Epiphany 7

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Epiphany 7
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: February 18,2001


TEXT: Luke 6:27-38 – But 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 is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

ISSUE: This passage is a daring call to love of enemies, and a call to courageous stand for non-violence and human dignity. It is another radical reversal teaching. The passage is often seen a passive philosophy, and as wimpish. Preacher and interpreters of the passage may be inclined to soft-pedal the passage into doing the best you can in the face of Jesus’ non-aggressive teaching. People will say that you can’t do this in the world we live in today, but without radical change, the violence, vengeance, and aggressive handling of personal and world problems persist. The passage calls for the disciples to be children of the Most High, Sons and Daughters of God, and to find ways out of vicious cycles.
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The scripture readings from the Hebrew Scripture this morning, and the Christian Scripture from Luke are two very powerful and beautiful readings. It is interesting how the two build on one another. The Joseph Story is one of great forgiveness on the part of Joseph toward his brothers. Joseph had been sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. In the course of considerable good fortune and his ability to interpret dreams of the Pharaoh, Joseph had become the Prime Minister of Egypt. During the time of great famine, his brothers, unaware of Joseph’s good fortune, come to Egypt seeking food. Joseph eventually reveals his identity to his brothers who fear him, because of his power over them, and his right to take revenge, are startled and relieved by Joseph’s forgiveness. Out of that forgiveness, his family and the Hebrew Nation find food and consolation in Egypt. In a world of eye for an eye, and tooth for tooth, of taking revenge, it is a beautiful story of forgiveness and renewal, at least within family.
In the reading from Luke’s gospel, Jesus expands the whole concept of forgiveness from within family into a love and forgiveness in a much broader sense. Love your enemies. Give to everyone who begs from you. Love sinners. Become the children of the Most High, or sons and daughters of God. The concept here is broadening, but also quite radical in terms of the way in which it reverses the common way of thinking. It is radical and carries a punch with it.
The teaching of Jesus was, indeed, radical for its time. In Jesus’ culture a person’s honor was of great importance. If someone offended you or injured you, you were shamed. It was expected that you would redeem your honor and status by taking revenge, or avenging the dishonor to you. Yet, Jesus is teaching a new kind of honor, the new and divine honor of being a strong person, resisting the way of the world to become a forgiving person.
The concept of forgiveness is heightened even more when Jesus dares to say, if someone strikes you on the cheek, in response, dare to turn the other cheek as well. There is an interesting background to this matter of turning the other cheek. A master would slap a slave with the back of his hand with the knuckles. You slapped a person of equal rank with the palm of your hand. Notice the imagery here. If an oppressor, enemy, slaps you with the back of his hand, then turn the other cheek, which forces him to slap you with the palm of his hand. You therefore declare your courageous stand as an equal, and as a person of courageous non-violence. Such action is creating a new honor, a new way of being that begins to break, crack open, the old cycle of revenge and gives birth to a new form of honor. You dare to state your equality as a child of God in an oppressive world. There is nothing wimpish about that courageous stance. Remember the stance of Jesus on the cross, and the centurion who says, “Truly, this man is a Son of God. It is the silent non-whimpering, non-complaining, non-resistant Christ who is deemed with the greatest honor of being a Son of the Most High.
The teaching continues with the statement that, if a man takes away you coat give him your shirt as well. Understand what this meant in Jesus’ time. Most people only had one coat. Most had only one shirt. If someone took your coat, and you gave them your shirt as well, you had nothing left. You stood stark naked! You were humiliated and experienced a near ultimate shame. You were dishonored. A significant part of the great shame of Jesus on the cross was his being stripped naked.
Now says Jesus, give to everyone who begs from you. There were many beggars in Jesus time, and if anyone takes away your goods, never ask for them back. This statement is a prescription for ultimate poverty and starvation. Isn’t it? In this time, a man was expected to respond to the generosity of family and friends by returning favors. If you loaned money, an honorable person was supposed to pay it back. If someone invited you to dinner, you were expected to invite him back for dinner. It was an honorable system of balanced reciprocity. The only time you did not expect a return was when you extended hospitality to a traveling stranger. Thus, Jesus is saying treat everyone as strangers, giving complete and full hospitality to all, and never expect or demand anything in return. It is easy to love your own, and people who are like you. Even sinners do that! What’s new or different in that? “I tell you to Love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return.” You are to be sons and daughters of God, of the Most High, un-condemned and forgiven. This was and still is radical teaching.
Again notice the images: A beaten, naked, starving emaciated figure stands before the world. Sounds an awful lot like Jesus on the cross doesn’t it? A beaten, naked, starving emaciated figure before the world of violence, greed, and brutality. And, unless we die to the ways of this world there will not be a change, a resurrection, and a new hope. To die to this way of life is to begin the journey into the Kingdom of God where people are equal, free, loved, and forgiven.
To love your enemies, to turn the other cheek, (walk the extra mile, Matthew), to lend and give to everyone in need, are not laws. They are not something we take in a literal sense. But we cannot escape the fact that they are daring, radical, and demanding and we have to embrace them. Abusive spouses, child molesters, drunk drivers, drug dealers, terrorists, and murders are not to be pampered, and must be dealt with in appropriate ways in a civilized society, and also in what is a fallen society. The people of Jesus time must have been as astonished and taken back by these radical teachings as we are today. They were obviously food for thought, reflection, and challenge in a fallen world and in a culture bent on greed, success at all costs, viciousness, revenge, and hatred. They still are a challenge to the world today.
Right now, many millions of people in this land are very taken with the popular TV show, “Survivor.” It’s a kind of game show promising one million dollars to the one person who survives by successfully voting everyone else out of his or her life. What’s being conveyed here? What’s about this phenomenon has captured the American imagination that is so wonderful about this program? It stands in complete opposition to the ways and teachings of Jesus Christ. Destroy the competition, and serve your own ends at all costs. The media of our culture along with many many advertisers promotes its continuation and a vicarious participation of a nation longing to hail the winner.
Consider the situation in the Middle East where there is a constant terrorist acts. This society is one in which the honor of the country (Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) is based on revenge and retaliation. Every violent act is met by another violent act in return. How can peace come without an end to the violence? To change the situation, someone has to begin to love his enemy, and take the risks of dying to self and changing what is honorable.
On the American scene we have a number of issues to deal with. Do we really need as a supposedly peace loving nation to continue building missile defense systems at the cost of billions of tax dollars when our schools and educational system is in shambles? There are enormous humanitarian needs around the world that need attention, love, care, mercy, concern. What really makes a nation great? It’s military power or its generosity toward human need and suffering. We must always live with the tensions of our need for defense and our need to be the agents of genuine peaceful change and sensitivity to world need. The gospel, we claim to embrace, is clear. It is only when we die to ourselves that we truly live.
How can a nation that claims to be peace loving, civilized nation, and opposed to violence continue to perpetuate the death penalty? It is seen as a punishment that deters violent crime. I wonder when that start working. Can we use extreme punishments of death to convey a new way of life that is intended to hold up the values of renewal and hope, and conveys a nation that is ‘under God?’
There have been some great men of courage in our time, who even gave their lives. We’ve seen through the work of such truly great men as Ghandi of India, as Martin Luther King here in the States, and Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa change the politics and racism of their respective countries. Human hearts were also greatly changed through their non-violent activities. People did die in all of their movements, but with the result that so many more people lived more full and complete lives as equal dignified human beings.
We live as Christians with the tensions of a world culture and the ways we have learned with the dramatic and radical imposition of the Gospel to be a people of genuine love, who give, care, and sacrifice, who will die to the world that we may more fully and truly live. The Gospel does not call us to be wimps, or to be fools. It does dare to challenge our falleness, and to be constant in our yearning to learn to love appropriately and be the people who serve a loving God.