Luke 6:27-38 - Get Even with Love - February 20, 2022

I don’t normally ask for congregational participation in the sermon, but today I am. Complete these sentences: Revenge (or, vengeance) is __________. Don’t get mad, get _____________. Is there anything sweeter than getting even with someone who’s wronged you? Oh, it feels so good to cut that social media bully down to size with your own slanderous screed; to lay on the horn, maybe flip the bird at that guy who cut you off on the beltline; to spill a couple shovels-full of snow on the sidewalk of the guy who dumped his slushy mess on yours. Or maybe it’s the kind of revenge that lives on after we’re gone: writing someone out of your will for the way they’ve treated you while you were alive – it doesn’t get any sweeter than that, does it? Vengeance is so common in our world that some seem to view it as a constitutional right. Someone disrespects or hurts you, you disrespect and hurt them back – that’s only fair. Just like last week, Jesus turns everything upside-down for us, he leads us to get even in a way no human mind ever would have conceived (1 Corinthians 2:9).

Jesus is still speaking to his disciples, which is important to note, because Jesus is not telling us how we must live in order to be saved but rather how those who have been saved will live. Jesus knew that they were living in a society where the principal God had instituted for civil, corporate punishment eye for eye, tooth for tooth (Leviticus 24:20) was an acceptable way to deal with personal conflict. But Jesus outlines a very different method for dealing with those who do you wrong: But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other too. If someone takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes away your things, do not demand them back. Treat others just as you would want them to treat you.  

It’s clear enough what Jesus is saying here: return love for hate, blessings for curses, prayers for mistreatment; and if someone takes your dignity or property, let them have it and more. But we tend to be skeptical, we tend to think that Jesus can’t be serious, that he seems to be advocating lawlessness and chaos. So it’s just as important to understand what Jesus is not saying as what he is. 1) He’s not saying that we cannot speak up in our own defense when we are wronged. Jesus himself did this when he stood trial before Annas. When one of the temple officials struck him, he didn’t hit him back, but he did say: if I said something wrong…testify about what was wrong. But if I was right, why did you hit me? (John 18:23) 2) Jesus is not saying that we cannot defend ourselves or our loved ones from harm. The 5th commandment demands that we do so. 3) Jesus is not advocating lawlessness (like many are today). He is not denying parents, teachers, police officers or judges the right to discipline and exact punishment as God’s representatives. 4) He is not requiring us to support free-loaders by our charity. Paul’s words still stand: if anyone does not want to work, he should not eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10). So, then, what is Jesus telling us? He’s telling us that personal vengeance is off limits, out-of-bounds, wrong and sinful. He is telling us to love our enemies. Still sounds impossible, doesn’t it? It is. This kind of love is impossible for us…unless it’s been given to us first. Have we received that kind of love?

Paul seems to think so: for at the appointed time, while we were still helpless, Christ died for the ungodly. It is rare indeed that someone will die for a righteous person…But God shows his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8) If you think there is someone in your life who deserves your vengeance rather than your love, imagine how God must have felt about us – about you. He created us, body and soul, gave us talents and abilities, families and possessions – but we misuse and abuse those gifts, and we are quick to question, doubt, and blame him when he doesn’t give us what we want. He reveals himself to us in his Word and invites us to regularly receive his gifts of grace – but we regularly despise his Word – we either don’t read it or we place ourselves in judgment over it – and we invent all kinds of excuses to avoid receiving his gifts. In 10 simple Commandments God has laid out his will for our lives – but we do the opposite, we treat them like suggestions, we live as if we know better. In thought, word, and action we’ve treated God as our enemy: we despise his love, curse his name, rob him of his possessions and incessantly ask him for more. And how did God get even with us? He sent his Son to save us. He got even by allowing humanity to do its very worst to his Son – curse him, slap him, whip him, spit on him, parade him through the streets of Jerusalem, strip him naked, nail him to a tree, and sit back in smug satisfaction as he died in front of their eyes. And how did Jesus respond? Father, forgive them (Luke 23:34). If you ever wonder how God would have been perfectly justified in treating us – look to the cross. That’s what we deserved. If you ever wonder how God has treated us – look to the cross. See God’s Son hanging there in your place; suffering for your lovelessness; dying for the times you took vengeance into your own hands. That is how God got even with you.  

We know, believe and confess that, right? Then why is it so hard for us to love our enemies? Why are we so quick to suggest that Jesus can’t actually mean what he says? The biggest reason is that we’re looking the wrong direction: instead of looking at what our God has done for us, we’re looking at (and judging) whether an individual deserves our love or not. It’s real simple. They don’t – but you don’t either, and the fact that God has given us love we don’t deserve is the only reason we can return love for hate, blessings for curses, prayers for mistreatment, our cheeks to violence, and charity to thieves. When that question pops up in your mind – “why should I love my enemies?” It’s not because they deserve it, it’s because God loved you.

Next Jesus tackles the temptation to follow the world’s moral and ethical values: if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? To be sure, even the sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even the sinners do the same thing. If you lend to those from whom you expect to be repaid, what credit is that to you? Even the sinners lend to sinners in order to be paid back in full. The way of the world is to do good to your friends and evil to your enemies. But Jesus says, “That’s not how it’s going to be with my disciples. If you want to get even with your enemy, you’re going to break all of society’s rules, you’re going to be radical, you’re going to love your enemies, do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. This marks you as a child of the Most High God who is kind and merciful even to the unthankful and the evil.

It doesn’t make rational sense, but here is where Jesus’ ethic of love proves to be truly divine. Put yourself on the other side of the situation for a moment. You’re the villain. You’re the one who’s wronged someone else. You’ve dragged someone’s name through the mud on social media, and they respond by complimenting your charming family, your beautiful home, or whatever. You’re the one who dumped snow on your neighbor’s sidewalk, and one day you wake up and he’s cleared your driveway for you. You cut someone off on the Beltline, then you blow a tire, and they stop to help. You’ve shown nothing but ingratitude and spite – all but ignored – a relative while they were still alive, and then they die and leave you a generous inheritance. How do you feel? Paul described it as having burning coals dumped on your head (Romans 12:20). That hot feeling of shame and embarrassment is what we call contrition – sorrow over sins. It would lead you to grieve over your sins; to confession and repentance – which, NOT coincidentally, is exactly what God intends his kindness to us to lead to (Romans 2:4). If you really want to get even with an enemy, really cut them to the heart, really break them – show them kindness when they don’t deserve it. Treat them the way God has treated you. And maybe, just maybe, your kindness will lead that person to repent of their sins and seek God’s forgiveness (Matthew 5:16) – and then you will be truly even: you will both be reconciled to each other and to God by the blood of Christ.

Jesus concludes: do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. In fact, the measure with which you measure will be measured back to you. Imagine a trick or treater showing up at the house of an infamously grumpy old man, expecting, at best, one or two of those gross black and orange wrapped candies and, at worst, a stern warning to get off his porch and never come back. And instead, he brings out a huge bowl full of full-size candy bars and he doesn’t just give you one, he dumps the whole bowl into your bag and when your bag is full he says “shake it around a little to make more room” and pours even more in. When we look at all that God has given us already, both materially and spiritually, we can’t deny that God has been more than generous to us – if you ever doubt that, when you get home today, just stop for a second, look in your fridge, your pantry, your closet, your garage, look at your family; his spiritual blessings far outweigh our sinfulness and lovelessness, his material blessings go above and beyond our daily needs.

But the old Adam keeps kicking up concerns, doesn’t he? “If I love and bless and pray for my enemies; if I turn the other cheek and give away my property, who is going to watch out for me and my well-being? How do I know I will have enough to survive and provide for my family? How can I be sure that evildoers will be punished if I don’t see to it myself? How can I let myself be taken advantage of like that?” You’re not alone if those things concern you. Our sinful natures can invent thousands of reasonable, rational arguments for not loving our enemies; for taking vengeance into our own hands. The answer to those concerns is the same as any other concern we have in life: learn, believe, and trust God’s promises.

What if the love you show an enemy just makes them hate you more? So what? See the kind of love the Father has given us in that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are! (1 John 3:1) If we give generously to those who can’t or won’t repay us, won’t we risk losing the roof over our heads and the clothing on our backs? Look at the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, they don’t labor or spin or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds and clothes them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Hasn’t he promised to give you everything you need for life? (Matthew 6:25-34) What about justice, fairness? If I don’t retaliate people are just going to walk all over me. Trust Paul’s inspired words: Do not take revenge, dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” says the Lord (Romans 12:19). If vengeance is called for, God vows to take care of it, if not now through his representatives, then on Judgment Day – and he holds the power to not only kill the body but cast the soul into hell (Luke 12:5). Whatever your specific concern might be, remember that you cannot lose anything that God didn’t give you in the first place (not even your life!) and, just as importantly, you cannot ever lose the reward Jesus has won and reserved for you in heaven. Let God worry about taking care of you now. God’s love for you is unconditional, and that frees you to love your enemies, turn the other cheek, be generous with what he has given you because you know that your true reward is safe in heaven – purchased and won for you by Jesus, your…and your enemies’ Savior.

The morally and ethically rotten world around us is destroying itself over its thirst for vengeance (just come to Bible class today to see some very real and present examples). Everywhere you turn, it seems, someone is trying to get even with someone else for something that was done or said – sometimes over things that happened decades if not centuries ago – all in the name of justice. That’s the mainstream today; that’s the way of the world. But that is not the way of Jesus’ disciples. We are to be radicals; we are to be different because, through faith in Jesus – as dearly loved children of the Most High God whose true reward is safe in heaven – we are different. We get even with our enemies the same way God has gotten even with us: with love. Amen.