A lot of what Jesus has to say in this morning’s gospel story sounds like familiar moral teaching to many of us who’ve spent much time in church. (Raise your hand if you’ve heard “Do unto others as you would have them do to you” before.) But other bits may be startling, when we take them literally.
All the moral teaching about generosity – giving more than others ask or demand (or sue you for), being merciful, not judging or condemning, lend and do good without expecting any return – are rooted by Jesus in the idea that we must love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless and pray for people who revile, curse, or insult us.
Wait, what!?
Anyone hearing Jesus the first time, or listening to Jesus now, might naturally ask: “How can it possibly be a good idea to love the people who are doing horrible things to everyone – or even just to us?
(Isn’t the right thing to object? To protest, to try to stop the horrible things?
Of course it is.)
For that matter, isn’t it genuinely dangerous to cooperate with abuse, to offer yourself to others’ violence, to give generously to thieves – whether government or corporate or malicious lawsuit thieves, or pickpockets and car window smashers?
(Of course it is. What a terrible idea.)
And Jesus was saying these things directly and first to a bunch of people who were living under occupation, with an autocratic local ruler, and were, in many cases, subsistence farmers and fishers and tradespeople.
Sounds dangerous. And odd that Jesus is talking to the disempowered about how to act from a position of power. Talking to the “have nots” about how to act from having abundance.
Because he’s not talking about how to collaborate with oppression.
He’s talking about how to act when we already live, here and now, in the kingdom of God.
How to act in the midst of the often screwed up, mean and broken world we occupy, when you are already living in the fullness of God’s love and strength and power, filled up and running over the containers of our lives. With peace like a river, joy like a fountain, and love like an ocean in our souls.
Because that’s how Jesus himself lives, and how Jesus tries to teach us to live.
If you live like that, it’s not so dangerous to be generous to thieves and haters and internet trolls and imperious Roman soldiers. Because no matter what you give away to them, you yourself will never run out of love and strength and trust and goodness. And that is an act of resistance against violence and hatred and evil.
When you live filled up with the unlimited peace, joy, resilience, and love God places within you, cannot be drained or conquered; you cannot lose, because God’s love can never run out.
It’s still scary.
Your cheek is still going to get hurt when you turn it to a Roman soldier or riot cop.
You’re still going to be chilly when you give away not just your outerwear, but your shirt.
You’re still going to be missing the material goods or wealth or time that you gave away to someone who hadn’t earned it and won’t pay it back.
It’s still going to be a big emotional effort to love those enemies.
Which love – by the way – does not mean you have to agree with, or cooperate with those enemies.
Loving your enemy, Jesus’ way, means not concession or collaboration, but empathy.
Many of us here may have known a toddler terrorist at some point in our lives, and have already practiced this. Because when that self-centered and reckless child of God is noisily and violently upset that grapes are juicy today (like they are every day), or that their shoes are too yellow for the occasion, or that the world is just wrong, we know how to say in our hearts “Same, friend. Same. I feel you.” AND make clear that we are still not going to throw the grapes at other people, or kick every shelf in Target.
Loving your enemies does not mean condoning their actions, or giving up resistance to evil. It means looking at the “enemy” across from you and remembering that this person, too, was created by God, is a beloved child of God, and God yearns for them (and us) to turn from enmity and evil, and be filled with the peace and joy and love of God running through their souls.
AND loving your enemy prompts you to object to the evil-doing, protest the horrors, urge the end of violence, protect others from abuse.
Because love wants what is best for the other.
And God’s love, joy, and peace will – given the chance – push evil and the desire for enemies and conquest out of anyone’s heart and soul.
And none of this – none of that enemy-love, that generosity to the undeserving, that willingness to meet violence with peace, to bless the haters – is something Jesus is telling us to do from our own strength and resources.
None of it is what God expects us to do to earn God’s love.
All of it is what we do when we are tapped in to the love and joy and peace of God welling up within us. When we are rooted in God’s strength, not depending on our own limited endurance.
And for those of us who don’t always feel the peace, joy, and love of God welling up within us, and giving us power to transform hate to love, I promise you, Jesus is not telling us to seek out abuse from a position of weakness or give what we do not actually have.
But he’s still speaking to you, to us, all the same.
And I believe he’s telling us to do what we can do, if we can’t do it all like him.
To pay attention so you notice the day when you do have the peace or the strength you need to make a generous gesture to the world’s most annoying co-worker, if you don’t have enough peace and strength to love your mortal enemy.
To notice when you have the compassion or the joy that makes it more natural, just for today, to give to the undeserving, to settle an argument without winning it, to demand justice for others again, even though the first seventeen attempts fell on deaf ears, or got you in trouble.
And to pay attention so we notice the others around us who bubble up with peace, or joy, or love. Because those examples, those fountains of grace, can deepen our experience of the love of God that will make us more like Jesus. More capable of that transforming generosity.
I know I can always find those examples in the Trinity Preschool.
Any time I might need it, our children and teachers will remind me that the answer to almost any need is to be a good listener – and then I quiet myself for a moment, and notice God whispering unconditional love into my ears and heart.
Any time I need it, I can find joy in the play and friendships and new discoveries our children are sharing – and that helps unclog the fountain of God’s joy that wants to bubble in my soul.
And when I really need a reminder that love can never be defeated, one child will quietly mention in chapel that God never leaves us. And my heart stops for a second, and starts beating again with all the rhythm of God’s love.
Those reminders are all around us, even if you don’t get to spend time in our Preschool like I do.
I find examples day-to-day in surprising places on the internet, and among my family and friends, when I am paying attention. I know that seeing peace resist violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, love overwhelm hate in front of the US Supreme Court, or good done without expectation of return on a playground in elementary school, has transformed lives and re-directed the course of society.
I know there are thousands more little words and actions that, if we watch and listen, can free God’s power and love, God’s joy and peace, to spill through you and me, so that like Jesus, we can do the impossible.
Love our enemies – just a bit or with all our hearts.
Give beyond anyone’s expectations, turn violence into peace, turn the world merciful and good – for a moment, with one action – or with all of our lives.
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