1 Tough Teaching, Tough Call to Gracious Living Luke 6:27 38; February 24, 2019 By: Rev. Susan L. Genge (in partnership with God!) Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in the work of demonstrating love, generosity, mercy and forgiveness, perfect us in this work too, in your name and strength. Amen. This morning we again meet Jesus in Galilee as he continues his sermon to the crowd gathered to hear him on the plain. His commands in today s part of the sermon are among the toughest commands he utters in his entire ministry: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you Give to everyone who begs from you Do for others as you what them to do for you Be merciful Do not judge do not condemn Forgive give (Lk. 6:27ff). These commands are straightforward and they re not optional. Jesus doesn t soften them or give his listeners any leeway or exceptions. He doesn t say, Now people, it would be really nice if you d be loving towards those who oppose you, except if they say or do such and such. No, he s direct, he s clear and he s blunt. He says, Love your enemies. Then, because it s so important, he issues the same command again. What was the crowd thinking and feeling upon hearing Jesus s commands? When he finished his sermon that day, and the people dispersed to their home towns, did they go away saying, He s right. I ve got to do a better job of that. Or did some of them shake their heads in disbelief, exclaiming, That s impossible! Nobody can love their enemy! That rabbi is asking too much of us! Is there a Biblical precedent for these extreme commands? In the Old Testament God told Moses to instruct the Hebrew people to love God with their whole being, and to love their neighbour as themselves.
2 In the Book of Leviticus, Moses had commanded the Hebrews, You shall not hate any of your family members (Lev. 19:17). He didn t go so far as to say, Love your enemies. But Jesus did. He set the bar high, told them to go above and beyond the call of duty, called the people to a higher standard of loving. How do we live out these commands? They re very difficult to follow. How do you love the person in your family, or at work, or in your club, or in your volunteer organization or at church who speaks harshly to you? How do you love the person who repeatedly opposes you? How do you love the person who has deceived you or cheated on you? How do you love the person who has wounded you physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually? It s tough! While we and our enemy are living, there s always the hope and sometimes the opportunity for honest, heartfelt conversation and reconciliation to take place. But when one s enemy is deceased, that opportunity is gone. Then we have the additional work of forgiving our enemy without being able to have person to person conversation. There are numerous movies depicting the problem of conflicts between enemies. Tonight s Academy Awards presentation includes a number of nominations for a movie entitled Green Book, in which the leading characters begin as enemies, mainly because of the racist attitude of one of those characters. The movie s title reflects the fact that in the 1950s and 1960s there was a green booklet for black travellers which listed safe USA hotels and restaurants where blacks could stay and dine. (Canada had its own Green Book.) In this movie, Tony Lip is a tough talking, Italian American nightclub bouncer from the Bronx area of New York City. He is deeply prejudiced against blacks. When he sees his wife offer a glass of water to the black man who had come to repair their leaky sink pipe, after the man drinks the water and leaves the
3 house, Tony picks up the glass and drops it into the garbage. That s just a sample of his racist approach to blacks. The news about Tony the tough guy bouncer, reaches the ears of worldclass African American concert pianist Dr. Don Shirley. Shirley is the polar opposite of Tony Lip. Shirley is intelligent, well educated, gifted, refined, wise and dignified. While Shirley is a divorcee who lives alone with his wealth in his New York suite, Tony Lip lives a lower class existence but is surrounded by his wealth of relatives. In 1962, Don Shirley is about to embark on a concert tour in the USA s Deep South and needs a driver and protection. Don Shirley interviews Tony and offers him the job. Tony turns down Don Shirley s job offer. He doesn t want anything to do with this black man and foresees all sorts of problems. Loving this fellow human being, whom he regards as a racial enemy, isn t on his list of priorities. Interview done, Tony heads home. Yes, loving ones alleged enemies, whoever they are, presents one with difficulties and discomfort. But we re not alone. We find ourselves in excellent company, for during his ministry Jesus had many enemies. Who were they? Some of the religious leaders were his enemies, among them those who repeatedly misunderstood him, tried to trap him with trick questions, criticized him for breaking some of the Jewish religious laws, and berated him for eating meals and keeping company with tax collectors and other sinners. At one point, some of Jesus own family members became his temporary enemies by trying to stop his ministry and bring him home and to his senses. Then, his closest disciple Simon Peter became Jesus enemy when he took Jesus aside, rebuked him and told him to stop talking about his upcoming rejection, suffering and death.
4 Finally, during the last week of Jesus life, a whole slew of people lined up as Jesus enemies: Judas, one of Jesus disciples, who betrayed Jesus for a payment of thirty pieces of silver; the Jerusalem religious leaders, who subjected Jesus to a middle of the night trial, had witnesses lie about what he said, then sent him with hands tied up for trial by the Romans; the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, who sentenced Jesus to whipping and death; and those in the Jerusalem crowd who shouted out for his death Crucify him! But despite this ill treatment by his enemies, Jesus continued to love them. He challenged them, but he didn t condemn them. He didn t reject them. He who was rejected was merciful from the cross. While suffering and dying he prayed, Father, forgive them, because they don t know what they are doing. How high and deep and broad was Jesus love for his enemies! He loved those who denied him, betrayed him, fled from him, turned him in, tortured him and killed him, as he loved the repentant sinner, the stranger and friend, the poor and the wealthy, and all his followers. Remembering Jesus example can help us to love our enemies and to forgive them. To love is a decision. Jesus made a decision to love his enemies regardless of how he felt about them. Loving our enemies doesn t mean that we need to be filled with warm, fuzzy feelings toward our enemy. It does mean that we treat them the same way Jesus would by remembering that they are God s children too, by accepting them, and by doing good to them. Back to the movie Green Card. Eventually Tony, the tough talking night club bouncer accepted Don Shirley s job offer and became Shirley s driver and protector on his Deep South concert tour. Tony needed the money. He promised his wife that he d write to her while he was away. At the beginning of the journey Don Shirley was aloof and snobby towards his driver Tony. But as the two men travelled together, ate together, and lived together over the length of the concert tour, they began to warm up to each other, and the wall of racism crumbled. They needed each other.
5 Tony learned much about life from Don Shirley. He grew to accept and admire Don Shirley, understand Don Shirley, and care about Don Shirley. Over their time together, Tony Lip made the huge leap from regarding Don Shirley as his enemy, to his friend. The fullest expression of that sense of kinship happened upon the completion of the concert tour, when Don Shirley arrived alone at Tony Lip s door on Christmas Eve, and was invited in to join Tony and his extensive Italian family for Christmas Dinner. The enemies had become friends. We are inspired by other wonderful illustrations of people finding the strength and grace to extend love rather than hate toward enemies. One recent example concerns the tragic death of 11 year old Brampton child Riya Rajkumar, who was found dead in her father s home on her Valentine s Day birthday. On February 16, 200 people attended a vigil in her memory near Meadowvale Village Public School, where Riya was a Grade 5 student. And last Tuesday, hundreds of people gathered for a candlelight vigil in her memory at Brampton s Garden Square. That vigil was filled with tears, prayers, poetry and songs. Peel s acting police chief read a touching message from Riya s mother to the crowd at the vigil. In her message, Riya s mother shared her memories of her daughter, conveyed her thanks to those who were there, and her thanks for all the support she has received from the community. Not a word of contempt was uttered about Riya s father, the one who had ended Riya s life, and soon after, his own too. As Christians, we depend upon the pure and strong love of Jesus to enable us to love our enemies. The love we are called to demonstrate is the way Jesus lived and loved. It s not an easily accomplished thing. The road to loving one s enemies is a process, a journey. Sometimes it is a long journey, or a life long journey. It takes work, practice, perseverance and prayer. It takes courage and the willingness to risk. May God so empower us. Amen.
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