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation.
Can you think of people who have that effect on you?
Much as I hate to admit it, I sure can!
These are the people Jesus wants us to try to love, to treat with the compassion we’d want to be treated with, and yes, even, to forgive. These are the interactions Jesus wants us to rise above, so that we do not get derailed in our efforts to live out the gospel of love, life, mercy, forgiveness, grace, and reconciliation – even with people with whom we’d rather not have to interact at all.
Now, to be clear, none of this means that we condone evil behavior. That’s a common misconception about love, forgiveness and compassion: that loving, or forgiving someone, or seeking to understand why they are behaving the way they are, are akin to excusing or accepting their behavior. It is not. Remember, the goal here is to live a God-centered, gospel-driven life, and that life requires action, especially action that serves the poor. Plus, Jesus’ whole thing is to defeat sin and death, not to tell us to accept sin as our inconvertible reality. So, to that end, let’s move on to define what Jesus does mean here by love, in respect to our enemies.
The first tip comes from the topography I mentioned last week – you remember where Jesus is preaching this sermon? Luke tells us that Jesus is on “a level place,” on the same level as the poor, the hungry, the weeping. Let’s go ahead and assume that the enemy, whoever that is for us, is also on that same level place. So, the first step toward loving our enemy is this: to see them on a level place, no higher and no lower than we are. Because here is something that is true for every single human that ever lived: we are all sinners in need of God’s grace. We all have good in us, and, we all have the capacity for evil. We all have logs in our own eyes. And remembering that is true about not only our enemy, but also ourselves, and, committing to a bit of self-examination and repentance, puts us in a posture of humility that is essential if we have any hope of loving authentically. So step one: approach others with humility.
The second tip comes from a wonderful little Lutheran resource, The Small Catechism, and specifically Luther’s explanation of the 8th commandment, “you shall not bear false witness.” Luther explains that not only should we avoid lying about our neighbor (even our enemy), but also, “We are to come to our neighbor’s defense, speak well of them, and [now this is the kicker] interpret everything they do in the best possible light.” In other words, rather than presupposing malice or selfishness in their words or actions, presuppose the best intentions. Assume they are doing the best they can given their circumstances and knowledge. Assume that if they are acting hurtfully, they are probably doing so because they are, themselves, hurting. Seeing our enemy through these eyes assures that we don’t vilify them, but continue to see them as fellow human being – broken people, just like all of us. So step two: assume best intentions.
The next tip is where it gets tricky (I know, it already was tricky!). So far, we’ve only done self-reflection. But there is also an active, outward-facing part of love. So first, we can, as Jesus suggests, pray for our enemies – not pray that an anvil would fall on their head like the evil looney toon we think they are. But pray for them to know God’s presence in their lives, that God would guide their ways so they would be pleasing to God. I know, sometimes such prayer feels like, “What’s the point? They’re not gonna change,” but I can tell you – while I believe in the power of prayer to change the world, often the change that happens is more in you than it is in them. When you pray for someone (for, not against!), you can’t help but find your heart softened toward them. It does make it easier to view and to treat them with love.
But, I also think there is room for correction within this love imperative. As I said before, I do not think loving or forgiving someone means you roll over and let them continue in their evil ways. The prophets frequently corrected people’s behavior, as did Jesus himself. In fact, just before this passage, he issued a series of “woes” – a sort of warning, to turn away from evil ways: ways that are harmful to God’s children, and in particular, to God’s most vulnerable children; away from ways that allow the oppressor to continue to dominate; ways that prevent people from walking in the ways of righteousness. This is the part of loving enemies that must be done with the most care, for when we are too passionate in our rebuke, it can be anything but loving (and will not be heard); and if we are too docile, it lacks the necessary impact to move people toward a change. So how do we split the difference?
This is why we must start with all that inner work I talked about a moment ago. We must approach this action with humility, and the knowledge that we are on a level place, each playing host to plenty of both logs and specks in our own eyes. We are all sinners in need of grace. We must assume the best intentions of the other, striving to understand with compassion and empathy why they might be behaving the way they are. And we must pray – for them, and also for ourselves, since our broken human ways can be our own worst enemy at times! Pray, so that whatever words or actions we exchange, they are infused with God’s gracious guidance.
This is such hard work, friends, loving our enemies, and it cannot be done on our own. But with God’s help, this is the sort of love that changes the world. Jesus is right – it is easy to love the people who love you. It’s easy to love people who think and believe like you do. It is easy to be kind to people who are kind to you. But being a disciple of Christ requires more. Being a disciple of Christ means that you do what is needed to bring healing to the brokenness of the world, and love into the hatred, and light into the darkness – not just because it’s a nice thing to do, but because that is what Christ did. Being a disciple of Christ means figuring out how to cultivate life where death threatens to win, because that’s what Christ did. Being a disciple of Jesus means loving our enemies, and doing unto others as we already had Jesus do unto us. That is what will heal the world.
It is a daily discipline. Loving our enemies must be practiced in the most mundane interactions at Wegmans or online, and when we’re hearing the news, and in our relationships at work, and in our families, and in our churches. It is a practice, and one at which we have failed and we will continue to fail. Yet for all the times we fall short, God never does. As many times as we assume the worst in our neighbor, and fail to love them, we still come here each week with hands outstretched, asking for forgiveness, and being given a morsel of bread with those words, “My body broken, and given for you.” My grace, given for you – to heal your own brokenness, so that you, too, might go forth to love and heal the world.
Let us pray… Loving God, you showed us how to love our enemies by your son, who forgave his accusers and adversaries right from the very cross on which he died. Give us the insight we need to engage with our enemies, so that we might be compelled not toward hatred, but toward compassion. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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