The Shortest Lesson
Matthew 5:38-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ but I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”
There it is. My job is done… that’s my sermon for the week. Truly the shortest lesson.
But… wait… hang on for a second. But… but… but… We have a hard time wrapping our head around this. We say “but” a lot, because we want to make exceptions. We want Jesus to “clarify” his statement by saying under which conditions we should love our enemies. We get lost in all these “buts” –looking for the exception, and having a hard time accepting that Jesus could have truly meant this without qualification.
If there was a lesson that is so simple in the saying, and yet so complex in all of its ramifications, Jesus call for us to love our enemies would certainly be it. This is not something that we can weasel our way out of. Even the most skeptical scholars agree that this command to love our enemies was a totally unique teaching in Middle-Eastern literature. Nowhere in Greek Philosophy, Babylonian Wisdom, Egyptian theology, or Hebrew Scripture can one find a similar command to love our enemies. This is one-hundred percent Jesus… and it was and is so radical that even the most learned and deep thinking of people have a very hard time with it.
Why? It’s not so much the statement that Jesus said “Love your enemies.” I think because of Valentines Day, we’ve substituted our rather jaded view of emotional warm fuzzies in what Jesus was saying. It clouds how truly radical Jesus is. It becomes an expression of a kind of sentimental sort of love that doesn’t demand anything from us. To be honest, it’s hard to feel that way about someone we don’t particularly like, or with someone who we feel has hurt us in the past. It doesn’t matter if it is within families, within the church, in our neighbourhood, or around the world. When we feel wronged or antagonized, love is the last thing on our minds.
Yet Jesus says, “love your enemies…” But he doesn’t just say that, he says, pray for those who persecute you. In other words, even with those people who are actively wishing you harm… love them. Pray for them.
But… what about Justice, what about vindication, what about retribution so that they can pay for what they have done to me? Done to us?
Love your enemies… Jesus says. Pray for them, even as they are actively working to harm you. Do not raise a fist to strike them back, do not hurl insults, don’t sink to their level. Take the higher road… but don’t do it because you might think yourself morally superior… do it because they are also human beings, flawed, and yet loved by God. God loves the people we don’t like.
Yet there is also another piece that we’re also missing here. English as a language unfortunately has multiple words for many different things, but one thing that it does not translate well is “love.” There are at least three words in Greek that are all rendered into English as “love” but they all have very different meanings. The love that Jesus talks about is not the love that we might feel for our brothers, sisters or other family members. Neither is it a self-gratifying love where we look to our relationships for what we get out of it.
You’ve probably heard this, but the word in Greek is “Agape.” Agape is NOT warm fuzzies, it’s not about how we feel … and it’s not a romantic love for certain, and it’s not even a sense of genuine affection. Agape is a self-giving kind of care, where we give at our own expense, and expect nothing in return. Agape is given without an expectation that anything is owed or deserved in return. If there is anything given in return it is simply a bonus, but it is not required.
There is no “what’s in it for me?” in this kind of love that Jesus talks about.
Although get this… in loving our enemies, we discover a great paradox: The person who loves their enemies has no enemies. In loving our enemies, truly, our enemies cease to be enemies, and become friends.
When I was a student on my internship in Victoria, I remember preaching on this text and bringing up this very point. I discussed it with my support group, and it made for a fascinating discussion. One of the members of my support group served with the Crown Prosecutor, and a very accomplished criminal lawyer. He would go on to be part of the prosecution team in the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague, with the trial of Slobodan Milosevic. I remember us getting into a rather deep conversation and how hard it is for us wrap our head around this idea. The one who loves their enemies has no enemies.
I remember the conversation had lots of “buts” in it… because I can love my enemy, but they would still wish me harm… so I would need to protect myself… True enough… but that’s not what Jesus taught. Jesus said “love your enemies” –Love them without any expectation of anything in return… do this enough and you will change the world.
Love your enemies is a short lesson, but it is really hard to get our heads around.
But it is how Jesus lived. Remember that nobody was outsider, nobody was excluded. Even those who were his enemies, when they came to him in vulnerable moment, he showed kindness and grace, even though he knew that they wished him harm. Love your enemies without any expectation of anything in return… and maybe discover that we aren’t enemies after all.
I think in that conversation I had with the person who was on my support team, it was realizing that when Jesus said “Love your enemies,” there is a great risk in doing so. There is a great risk involved with allowing ourselves to be so vulnerable as to show kindness to the people that we have been at odds with for so long. Are we willing to take that risk ourselves?
Judging that almost 2000 years later, we are still wringing our hands over it, we are still trying to find an easy way out, I would guess that we’ve not been willing to take that risk. Here is my own “but” in this story. It may be naïve to think this way, but Jesus certainly did… in loving our enemies, we begin a process by which we will have no enemies… but it has to start somewhere. It started with Jesus, but are we willing to take the risk ourselves?
Amen.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ but I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”
There it is. My job is done… that’s my sermon for the week. Truly the shortest lesson.
But… wait… hang on for a second. But… but… but… We have a hard time wrapping our head around this. We say “but” a lot, because we want to make exceptions. We want Jesus to “clarify” his statement by saying under which conditions we should love our enemies. We get lost in all these “buts” –looking for the exception, and having a hard time accepting that Jesus could have truly meant this without qualification.
If there was a lesson that is so simple in the saying, and yet so complex in all of its ramifications, Jesus call for us to love our enemies would certainly be it. This is not something that we can weasel our way out of. Even the most skeptical scholars agree that this command to love our enemies was a totally unique teaching in Middle-Eastern literature. Nowhere in Greek Philosophy, Babylonian Wisdom, Egyptian theology, or Hebrew Scripture can one find a similar command to love our enemies. This is one-hundred percent Jesus… and it was and is so radical that even the most learned and deep thinking of people have a very hard time with it.
Why? It’s not so much the statement that Jesus said “Love your enemies.” I think because of Valentines Day, we’ve substituted our rather jaded view of emotional warm fuzzies in what Jesus was saying. It clouds how truly radical Jesus is. It becomes an expression of a kind of sentimental sort of love that doesn’t demand anything from us. To be honest, it’s hard to feel that way about someone we don’t particularly like, or with someone who we feel has hurt us in the past. It doesn’t matter if it is within families, within the church, in our neighbourhood, or around the world. When we feel wronged or antagonized, love is the last thing on our minds.
Yet Jesus says, “love your enemies…” But he doesn’t just say that, he says, pray for those who persecute you. In other words, even with those people who are actively wishing you harm… love them. Pray for them.
But… what about Justice, what about vindication, what about retribution so that they can pay for what they have done to me? Done to us?
Love your enemies… Jesus says. Pray for them, even as they are actively working to harm you. Do not raise a fist to strike them back, do not hurl insults, don’t sink to their level. Take the higher road… but don’t do it because you might think yourself morally superior… do it because they are also human beings, flawed, and yet loved by God. God loves the people we don’t like.
Yet there is also another piece that we’re also missing here. English as a language unfortunately has multiple words for many different things, but one thing that it does not translate well is “love.” There are at least three words in Greek that are all rendered into English as “love” but they all have very different meanings. The love that Jesus talks about is not the love that we might feel for our brothers, sisters or other family members. Neither is it a self-gratifying love where we look to our relationships for what we get out of it.
You’ve probably heard this, but the word in Greek is “Agape.” Agape is NOT warm fuzzies, it’s not about how we feel … and it’s not a romantic love for certain, and it’s not even a sense of genuine affection. Agape is a self-giving kind of care, where we give at our own expense, and expect nothing in return. Agape is given without an expectation that anything is owed or deserved in return. If there is anything given in return it is simply a bonus, but it is not required.
There is no “what’s in it for me?” in this kind of love that Jesus talks about.
Although get this… in loving our enemies, we discover a great paradox: The person who loves their enemies has no enemies. In loving our enemies, truly, our enemies cease to be enemies, and become friends.
When I was a student on my internship in Victoria, I remember preaching on this text and bringing up this very point. I discussed it with my support group, and it made for a fascinating discussion. One of the members of my support group served with the Crown Prosecutor, and a very accomplished criminal lawyer. He would go on to be part of the prosecution team in the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague, with the trial of Slobodan Milosevic. I remember us getting into a rather deep conversation and how hard it is for us wrap our head around this idea. The one who loves their enemies has no enemies.
I remember the conversation had lots of “buts” in it… because I can love my enemy, but they would still wish me harm… so I would need to protect myself… True enough… but that’s not what Jesus taught. Jesus said “love your enemies” –Love them without any expectation of anything in return… do this enough and you will change the world.
Love your enemies is a short lesson, but it is really hard to get our heads around.
But it is how Jesus lived. Remember that nobody was outsider, nobody was excluded. Even those who were his enemies, when they came to him in vulnerable moment, he showed kindness and grace, even though he knew that they wished him harm. Love your enemies without any expectation of anything in return… and maybe discover that we aren’t enemies after all.
I think in that conversation I had with the person who was on my support team, it was realizing that when Jesus said “Love your enemies,” there is a great risk in doing so. There is a great risk involved with allowing ourselves to be so vulnerable as to show kindness to the people that we have been at odds with for so long. Are we willing to take that risk ourselves?
Judging that almost 2000 years later, we are still wringing our hands over it, we are still trying to find an easy way out, I would guess that we’ve not been willing to take that risk. Here is my own “but” in this story. It may be naïve to think this way, but Jesus certainly did… in loving our enemies, we begin a process by which we will have no enemies… but it has to start somewhere. It started with Jesus, but are we willing to take the risk ourselves?
Amen.
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