JESUS’ SERMON ON THE MOUNT
IX. “Loving Impossible People”
11-5-06
Ken Peterson
Mtt. 5:43-48
INTRODUCTION
Heidi is a Lutheran pastor in the South Bronx area of New York City. She says her church has really tried to reach the neighborhood and they have opened their church after school as a place for the children to come. Sundays, they encourage them to come to church and many do. Some walk, and some they pick up.
Shanna, a 9-year-old, was one of the children Heidi picked up on Sundays. Shanna’s Uncle Joe had come to live with the family and his drug addiction was wrecking havoc in the home. For years little Shanna had dreamed of owning a bicycle and that Christmas, a donation from another church made her dream come true. Shanna rode her new bike everywhere she could, she bragged on it, polished it, and treasured it. Within a month, her uncle sold the bike to buy drugs.
Now, this morning as Heidi picked up Shanna for Sunday School, she came to the door crying and had blood on her dress. “It’s my Uncle Joe!” she said. Everyone was asleep as Shanna got up on her own and got ready for Sunday School. As she was waiting for her ride, her Uncle Joe showed up after a night of drug abuse, wearing a T-shirt that read, “Say No to Drugs.” Shanna commented to him, “Why don’t you read your own shirt?” He hit her, causing a nosebleed. The white collar and yellow lace of her Sunday dress were a mess. She had nothing else clean, so Heidi just took her to church where her Sunday School teacher washed out the bloodstains.
When it came time in the service where Heidi invites the congregation to lead out in individual prayer concerns as they desire, Shanna’s voice sounded bright and clear as a trumpet: “I pray for my Uncle Joe. He needs your help, Lord. Please, Jesus, help my uncle.”
How could Shanna be so free of bitterness after all her uncle had done? Where does such love and forgiveness come from? Heidi says that as she heard that prayer, it stirred her heart with a sense of awe. Referring to the common cup used in Lutheran communion, she said her thoughts were, “What a privilege to drink from the same chalice as Shanna.”
Shanna models for us the love and forgiveness Jesus calls us to in our text:
But I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven (44).
LOVE YOUR ENEMIES
Under “enemies” and “those who persecute you” can be lumped all those people with whom we have difficult, unfriendly relations– the people who give us a hard time. You may not feel you hate them, but to love them? Who do you find it difficult to love? I expect we all can quickly come up with a mental list. These are people that, when you see them approaching, you feel yourself tightening up inside, wanting to avoid them. Most of those lists will include people who have:
- hurt us deeply, betrayed us or rejected us in some way;
- used us, taken advantage of us, cheated us;
- sought to control us with anger and intimidation;
- insensitive, obnoxious personalities.
There may well be family members, business associates, and neighbors on the list. Sometimes I hear Christians expressing real hatred toward groups of people they see as defying God's laws like Gays, abortionists, or pornographers. On the other side, I hear hatred toward the enemy they see as self-righteous, judgmental Christians.
“Those who persecute you” is probably meant as a synonym for enemies. There isn’t much overt persecution today in America, but there are plenty of people we know that make our lives difficult. They seem to have a need to put you down all the time to make themselves look better. They have a way of intimidating you, putting you on the defensive. Often times, our biggest problem is with those close to us in our homes or work places.
This marks a radical departure from the conventional thinking of that day. In fact, in the classical literature of that day, love and loyalty to friends and hatred of their enemies is extolled as a noble virtue. Jesus, with His “But I tell you...” inaugurates a whole new era. Last week, we looked at Jesus’ teaching that precedes this, about not hitting back. Now Jesus is telling us, this way of love isn’t just for when people do bad things to us, but it is meant to govern everything and everyone. It is a call to even love the most despicable people we can imagine because God loves them. Last week was about right actions. This week is about the heart motivation for those actions.
The Old Testament law Jesus is quoting about loving your neighbor is Lev. 19:18. But nowhere in the Old Testament is there a command to hate your enemy. But it was the accepted teaching of Jesus’ day, and considered a virtue, especially if your enemy was also an enemy of God. Thus, in The Message paraphrase, “hate your enemy” is referred to as the “unwritten companion” to “love your neighbor.”
I think all of us can sense the challenge of what Jesus is saying here. We all struggle to close the gap between the command of Jesus and our practice. But, as we look at what Jesus is saying, I hope we don’t see this as an unattainable ideal, or standard to make us feel bad for our failures. While this is a high assignment, it is also an exciting description of what life is like when we let Jesus have His way with us.
FREED FROM CALCULATION
In this command Jesus frees behavior from calculations. I think we’ve all struggled with just how warm and friendly we should be with the person with whom we have strained relations. Do we speak to them or not? Should we avoid them as much as possible? How much cold shoulder should I give? Am I being hypocritical to pretend nothing is wrong?
Here is real liberation. Love is no longer tied to the performance of the other person. We are to love everyone unconditionally. Jesus points out that everyone loves those who love them. By naming tax collectors here, He is referring to what was probably the most despised group of people of that day. They were Jews who had joined the occupying government for their own gain. They contracted with the government to collect the amount expected. Whatever else they could collect would go in the tax collector’s pocket. So, they were traitors and often greedy cheats becoming wealthy at the expense of the poor. Jesus points out, even they love their friends. Clearly, a follower of Jesus is called to a higher standard.
What kind of love is Jesus talking about here? There are four separate words in the Greek language, all translated “love” in English. One word referred to family love, as that between a parent and a child. Another word was used for passionate, romantic love. There was yet another word for warm, affectionate, love between the closest of friends.
The first thing to note is that the word here is none of those three kinds of love. So, enemy-love is not like the love you feel for a close friend, or the love in a family. The word here is agape. Agape is not a matter of the heart, but a decision, and an act of the will. It is unilateral and unconditional. No matter what the response, it still seeks the other's highest good. It is the example of love shown to us by God in Jesus. This kind of love is invincible goodwill. It means we can love those whom we may not necessarily like.
Loving our enemy often seems like an impossible command. How can we even begin to do this? Well, first of all, remember this kind of love is not a matter of feelings– rather it is a decision, a way of acting. Jesus says we get there by praying for them– love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. This does not mean praying against them, "God, give them what they deserve! Don't let anything good happen to them." Nor does it mean telling God how mean they are and what a piece of slime they are. Jesus is saying to pray for them. That means asking for God's best on their behalf and for His purposes to be realized in their lives. It means releasing them from our judgement. It means allying ourselves with God in His redemptive work in them, willing to help Him do what He wants. As Eugene puts it in The Message: When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer....
This doesn't mean only good things should happen to them, or that there should be no consequences for evil. But we are no longer prosecutors. We choose to let God handle it and obey what He calls us to do. And, as we stand in the presence of God and hold other person up in the presence of God, we find bitterness and hatred melt away. The first martyr of the church, Stephen, models this in praying for his persecutors as the stones struck his body, "Lord do not hold this sin against them." And Jesus on the cross prays for those crucifying Him, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Watchman Nee was a strong leader of the Christians in China under communism. He spent his last 20 years in prison until his death in 1972. His writings were formative for the Christian church in China. He tells about a Chinese Christian who owned a rice paddy right next to one owned by a communist. The Christian irrigated the rice paddy, pumping water out of a canal with a leg-operated pump which makes it look like you’re riding a bike. At night, his communist neighbor, would take the boards out, so all the water would flow down to his own field which was slightly lower, so he wouldn’t have to pump. This threatened ruin for the Christian. He prayed, “Lord if this keeps up, I’ll lose all my rice and I’ve got a family to care for. What can I do?” Then, the Lord put a thought in his mind. The next morning, he arose much earlier, and in the predawn hours pumped water into the field of his communist neighbor, then replaced the boards and pumped water for his own rice. This went on for several weeks. Soon both fields were doing well. AND, the communist neighbor was converted to Christ.
THE REASON
Jesus goes on to give further help to us in the explanation of why we must love our enemies. He reminds us what God is like, giving us a model to follow. Good people don't get more sunshine or rain (or less, whichever you prefer) than bad people. Polly heard a cute little ditty on this:
The rain, it raineth on the just and unjust fellow,
But more upon the just,
Because the unjust hath the just’s umbrella.
But the point is, you can't tell who's righteous and who's evil by looking at how well their gardens do. The natural laws of God's creation are not suspended for those who curse Him and seek to hurt His cause. He continues to give unilaterally, unconditionally, whether they appreciate it or not. God wishes ill of no one. He genuinely desires the best and works for the best for everyone. That includes Osama Bin Laden and the most perverted child pornographer. He proved His love even further by sending His only Son to die for our sins to offer us eternal life.
So, when we love our enemies, it marks us as sons of God. It is the trait of His family members.
Our text states it in an interesting way, "so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven." This does not imply we enter God's family through works. Notice the words, "Your Father." This is spoken to disciples, to Christians, who are already sons in the kingdom of God. Elsewhere, it is abundantly clear we are adopted into His family by grace, not by what we do. The word "be" may be translated "become." The thrust of what Jesus is saying here then is a call for us to become what we are. We are in reality His children. Now, get to doing what God does, showing His kind of love. This is an answering obedience to His grace, the gift received.
Jesus ends this series of six reinterpreted commands with the call,
"Be perfect, therefore, even as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Our immediate response is, “That’s impossible. Nobody’s perfect.” The Greek word used here that is translated “perfect” is teleios. This has nothing to do with absolute perfection but more of a functional perfection. It means something fulfills the purpose for which it is planned. On a hot day when I am thirsty, I might say, “This cold glass of water is perfect!” It fits the need of the moment perfectly. It doesn’t mean the glass is absolutely perfect or the water the most perfect water in the whole world. In Greek, teleios is used to refer to a student who had reached mature knowledge as opposed to one just beginning. He or she has arrived at a goal. Thus, it could be translated, "perfectly mature," in that they know what they should at this point. Maturity in the faith will be marked by the way in which we love our enemies.
In Luke’s Gospel, in his version of this same teaching, rather than "perfect" uses "merciful." Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (6:38). I think we can see how merciful and perfect both convey something of the same thing. The goal of our discipleship then is to demonstrate toward everyone, especially our enemies, the kind of unconditional love God shows us. As that love matures in us, we’ll be known as merciful.
Jesus is telling us there should be something supernatural in our expression of love. He says that even bad people or pagans love when they get something in return. Our love is to be far more than the ordinary love we see around us in this world. In saying this, Jesus is driving us back to Himself. In Jesus’ repeated, “But I say to you...”, we should hear the “I” emphasized. It is in Him we find the power to be what He is proclaiming. Jesus is the Rosetta stone that deciphers every word in this sermon. And every sentence drives us back to the Beatitudes, especially that first one:
Blessed are the poor in spirit (those who recognize their spiritual poverty), for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
In recognizing our need, we give entrance to more of His life, and a miracle happens. We find love and goodwill born where there was none in response to our obedience to pray for that person. That’s why Jesus came. He is perfect love. The life of Jesus, the love of Jesus comes into us through the power of the Holy Spirit. As Paul states it in Rom. 5:5–
God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given.
CONCLUSION
Yohanna Katanacho is a Palestinian pastor of a small church in Jerusalem. As a Palestinian, as well as a Christian living in Israel, he faces a wide variety of persecution. Harassment from Israeli soldiers is common. Looking for potential terrorists, they randomly stop Palestinians to check their identification cards– sometimes detaining them for hours for no reason. Yohanna said Christ’s command, “love your enemies,” seemed impossible to him, living in a culture that promoted hatred of the other and fed that hatred through the news media. He continually received messages of hatred from his fellow Palestinians toward Jews.
Yet, Yohanna felt he must somehow break free from that hatred. He tried as best he could to feel love for the Israeli soldiers and their random checks. He failed miserably. As he confessed his failure to Christ, and tried to pray for his enemy, he began to understand that the radical love of Christ was not an emotion, but a decision. So, very reluctantly, he decided to try and share the gospel message with the soldiers on the street. He began carrying copies of a flyer with him written in English and Hebrew with “Real Love” printed across the top. It quoted from Isaiah 53 (the description of the suffering Messiah). Now, every time a soldier stopped him, he handed them one of these flyers along with his ID card. Because the quote came from the Hebrew Scriptures, the soldiers often asked him about it before letting him go.
After several months of this, Yohanna noticed his feelings changing. He says, “I was surprised, you know? It was a process, but I didn’t pay attention to that process. My older feelings were not there anymore. I would pass in the street and see the same soldiers as before, but now find myself praying, ‘Lord, let them stop me, so that I can share with them the love of Christ.’”
JESUS’ SERMON ON THE MOUNT
IX. “Loving Impossible People”
For Further Study and Reflection on Sermon for 11-05-06
Mtt. 5:43-48
1. Consider the following verses:
Matt 5:46– If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?
Luke 6:35-36– But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Prov 25:21-22– If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head,
and the LORD will reward you.
- What do they suggest we will receive if we love our enemies?
- What other reasons does our text (Mtt. 5:44 & 48) give for loving our enemies?
2. Mtt. 5:44a gives us a clue about where to begin in loving our enemies. What is that?
In praying for our enemies, can you offer helpful suggestions in how we can shape our prayers?
Can you think of additional ways to help you start loving a difficult person?
3. Do you have a personal example you could share when you moved from hating to loving an enemy?
4. What additional insights do these two verses from Proverbs give us about relations with out enemies?
Prov 24:17– Do not gloat when your enemy falls;
when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice,
Prov 16:7– When a man's ways are pleasing to the LORD,
he makes even his enemies live at peace with him.
5. Put the Scripture text, Mtt. 5:43-48 into your own words and read it to the group.
6. For the closing prayer time, is there someone or some group of people you consider an enemy that you could pray for together?