LUKE 6:27-38
Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic.
“Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 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 sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount.
“But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”
JESUS CALLS ENEMIES
Jesus searches for every single one of us. What makes that difficult is that we need to live together in order to stay close to Jesus. We usually want to be together with people who are friends – that’s natural. What about our enemies? Jesus says, “Love your enemies” to us, and challenges us to realize that he is searching for our enemies too.
We naturally judge and even condemn each other. How amazing and sad it is that we can even write each other off. When someone crosses us we turn away. Again, that’s natural. Sometimes, it’s even necessary. You need to make hard decisions when someone harms you.
Even then, Jesus is calling us into a new world, where we play a part in the transformation of our enemies. So how do we love our enemies? Jesus lays out three different ways in which we can show love: do good, bless, pray.
To do good is extremely practical, but may take some creativity. Love is more than a feeling, it takes will and effort to do something which will actually benefit the other person, the person who may hate you. Jesus will guide us into practical ways of benefitting that one.
But Jesus opens up other ways of showing love. We are to bless those who curse us. We bless, when we announce that God is Father of all, including our enemies. We recognize that there is no line which ultimately divides us. And whatever limits we may face, we can always pray. To pray for that other one is to begin to change our hearts, and in God’s grace, to begin to transform the other too.
When we take Jesus’s challenging words to heart, we will become more and more like our Father, the merciful one. Jesus is shaping us so that we too can join in his search of the lost. How can they be found?
When our hearts are filled with Jesus’s love, our words and actions will be guided not by our desire for revenge, but our love for them. Then our hope is not just for ourselves, or the people we love, but even for our enemies.