Leveling Up On Love
November 10, 2024
Luke 6:27-38. Matthew 5:43-48
But I say to you who are willing to hear: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other one as well. If someone takes your coat, don’t withhold your shirt either. Give to everyone who asks and don’t demand your things back from those who take them. Treat people in the same way that you want them to treat you.
If you love those who love you, why should you be commended? Even sinners love those who love them.
Luke 6:27-32 (CEB)
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In Matthew’s telling of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Luke’s rendition shows us exactly what such love looks like in action. Turn the other cheek, give freely without expecting anything in return, lend without expecting repayment, show compassion, don’t judge, forgive.”
Two things I find particularly interesting here:
The editors of the Common English Translation title this section of Luke, “Behaving as God’s Children” in contrast to Matthew’s section header, “The Law of Love.” It’s easy to talk about love in abstract terms, but Luke seems to realize how easy it is to separate what we call “love” from actual actions or behavior. There are a lot of people who claim to love everyone while behaving in extremely unloving ways.
It seems that Luke’s version of this command is used far more rarely than Matthew’s these days. A lot of people want to call themselves “Christian” without being bogged down with the nuances of actually “behaving as God’s children.” Many Christian groups are far more vocal in deciding who they think God’s enemies are and then declaring God’s wrath and judgment upon them. Some even go to the extreme of seeing themselves as instruments of God’s judgment to condemn or punish the wicked.
In our world, “an eye for an eye” is much more popular than “turn the other cheek.” Forgiveness and compassion are seen as weak. And let’s not even talk about the money issue, “lending without expecting to be paid back in full.” Our economy thrives on exploiting people’s debt so they pay back far more than they ever borrowed, often over the course of a lifetime.
Funny how the rules of our culture run so contrary to Jesus’ most basic teaching, and yet we see no conflict between calling oneself a Christian while behaving in greedy, hateful and judgmental ways toward others. I wonder how many of the rules and laws we want to pass to keep our enemies (or political opponents) in line would be acceptable terms if similar laws were passed against us.
Many Christians today have a persecution complex. Despite having a lot more freedom than we realize and holding significant political power at every level, we tend to feel like everybody is out to get us… everybody is our enemy. Even if that was true, which I do not believe, I wonder how our relationships with those “so-called” enemies might change if we behaved toward them the way Jesus taught and modeled for us.
Maybe, just maybe, we would make a lot more friends.