As I have been reminding you the past few
weeks, I will soon begin a series of messages titled I Love the Church Because… and I have asked you to answer that
question for me. I appreciate the
responses I have received and I will ask you again to answer that question for
me, if you don’t mind.
This
week we continue the series of messages titled The Great Commandments. This week’s message is The Impossible Command?
I’ve added a question mark because I want you to answer that question
for yourself – is it impossible to follow the command to love our enemies? It seems pretty tough to me. When we read these words of Jesus, I
think it is very easy to think of that verse as containing an impossible
command because, to be honest, I don’t know if anyone really takes this passage
to its complete expression.
I also doubt that this is anyone’s
favorite passage of Scripture. You
won’t find it on a greeting card.
We don’t put it on a wall hanging or on the front door of our homes. It if was on the front door of your
home you wouldn’t need to put up a No
Soliciting sign! It does not
adorn pieces of jewelry. I will
readily admit that it is not my favorite passage of Scripture, although I have
read it many times over the years.
I would much rather read – and preach from – passages such as the
Beatitudes,
(Matthew 5:1-12 – 1 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went
up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them. He said: 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they
will be comforted. 5 Blessed
are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will
be shown mercy. 8 Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they
will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted
because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when people insult you,
persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is
your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who
were before you.)
or John
3:16,
(For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.)
or the 23rd Psalm,
(1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not
want. 2 He
maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He
restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's
sake. 4 Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 5 Thou preparest a table before me in the
presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in
the house of the Lord for ever.)
or the Lord’s Prayer.
(Matthew
6:9-13 – 9 After
this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy
name. 10 Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive
our debtors. 13 And
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.)
or Philippians 2:1-11,
(1 Therefore
if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort
from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and
compassion, 2 then
make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in
spirit and of one mind. 3 Do
nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value
others above yourselves, 4 not
looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another,
have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who,
being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be
used to his own advantage; 7 rather,
he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in
human likeness. 8 And
being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to
death—even death on a cross! 9 Therefore
God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every
name, 10 that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under
the earth, 11 and
every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to
the glory of God the Father.)
or the fruits of the Spirit,
(Galatians 5:22-23 – 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, 23 gentleness
and self-control. Against such things there is no law.)
But
we cannot overlook the difficult passages in favor of the ones that make us
feel good. Our text for this
morning, especially, is one that must be read and taken to heart because it is
what we might call the heart of the heart. If the Sermon On the Mount is the heart
of the Gospel, which I believe it to be, then this morning’s text is the heart of the heart. It is a passage in which we truly see
the depth of the love of Jesus.
Follow
along with me as I read the passage.
Matthew 5:33-48
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’
39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on
the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.
40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat
as well.
41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.
42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who
wants to borrow from you.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your
enemy.’
44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45 that you may be children of
your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and
sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even
the tax collectors doing that?
47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Now I’m
going to read the passage again, but with a difference. This time I want to bring it into the
real world a bit, so to speak. As
I read it this time I will leave some blanks, and when I come to a blank, I
want you to insert a name; the name of someone with whom you have had a
conflict. Or it could be a group,
or a political point of view.
Insert someone or something that would fall into the category of enemy.
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’
39 But I tell you, do not resist _____ . If _____ slaps you on the right cheek, turn to _____ the
other cheek also.
40 And if _____ wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat
as well.
41 If _____ forces you to go one mile, go with _____ two miles.
42 Give to _____ who asks you, and do not turn away from _____ who wants
to borrow from you.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate _____.’
44 But I tell you, love _____ and pray for _____ who persecute you,
45 that you may be children of
your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on _____ and the good, and
sends rain on the righteous and _____.
46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even
the tax collectors doing that?
47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?
48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
I have
preached on this passage a fair number of times over the years, and I’m sure I
will plenty more times in the years to come. I continue to refine what I think about this passage and how
it should be implemented in our daily lives, and yet the more I study it and
the more I preach or teach about it, it remains a passage that haunts me. It haunts me because I cannot explain
it away or temper it, because I believe Jesus is not speaking in symbolic terms
or using hyperbole as he offered these words. When I read commentaries on this passage, I find that almost
all of the writers offer the same basic interpretation – first, they describe
the type of slap of which Jesus speaks as being one of insult, not attack. Assuming that most people are
right-handed, to strike someone on the right cheek means it would be a
backhanded strike, which is generally one of insult, and Jesus means we are not
to take an insult to heart but offer forgiveness. Second, the taking of a shirt is interpreted as taking
advantage of someone who is poor, or of very modest means, and that person
should not claim their right to legal redress, but instead ought to give up
what is their right. Third, going
the extra mile was an action that could be imposed by a soldier of an occupying
army on any member of a civilian population, forcing the person to carry their
equipment for a distance of up to one mile, and if such an act occurred one
should not be bitter, but offer assistance with kindness and gentleness.
Personally, I don’t really buy into any of
those interpretations. I think the
third one – that of going the extra mile when ordered to do so by a soldier –
has historical accuracy but I’m a good deal skeptical about the first two. I am skeptical because I think they too
easily explain away what I think is a very direct – and very difficult –
command of Jesus. It’s very easy
to say in light of the historical
context…(which is a very legitimate tool of interpretation) and then go on
to explain away the fundamental message of what Jesus has to say.
While I don’t believe every passage of the Bible is to be taken
literally (Matthew 5:27-30 is, for example, an example of Jesus using hyperbole
to make his point – 27 “You
have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at
a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to stumble,
gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your
body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to
stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of
your body than for your whole body to go into hell.) In today’s text, however, I believe that Jesus meant for his words to be
taken literally, and that is very tough to do.
This
morning, I want to present three ways of considering this passage, and these
represent where I’ve arrived in relation to this passage. There is much more to say about these
verses, but for the sake of time we will consider the following –
1. We Must Deal in the “What Is,” Not the “What
If.”
Part of the problem we have with this
passage, aside from interpreting it away, is that we too easily make it about what might happen, that is, we imagine
an absolute worst-case scenario that would make a loving, graceful response
seem impossible to offer. For
instance, we construct a scenario such as what
if someone broke into my home and…(insert worst-case scenario here). While that could happen, it is very unlikely that
it would happen. When we talk about what might or what could happen, we place these words in a hypothetical situation, so
let’s take the discussion about loving our enemies out of the hypothetical and
place it in reality, in the here and now, which puts it in an entirely
different light.
While
it is unlikely that we will have to confront such a difficult situation, I
don’t believe Jesus was presenting hypothetical scenarios to his listeners. Jesus spoke about they types of situations that
many of his listeners had confronted.
While we are so blessed that the words of Jesus, when it comes to
dealing with enemies, are mostly a hypothetical to us, they were a reality to
many of his original listeners. Many
of his listeners had experienced horrific acts that few of us can imagine. Many of them had seen friends,
neighbors, and family members abused by an occupying military power – the Roman
Empire – and many had seen them forced to go the extra mile. Some, no doubt, had seen people with
whom they had some connection be crucified. It is very rare that any of us have – or ever will –
experience what the audience of Jesus had experienced. But some things are likely to happen to
us, such as hurt, betrayal, and conflict.
Because of those experiences we will find some people are hard to love
and might even come to the point of considering them our enemy.
So what if something happens? What if someone betrays you? What if someone hurts you? What if someone turns against you? What do we do in those situations and
any of the other types of situations that happen to us in the course of life? Well, we certainly should not become
prisoners of anger, hurt, and resentment.
And we don’t become prisoners of a desire to strike back or the thought
of planning revenge. How do you stop the cycle of violence, revenge, and
hatred? By not participating in it,
and that is what Jesus is asking of us. Holding on to anger and
resentment will eat you alive. I’m
not saying it’s easy to offer forgiveness; it’s the hardest thing we are called
to do. What I am saying is that it
gives us a freedom where bitterness and hatred and a desire for revenge with
only bring bondage.
2. Enemies Are Large Scale and Small
Scale.
One of
my bigger questions about this passage is this – was Jesus talking about how we
deal with individuals only, or does this passage have some bearing upon how
groups – such as nations – deal with one another? We have very real enemies in this world, and I am not naïve
enough to ignore that reality.
Members of groups such as ISIS would love to bring harm to us. The
regime in North Korea would love to strike at our country. Those are kind of distant to our
everyday lives.
To be
honest, I have always struggled to come up with an answer about how these words
of Jesus can be implemented on a large scale, in terms of some kind of foreign
policy or how we approach military action, but I can say a few things. First, Jesus is, in this
passage, affirming love as the absolute core of his ministry. Love was central to everything about
the life and ministry of Jesus, it is the center of all he said and did, and in
this passage he is showing how powerful and how outrageous that love is. Love, as defined and demonstrated by
Jesus, is something that is far deeper and far more consequential than an
emotion that can be expressed in a greeting card saying, or in compassion for
kittens and puppies, or even as a way of describing the relationships we have
with our friends and family. Love, Jesus says, is something that extends beyond
the typical, human categories of love.
Love is a wonderful thing, when it deals with people I already love and
people who already love me. I find
love to be fairly easy when it involves people who love me. I find love fairly easy when it
involves people I love. But when I
am asked to love those who do not love me, when I am asked to love those who
work against me, to love those who seek to harm me – that’s when I begin to
wonder if that’s the kind of love I want. But that’s how Jesus
defines love. In this passage
Matthew uses the Greek word agape for
love. Of the four Greek words for
love it is the one that expresses a divine love, a love that is deeper than any
other expression of love. Anybody can love those who
already love us, but Jesus is asking do
you want that agape love of God?
Do you want the kind of love that goes deeper than any other kind of
love we have ever known? Do we
want the kind of love that is more powerful than any other force in the world? If we do, he says, then we must be
willing to love even those who hate us.
Second, I’m not sure there is any way to bring
these words of Jesus into a discussion of foreign policy and military
force. I believe Jesus was a
pacifist who would never condone the use of force in any circumstance. Jesus lived in a world in which he saw
the muscle of military force on a daily basis. He lived in an occupied land and witnessed firsthand the power
of Rome and the way in which that power was often used against his fellow
countrymen, but he never remotely expressed any support for the use of force in
return. So what does that mean for
us, in our context? I believe it
means we should remind our leaders that force is not always the answer, and
that force should never be used lightly. We are to remind our leaders that many innocents are often
the victims of military force and there are no such things as “surgical”
strikes that will avoid harm to civilians. Augustine, many centuries ago, gave us the theological
framework for what we now call the Just
War Theory, which is a very helpful guide but even that has its faults and
limitations (and is, most of the time, erroneously applied).
Third, there is an inherent conflict between a
desire for security and the love of Jesus. The love of Jesus, to which we are called, is risky, even
dangerous at times, because it is interested less in security and more in
expressing what the love of God represents, such as grace and forgiveness. Living according to that kind of love
means that security is not the first priority, which can be very difficult to
accept.
3. How Did Jesus Deal With His Enemies?
What is one of the most common objections we
hear when studying this passage? Jesus doesn’t want us to be a doormat is
a phrase I have heard many times as an objection to this passage. But can we really think of Jesus as a
doormat? I certainly don’t think
so. He challenged the religious
and political leaders of the day and did not hesitate to do so. When he entered the Temple after the
Triumphal Entry he was certainly no doormat. To cast the money-changers out of the temple and to boldly
proclaim that it is written, my house
will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers (Matthew
21:13) is someone who did not hesitate to challenge those in authority. When Jesus confronted the teachers of
the law and Pharisees (27 “Woe
to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like
whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are
full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you
appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and
wickedness. Matthew
23:27-28) it is clear he is not a doormat. And when Jesus entered into Jerusalem at the Triumphal Entry
it was not just a sign of humility and Messiahship; it was also a direct rebuke
to Pilate, who would have entered Jerusalem at about the same time as Jesus,
although Pilate would have come not on a donkey symbolizing humility and peace,
but on a war horse and surrounded with soldiers and implements of war. Does that indicate a doormat? I think not.
Jesus was anything but a doormat, and demonstrating love is not at
all a sign of being a doormat.
There is power in love, and the Romans learned of that power. For all their might and power, the
Roman Empire has long ago fallen.
What remains of the mighty Roman Empire? Well, there’s some pretty good literature, a language that
we still study, and some concepts we have found worthy of adopting into our
system of government. And there’s
a bunch of rocks. They’re
impressive rocks, forming the remains of aqueducts, the Coliseum, the Forum,
and other structures, but it’s a still just a bunch of rocks, symbolizing the
once mighty, but now fallen, Roman Empire. It’s a reminder that power and force have the illusion of
strength but they never, ever have a lasting strength. Power and force may conquer people, but
it will not win them over. The
Roman Empire conquered the known world but it didn’t last. Love proved greater than the power of
the Roman Empire. And the love of
the church is one of the reasons why the Roman Empire persecuted the
church. The Romans understood that
if people really took these words of Jesus seriously it would weaken the
Empire, and they couldn’t stand for that to happen. In spite of the violence inflicted upon the church, though,
the love of the church outlasted the Empire. In the Coliseum in Rome there is now a cross that stands
where the emperor once sat. The
emperor, who oversaw the persecution of Christians in the Coliseum is long
gone, and his seat has been replaced by a cross, the symbol of his attempt to
vanquish the faith.
If we want to be like Jesus then, truly like Jesus, here is the way. It is not an easy way, but it is The
Way.
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