We pick up today where we left off with last week’s Gospel. We heard the first half of the sermon on the plain, where Jesus offers blessings and woes (or as I explored last weeks, blessings and yikes or uh oh’s) And in this sermon, Jesus has come among the people, a large multitude of people, in order to share the understanding of how we might live out this path of following Jesus.
Jesus begins this passage with “I say to you who listen”—which might even be understood to mean something like I say to you who are still here, still listening, not scared off or tuned out following those blessings and woes…
And then he jumps into what is perhaps some of the most challenging expectations, or hopes, or callings, that we receive as followers of Jesus.
Love your enemies; pray for those who hurt you; offer the other cheek; lend, expecting nothing in return; do unto others as you would have them do to you; show mercy; do not judge; forgive.
This the shorthand list of what we hear from Jesus.
Before we jump too far into the complexities of living these things out, I want to point out three kind of nerdy language related things that actually have some impact on how we might hear and live out this calling.
First—In this section of the sermon, Jesus uses a lot of action words, many verbs: do good, bless, pray, give, lend, forgive. And perhaps encompassing them all, love. In this passage, the Greek word used for love here is not the noun, but the verb. Luke joins the other evangelists, the other Gospel writers, to think of this Christian way as a mode of action, rather than an emotion. It is a thing to do, to act upon, to live out.
Second—In all but 2 verses in this passage, the word ‘you’ here is the plural you. The verses about turning the other cheek, and offering your coat and shirt, may have circulated apart from the rest of this sermon, and were placed in the sermon by Luke the writer, or it’s because cheeks and coats are possessed by an individual. Either way, the remainder of this text, the you is communal, collective. As my Austin, Texas seminary roots would inform me, it means all y’all. These acts of loving, doing, blessing, forgiving, giving—particularly for those we would consider our enemies—is not done alone.
Third— In the middle of our text today, Jesus asks the same question three times “What credit is that to you?” He asks this in a particular frame of reference: if you love those who also love you, what credit is that to you? If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? This word “credit” is kind of a lousy translation. The Greek word is actually charis—which means gift or favor or grace—to love those who also love you, what gift, what favor, or what grace is that to you? Jesus asks us the question, if we are only loving those who love us, only doing good for those who do good for us, only lending to those we expect to get something back from—arguably, the people for whom it is easy for us to love, do good, and lend—what sort of gift or grace is that? How is that maintaining the status quo of reciprocal or transactional love, rather than engaging with transformative love, allowing God to work through us with the gift of grace for ourselves and one another?
So those are my little notes: Jesus uses a lot of action words here, the you’s are more often all y’all’s, and the idea of credit is actually more an invitation towards something beyond, something more grace-filled.
But what do all these things mean in some specific examples in Jesus’s sermon?
Let’s start with the example that I think can feel most problematic, particularly for anyone who has been hurt or abused by another person. Jesus calls the collective to pray for those who abuse you. Now what this is NOT saying: “The text is not a directive to an individual suffering abuse to bear the abuse, praying for the abuser, while the rest of the community looks the other way.” “Jesus is not asking for allowing abuse to continue” And the love, the prayer called for here, is not manifest in only the individuals actions—prayer may give strength to find the courage to leave such a situation, to stop a cycle of abuse, to eventually find the ability to separate a person from their abusive actions. But the all y’all prayer here also means actions—supporting an individual’s safely, paying attention, advocating. As one commentary states, “In the reign of God, we live and act in community, which means, bluntly, that we concern ourselves with each other’s business more than a transaction ethic might suggest we should.”
What about this idea of turning the other cheek? Turning the other cheek is not the seemingly powerless act of submission we might perceive it to be. When it is a choice, an action engaged with consent, the offering of the other cheek is an unexpected, even counter-cultural gift. An opportunity, a challenge for a person, an aggressor perhaps, to reflect on their action and change their course in relation to the other. I name this act of offering the other cheek as a choice, one coming from the person who has been, as the text names, struck, because this, again is not a situation where this act should or can be submissive or done alone. This, again, is not determined just by one literal act, but develops out of a community that would allow for such an opportunity for change to be given to an individual, creating a culture where within community we offer the opportunities for change, support choices and changes and humility, and even celebrate when a person chooses the better way.
This also leads us towards Jesus’ call for mercy…here, I want to share a selection from a dear friend, Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail’s new book, God Didn’t Make us to Hate Us…in it, she shares a reflection on mercy…
“Mercy is brutal. It is not popular, or easy, or alluring. Mercy is so hard to give, and to receive, because mercy is hardly ever deserved. But that is why mercy matters. Because there are things we have done or that have been done to us, that are bad and need redeeming[…]Mercy does not mean co-signing on what was done to us[…] forgiveness inherently recognizes that what happened was not okay, because the act of forgiving inherently acknowledges that something bad has happened. We do not forgive good things. […]to forgive, to choose the brutal path of mercy, is no say I am choosing more—more life, more freedom, more possibility—even in the face of something or someone who wanted to steal my freedom, my possibilities…this is why mercy comes from God. How else could we choose mercy?[…]mercy is an act of imagination. It imagines there can be so much more—more color, more forgiveness, more joy, more time together—if we can be more than the worst things we have ever done…Mercy is a language of God’s imagination of what we can be, all of us, together.”
The actions that Jesus calls us to in this sermon on the plain are not easy, we might at times even feel they are impossible. Perhaps small reminders like the use of a plural you, an all y’all, the presence of active, do-ing words, not passive words, and a reframe of seeing these behaviors and actions as gifts, grace from God given to one another, through one another, might help us pursuit this way of living. Many commentators state here that Jesus, in this sermon, is taking the-old-even-at-that-time Golden rule of do unto others and saying, this is good, but it doesn’t quite go far enough. Jesus encourages, not only “do unto others as you would have them do to you”, but do to others as God would do. God loves those who make an enemy of God. God turns the other cheek and offers endless opportunities for transformation and grace. God loves, forgives, lends, blesses, heals, even when we do not offer those same things to God and our neighbor. May we, in our lived out actions, with the support and care and strength and messiness of our communities, strive for even moments of responding to the hurt in our hearts and all around us with that same incredible, challenging, radical gifts of grace and love.
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