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October 05, 2003
When is Loving a Virtue?
When is Loving a Virtue?
Psalm 32 / Proverbs 15: 13-23
Luke 6: 32-36
October 5th, 2003
I have struggled with the message I am to offer you today because it’s so obvious, so simple, and seemingly so unreasonable. In fact, so impossible. Why impossible? Well, look at what we just read! I’m to speak about love in conjunction with doing good to those who don’t do us good, and lending money without expecting to get paid back. Something in us protests, NO!
What we have in mind for “love,” other than the romantic or parental kind or the kind that breeds “philanthropy,” is a benevolent attitude, the genial outlook that makes us say “Have a good day!” to anyone and everyone. Love is the conditional goodwill I will show to keep a good thing going, but don’t expect me to be oblivious to surly, rude behavior. Love is the reward with which I encourage your good behavior to me. It is the carrot I carry in one hand, but remember, I’ve also got a stick in my other hand.
But then we read what Jesus said. This is a passage we pastors usually avoid because if we take Jesus at His word, well, we’re at the mercy of every charlatan out there. I preached on the verses just before this a couple weeks ago and realized as I spoke that nobody could take this literally. You know, “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you, give your coat to the one who steals your shirt, and turn the other cheek when someone clobbers you.” The most pious of us, the most religious, the most eager to be a good Christian will quietly turn the page at this point. Impossible! I’m a literalist with my Bible only so far.
I’m sorry, Jesus; it’s impossible. Yes, I believe in Jesus. Yes, I can sing, “Lord, I want to be a Christian inna my heart, inna my heart.” But, no, I’m sorry, it’s more than is possible to bless those who curse me, to pray for those who abuse me, to give more to a thief than what he just stole from me, and to turn my other cheek to a violent person who just hit me.
Why did Jesus say such impossible things to us? The 103rd Psalm winsomely gives us another picture of God, a God who “knows our frame,” that is, how He made us. He remembers that we are only animated dust. Genesis tells us that God scooped up some dust and made Adam. That’s why we turn back to dust after we die. God remembers this. What do you expect of mere dust?
God pities us like a loving father pities his children. We accept this condescension, indeed, expect it. Usually we hate condescension as it is demeaning. But now we want God to condescend.
Here it’s as if Jesus forgets that we are dust. Here we see Jesus, the One who revealed to us in person what God is like, announcing moral expectations of us that seem to forget we are just dust. Jesus commands us with a cutting reminder. “Love your enemies” because even sinners love those who love them. Even sinners do good to those who do good to them. Even sinners will lend with the hope of getting a return.
I notice Jesus did not say, “even sinners will turn the other cheek.” We know that doesn’t happen. But the rest of it, loving those who love us, doing good to those who do good, and lending with expectation of return—that’s just the way of ordinary ol’ sinners.
So if you and I are amiable to nice people—and stop the moment they quit being nice; and if we participate in a community of folk who do good things for each other—and stop the moment they stop doing good to us, and if we maybe even lend our hard earned money--fully expecting to get it all back—with some reasonable interest, of course, we’re just doing as any good ol’ sinner does.
All along we have operated as though Jesus wanted us to keep a good thing going—love loving people; do good to those who are doing good to us, rather than interrupt the cycle that makes this world such a hard place. And, well, we’re not really into lending money, that’s for the banks to do.
This is an unsettling section of Jesus’ very clearest teaching. And the last words He says are the cruelest of all. Doing what he said is the condition of being children of the Most High—who is generous to the ungrateful and to evil people. The Most High God is the loftiest description of God in the Old Testament.
You and I come to Jesus and say, “I’m a child of God,” and He tells you, if you are a child of God love your enemies, do good to all, lend without expectation of repayment, and something in you balks worse than a mule. You dig in your heels. No, Jesus, I can’t love that way, do good according to that standard, or give that way. But I am a child of God.
I read a bumper sticker this week that said, “No Jesus, no peace; know Jesus, know peace.” How clever. Here are two words that sound the same, spelled and meaning very differently. Why do we put self-accusations on our bumpers? What is it to “know Jesus?” Words come so easily. If you are mingling in the narthexes at the right churches, is that “knowing Jesus?” If you’re saying the right words, is that “knowing Jesus?” Do not our right words function like passwords keeping us in good standing in the church we choose? Knowing Jesus has a lot to do with taking to heart these hard words you and I are wrestling with right now and realizing we must do better than getting pinned to the mat every time.
So what are we to do? What do we do with hard teachings of Jesus? Two responses stand out in the Bible. First, we must not discard hard teachings because they seem impossible. They stand before us as a goal to be strived after. Second, remember that God responds to us as He asks us to respond to others. What is hard for us is how God chooses to respond to us, loving the unlovely, doing good to those who will not do good in return, giving generously to those who will not repay. We call this grace, favor that violates our sense of deserving.
The Lord Jesus invites us who are weary and heavy laden to the very behavior that His commands lead us to correct. Trying to follow Jesus’ hard way lifts the load of guilt that makes you tired. Your weariness accumulates when you do to others as they have done to you. You return tit for tat and one part of you says, “Good, I got even,” and another part of you says, “But Jesus didn’t teach me to get even.” You grow weary with getting even. Following Jesus is something hard that we must learn, but learning something hard that brings tremendous refreshment.
One of the reasons why teaching Hebrew is turning out to be so fun for me is that I watch people begin with apprehension, something they fear is very hard, and discover before very long, that they’re having a very good time. This week a quiet, very studious young engineering major came to me after class perplexed at a problem of Hebrew grammar. Engineers analyze things to the core. Fortunately for me I could answer his question. He was so pleased to understand what one minute before was not clicking. He told me quietly as he left the room, ‘Hebrew is my favorite course.”
I thought about that happy response as I drove home. You know why Hebrew is so much fun? It’s because everyone who begins fears it is very difficult. But as they gradually discover not only what those funny looking letters are, and how to make those signs turn into words and ideas, but even how the language works, they feel tremendous satisfaction. That Hebrew seems at the beginning hard to learn makes the achievement all the more thrilling.
How many of us view what Jesus said we must do to be children of God the way students do who won’t even give Hebrew a try. It’s impossible. But what happens when we begin to try to do what seems at first impossible? What if very deliberately, when someone acts ungraciously to you, at that moment you remember what Jesus said, and for His sake, you respond with grace. You respond to anger with a soft answer. When you do this, you’re acting like God, like a child of a heavenly Father.
What if in the place where you work, you are troubled by a fellow employee whose behavior is like a continued pebble in your shoe. She is wearing a blister that hurts. She is the reason why you dislike going to work. So you avoid her. For Jesus’ sake, change your response to her. Imagine how you can do her good. For Jesus’ sake! When you do this, you are acting like God, showing yourself to be a child of a heavenly Father.
Do you know someone in desperate financial need? Maybe you’re thinking this person is merely reaping what he has sowed. What did you pray to God in your time of need—a different need, but still a need? What if you acted like God where you know there is financial need—if you are able to do something about it? Has God given you the means to play God, to prove yourself the child of Almighty God?
Is this going too far? I ask you, “Is this going too far?” Or is this taking Jesus at His word. If you wanna be a Christian inna your heart, you must try. Even common decency says to you, “I must try.”
But maybe you’ve tried, and tried hard, and have discovered that inside you there is a perpetual warfare between what you want to do and what you do. Then what? It is at this point that it makes sense to remember that we can stand before God justified, as though we have never committed a single sin or ever been sinful, as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, only by God’s grace, His freely given favor.
God sees you struggling to be gracious to that person who is a pebble in your shoe and God knows it is hard. Remember, Jesus suffered a pretty grim death at the hands of pretty nasty people. And Jesus suffered this death so that He could forgive your failure to behave like God, that is, to act like a child of God, to be gracious to offensive people. God’s grace engulfs our every failure. God graciously chooses to look at us and see His Son, Jesus. This is the Gospel I rejoice to preach and that you want to hear.
But I know that when it comes to the hard matters of life, you and I want to give in too soon. If you want to cherish the grace of God because you have given up on trying to follow Jesus, you’re still going to get God’s grace in the end, but you’re going to forfeit the peace He offers you now. Peace of heart comes to you and me when we try to follow Jesus, when we discover that though learning is hard, it is not impossible. It’s a bit like learning God’s language, the first language of the Bible, Hebrew—when you try, you discover that it is possible. Learning anything new and fearful starts very simply. Begin to obey Jesus in simple ways. You know how this applies to you now. Begin! Start to follow Jesus.
Who makes it hard for you to act like a follower of Jesus? Begin with him. You can do better in loving an unlovely person. Start to try. Do deeds of love and your feelings will follow like a caboose on a train. Feelings that we desire follow behavior that is hard. You say, “I can’t.” God tells you, “No, say ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’.” It’s when we do not begin, when we do not try, because we assume that we can’t. Or when we persuade ourselves we don’t have to. This is why we live with this seething sense of failure that produces guilt. Try, for Jesus sake. Try! And you will begin to know Jesus, and to find His peace in your heart.
There is a song in our hymnbook that my conscience often tells me I should choose for us to sing. It’s “Onward Christian Soldiers.” I know many of you love that old, familiar song. But I find it hard to choose because it has that line, “with the cross of Jesus, going on before.” We think of being a soldier in terms of the success rate of American soldiers. We are used to winning our battles. But soldiers of Christ who arise, and gird their armor on, are fighting a very different battle than I fear we have in mind.
The battle that we wage with Jesus’ cross going before is a battle that has weapons like these: loving my enemies, doing good to those who do not do good to me, praying for those who abuse me, even turning the other cheek to the one who hurts me. It’s these strange, awkward weapons, more awkward that a Scottish broadsword that Jesus has in mind in calling us to join His army. We imagine the Crusaders marching to Jerusalem in ancient times, with red crosses stitched on their tunics, carrying swords to conquer the infidel. Jesus imagines the victory of the cross.
Mel Gibson’s upcoming movie is much in the news these days. Some people fear that so graphically portraying Jesus’ Passion, His suffering and death, will stir up anti-Jewish feelings. But how opposite are Jesus’ expectations of us who contemplate His suffering and death. Jesus wants us to see two things: First, He wants us to see how much He loved us, that He should die such a death for our sake. Second, Jesus wants us to see how hard is this triumphant way of the cross. Because if we understand, in coming to Jesus, than we are coming to the way of the cross, then we’ll realize how pertinent is this way of life He taught, so different from the way of this world.
You think the ordinary way of this world is normal. But look what it brings? Open the paper, and read the head lines. This is the normal way and its effects. Jesus invites you and me to an abnormal way with the high purpose of reclaiming the world God made for God. That’s why Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to all, lend with no confidence of getting your money back. Remember these words as we quietly share the meal in which we remember the cross of Jesus.
O Lord God, we hear Jesus speak and ask that you may give us Your Holy Spirit to help us take Him at His word. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at October 5, 2003 09:30 AM