"Love Beyond Expectation"

Luke 6:27-36 Feb.15/04

"Doing what comes naturally" -- or Grace?

A reporter was interviewing an old man on his 100th birthday. He asked, "What are you most proud of?" The man pondered the question a minute then replied, "Well, I don't have an enemy in the world." The reporter remarked, "That's wonderful!" "Yep," added the centenarian, "I've outlived every last one of 'em."

        Today's gospel reading tells us it is possible to have a better attitude toward our foes than just be trying to outlive them. Jesus helps us to actually love1 our enemies. He helps us rise above the eye-for-eye rivalry and self-protective guardedness of this fallen world. His Spirit moves us to give to those who would take from us, and thus show them the grace of our loving Heavenly Father.

        It's not natural to love our enemies. It's more like our human nature to want to beat them or outlast them like the 100-year-old man, to get "one up" on them. In relationships, what comes naturally is to respond to others based on how they treat us; to reciprocate, to pay people back for the good or ill they do to us. It's easy to be nice to those who treat us kindly. But it likewise seems inbred in our flesh to want to "get even" with those who treat us badly, or even make them suffer worse. News headlines have many examples of stories of conflict and revenge. Suicide bombers kill dozens. Israelis and Palestinians carefully plan retaliation raids when their own people die. Here in Ontario, unions and the provincial government rack up the rhetoric when the government considers imposing wage restraints to deal with a large debt. Such management/labour systems are designed to be adversarial, each side is reluctant to be perceived as backing down in its demands in the least way.

        In the Old Testament, the so-called "law of retaliation" which said "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" goes right back to Exodus 21(24) when God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. It was meant to be a limit on the taking of revenge, so it didn't escalate and cause ever more damage. But over the centuries it became a rationalization for the taking of revenge, justifying you to "pay back" someone for the injury they caused you.

        But in Luke 6:32-34 Jesus questions just "doing what comes naturally" -- in the realm of affection ("if you love those who love you"), the realm of actions ("if you do good to those who are good to you"), and the realm of finances ("if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment"). Our natural self tends to be cautious, guarded, self-protective, exercising a strict reciprocity: only daring to deal with those we know we can trust to pay us back equally based on previous experience. Our fallen nature develops a habit of protecting ourselves from hurt by responding to others based on their treatment of us -- or our expectations of those who are known, which are usually low.

        This may work well in the kingdom of common sense, but it doesn't win any approval in God's Kingdom. Three times Jesus asks, if you do that, "What credit is that to you?" and then a phrase like, "Even 'sinners' do that."

        The word "credit" in the Greek is charis, literally, GRACE; "what Grace is there in that?" Grace, you may recall, is the key feature distinguishing Christianity from other religions. Man-made religion is based on works, earning our way to Godhood if that were possible; while Christianity is about the grace of Christ, a free gift to those who put their trust in Him and receive His work already done for our forgiveness. The Oxford dictionary describes grace as "unconstrained goodwill" related to a concession "that cannot be claimed as right"; "unmerited favour"; as a "boon", that is a favour, gift, blessing, advantage. Grace is something we have no right to; God just delights to confer His favour and mercy on us on the basis of His own nature and choice. In Colossians 1(21-22), Paul sums up the gospel this way: "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation..." That's grace, the Father reconnecting us to Himself through Jesus' sacrifice at the cross. God's love overcame the adversarial, enemy relationship.

        It is very unnatural for enemies to show forgiveness and grace. The overcoming of Apartheid may be one example of this. Nelson Mandela said of the year 1993, "It was very repugnant [note his word - repugnant, contrary to nature] to think that we could sit down and talk with those people [the Afrikaners], but we had to subject the plan to our brains and to say, 'Without these enemies of ours, we can never bring about a peaceful transformation of this country.' And that is what we did. The reason why the world has opened its arms to South Africa is because we are able to sit down with our enemies and say let us stop slaughtering one another. Let's talk peace." There's grace, an absorbing of the cost, a refusal to seek revenge, a swallowing of pride and "rights" for the sake of reconciliation.

God's Nature Becomes Us

Jesus' approach to relationships doesn't start with our experience of fallen human nature, but with faith's vision of God's grace. The last halves of vv 35-36 say the Most High "is kind to the ungrateful and wicked", the Father "is merciful". How we respond starts not with what's done to us, but with God's character from eternity, and how He has been gracious towards us before we were ever born.

        1Peter 3(8-18) is a good companion passage to read along with Luke 6. In vv17-18 Peter implies that our ability to respond to evil with good is empowered by Christ's giving of Himself most unfairly so we might be saved: "It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God." Note the "fors" - on our behalf, in our place. God's kindness and mercy were shown in a most uneven exchange.

        God's nature is quite foreign to our fallen human nature, it seems "un-natural". But the Bible tells us we take on God's nature (and Jesus' likeness) the more we imitate Him, put our hope in Him rather than ordinary human expectations. Look at the first part of Lk.6:35: "But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High..." The New Testament does talk about receiving a reward on the Day of Judgment, when fire tests the quality of our work and wood or straw is distinguished from gold or silver grade (1Cor.3:12-14). But Jesus has his sights on more than just reward in substance; He says, "You will be sons [and daughters] of the Most High..." The real prize is coming to share God's nature, being "a chip off the old block".

        The Father's nature BECOMES us, it suits us, is appealing when others detect God's kindness and mercy in us. Christian growth is more about BEing than GETting. 2Peter 1(3f) say that our of God's own glory and goodness He has given us His promises, through which we become "partakers of the divine nature". Un-natural to this world's ways of doing things. 1John 3(1-3) says, "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! [then speaking of the future]...Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he [Jesus] appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure." Amazing! Because our expectations are no longer tied up with how to "stay on top" of rivals in this life, we're freed to expect Jesus' character to become more and more apparent in our lives. JUST AS He is pure, the Refiner's Fire (the Holy Spirit) helps us purify ourselves.

        God's chief goal for us is not happiness in this life. His purpose for us is described in Romans 8(28f) in these words: that we might "be conformed to the likeness of His Son". That's the goal - not just heaven, not streets of gold; but having the Lord's golden qualities in me. And that's usually developed through trials and testing. AW Tozer observed, "Everything in the universe is good to the degree that it conforms to the nature of God and evil as it fails to do so." Goodness, then, means coming to share God's nature. And responding based on that, whatever the circumstances.

        There's the story of a holy man who, while meditating in the countryside, noticed a scorpion struggling to get out of the swirling water of a rapid brook. Its efforts to climb onto a rock were futile, for the water was too strong. The holy man, taking pity on the creature, tried to help it, but the scorpion kept striking back at him. A friend, passing by, said to the holy man, "Don't you realize that it is the nature of a scorpion to attack and sting?" "Yes," said the holy man, "but it is my nature to save and rescue. Why should I change my nature just because the scorpion doesn't change his?"

Messing Up the Revenge Spiral

Now that you've got the big picture, let's switch back to vv27-30 that sound so impossible and impractical at first glance. Jesus suggests spiritual victory is possible when we're victimized -- when we have enemies, are hated, cursed, mistreated, struck, robbed, or solicited. Our natural human reaction is to get even or retaliate, to "get back" at the person and repay them in similar fashion; to "do as done to". But this blinkered view of revenge presupposes it's a closed system, leaving God and eternal justice out of the picture. Paul on the other hand urges in Romans 12(17,19,21) that we don't repay "evil for evil"; "Do not take revenge," he says, "but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord...Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

        Trusting God to settle matters finally makes room for us to show His unnatural kindness in the interim. As Jesus says, to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, pray for those who mistreat us, to give to everyone who asks us, and not demand back what someone takes that belongs to us.

        Jesus wasn't being idealistic or theoretical; He really meant His followers to practice this. For it's the only way to derail the all-too-familiar revenge locomotive. Peter's still preaching it later in the first century, when the context shows opponents of Christians were "speaking maliciously" of their good behaviour (1Pet.3:16, same verb as "mistreat" in Lk.6:28). The apostle writes (1Pet.3:8f), "Love as brothers...Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing." Echoes what the Master said: the path to blessing, reward, and identification with God is to love even our enemies and do good regardless of what harm they've done to us.

        One of the strongholds Christian marriage counsellor John Regier addresses is what he calls an "evil for evil relationship". For example, a husband makes some sarcastic remark to a wife. She's hurt, so moves to protect herself by attacking back with a sharp comment. And on and on it goes. To stop the conflict, Regier says we need to stop being defensive and justifying of our own actions, quit the accusations and instead move to care for the other person's pain. Genuinely ask them to tell some more about what's making them upset. This "messes up" (as he puts it) their feelings of rejection, and instead of lashing out they feel safe to actually open up. The conflict abruptly stops because there's suddenly no one to retaliate. Soon you have two hearts really listening to each other and caring about each other's hurts.

Grace Rebounding

The Golden Rule is commanded in v31, "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, and Rabbi Hillel all expressed a similar idea, but in the negative sense - "Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you." Jesus made it positive: do as you WOULD HAVE them do to you - start from your vision, God's hope for them, rather than from the humanly "natural" expectation of the worst. Not reacting guardedly or vengefully based on fallen expectations, but pro-actively living the vision of God's kindness, as Jesus really lived the Golden Rule. Discipleship involves living today as already belonging to God's Kingdom, empowered by the Crucified and Resurrected One to repay evil with blessing, for we're called to do that, and have already experienced God's blessing of grace. When we live grace, miracles can happen, things that are humanly un-natural.

        William Willimon recalls a seminary student of his who told of his visit home for the Christmas holidays. His father was a minister of a parish in the inner city, who lived in that neighbourhood and spent every day wrestling with the problems of poverty, unemployment, hunger, and inadequate housing. One cold afternoon, the student and his father went for a walk through the sad streets and across the weed-infested local park. The park lacked the cultivated care and shiny play equipment of parks in the tonier areas of town. Father and son talked about the mission of the church and the challenge of living out one's faith in such harsh circumstances. As they neared the end of their walk, they realized that they were hungry, and decided to stop at a pay phone and order a pizza, which would be delivered by the time they returned to the house. As they headed to the phone, a homeless man approached them and asked, "Spare change?"

        The father reached into his pockets and pulled out two handfuls of coins, held them out to the street person and said, "Here.Take what you need." The astonished man looked at all those coins and replied, "Well, I'll take it all." He raked the money from the father's hands into his own.

        Father and son resumed their journey to the pay phone, but had gone only a few steps before the father realized he'd given away all his coins. So turning around, he called to the homeless man, who was walking away, "Pardon me, I need to make a phone call. Can you spare some change?" [How would you expect this story to end??!] The homeless man turned toward the father and held out his hands, now full of coins. "Here," he said, "take what you need." Grace, once given, came bouncing back. A needy man, perhaps a somewhat threatening, was transformed into a friend and helper.

        To close, here's a short poem by G.Frederick Owen:

Love has a hem to her garment

that trails in the very dust;

it can reach the stains of the streets and the lanes...

and because it can, it must.

Let's pray.