Sermon for 7th Sunday after the Epiphany
Impractical Love
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
Today's gospel reading from Luke, chapter 6, includes well-known words of Jesus, continuing his “Sermon on the Plain” which began with last weekend’s gospel.
"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat, do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you, and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again."
Okay, I do not know about you, but my reaction to these words is that they may sound wonderful, but they are impractical and unrealistic. For example, if someone takes away all my goods, then I surely will not be able to give to everyone who begs from me. These words do not make any practical sense.
"Do to others as you would have them do to you." Well, that's better. That sounds a lot more practical, like something you might see on a poster in a school hallway or a corporate conference room-a beautiful, full-color photograph, people of different races working together or children from around the world holding hands in a big circle and over the picture the words: "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Now, that makes sense.
We know these words as the “Golden Rule.” They are not unique to Jesus; indeed, they are found not only in Luke and in Matthew but in the writings of Homer and Seneca and Philo. This is the kind of wisdom we learned in kindergarten when the teacher told us to treat other people the way we would like to be treated.
Sometimes it is tempting to boil the whole Bible down to one verse like this. It is a verse people can understand. It sounds like practical wisdom about getting along in the world. But it is not possible to boil the Bible down to one verse, even a very good one. If we pull the Golden Rule out of this chapter as a summary of everything Jesus said, it is likely that we would miss most of what Jesus said.
We have to go back to where Jesus began in today’s lesson. Jesus began with these words, "Love your enemies." Jesus says it not only once but repeats it again a few verses later. "But love your enemies; do good and lend, expecting nothing in return." Thus, the Golden Rule applies even when we sense that someone will not treat us the way we would like to be treated. This is where it gets very hard. This kind of behavior is not only impractical, but it can seem downright dangerous.
And, Jesus' words about turning the other cheek and giving up your shirt along with your coat seem demeaning in the extreme. It is likely that Jesus is speaking here to those who were victims rather than victimizers, to those oppressed rather than their oppressors. Does Jesus want the poor and oppressed to just turn away and not react to any violence against them?
No, Jesus is not calling victims to roll over and play dead! It is very hard for us to see that for it sounds like Jesus is telling victims to be quiet, to keep taking it.
As the Rev. Dr. Barbara Lundblad points out in material I have used extensively for this sermon and as you have heard me say often, context for anything we read in the Bible is very important and helps us understand its true meaning. New Testament scholar Walter Wink writes that Jesus' words are actually a form of non-violent resistance to oppression.
To understand this, we have to know something about the culture in which Jesus lived. In the culture of first-century Palestine, a person's left hand was used for what we might call, well, bathroom functions. That may not be a pleasant thought, but it means that no one of any age or class in Jesus’ time, no one would ever strike someone with their left hand. If you felt superior to another person, you would strike them with the back of your right hand. Someone who felt superior to another would never hit someone with the palm of their hand for that would mean they would see them as an equal.
This is the picture Jesus is painting. If someone strikes you on the cheek, it will most likely be with the back of their hand, for remember Jesus is talking to victims here so your oppressor will not see you as an equal. He is likely to hit you with the back of his hand. If you turn your face to the side, you force your oppressor to see you as an equal for even your oppressor will not use his left hand. Some things simply were not done.
Jesus wants us to see this situation as almost comical. The oppressor's hand begins to swing but is caught in mid-air because he does not want to treat you as an equal by hitting you with open palm.
The same humorous resistance comes in giving up your shirt when your oppressor asks for your coat. Now this is not a case of giving an old coat to the winter coat drive. Jesus is talking about something completely different here.
In Jesus day, it would have been likely that someone would have asked for your coat in repayment of a debt. You owe your oppressor something and since you have no land and very little money, your oppressor might ask for your very coat.
Now, again in Jesus’ day, there were very clear restrictions regarding the repayment of such debts. You could not leave a debtor naked at sundown no matter what he or she owed. It simply was not to be done. It was against every sense of decency and good order.
So, again, Jesus is setting up a strategy of resistance. If they ask for your coat, give them your shirt too. There you will be standing half-naked and they will be forced to deal with this new reality you've set up. "No, no! No, no!" they will say, "I don't want your shirt. Put it back on!" They might be so disarmed that they will return your coat as well.
Jesus is not telling people to remain victims but to find new ways of resisting evil. "Love your enemies," Jesus said, "do good to those who hate you."
This is the ethic that moved the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to kneel down with many brothers and sisters before water hoses and snarling police dogs. Many people thought Dr. King was crazy. "Only violence can fight violence," they told him. But the authorities and the oppressors did not know what to do with this kind of resistance. They knew the power of violence; they knew the powerlessness of victims who knew their place, but this was something they had not seen before: victims who refused to be victims, victims who refused to fight back with violence, victims who claimed their place and reshaped the battle completely.
"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you." And do not be too impressed with yourself for being good to your friends. Anybody can do that, Jesus says. "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much again."
Just when we have the Golden Rule memorized, Jesus reminds us that his standards are far deeper than just how we treat our friends. Jesus’ standards are far deeper than giving what we hope to receive. They are even different from treating others the way we hope to be treated. Jesus comes back again to the place where he began: "But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return."
Do you remember Matthew Shepherd? He was the young man in Wyoming who was brutally beaten for being gay, beaten because one man felt that he had made a pass at him. That man felt foolish and unmanly and so he got a friend to help him put the young college student in his place. The two of them beat Matthew over and over again. They dragged him along the road from the back of their truck. Then they tied him to a fence on a country road and left him alone in the freezing night. By the time someone found him the next morning and got him to the hospital, there was no way to save him. Matthew Shepherd died as hundreds stood in candlelight vigil outside the hospital.
The two men who killed Matthew were arrested, tried, and convicted of the brutal hate crime. Proved guilty of first-degree murder, they deserved the death penalty in the state of Wyoming. Seems to be an appropriate punishment for such a horrific crime.
That is where the story could have ended. However, as the trail ended, Matthew's mother asked to speak to the court. Matthew Shepherd’s mother addressed the judge. She asked the judge to spare the lives of these guilty men.
Who can understand what she had gone through in all the agonizing months leading up to the trial? What mother could sleep with images of her beloved son tied to a fence, beaten and alone through the cold night? What sort of people could do this to another human being?
And yet, this woman, this loving mother, asked the judge to spare the lives of these guilty men.
"Love your enemies," Jesus said, "do good to those who hate you."
When you hear Jesus' words now, I ask you to think of Matthew Shepherd's mother, her own life shaped by a gospel deeper than hatred, stronger than revenge. I do not know if I could do what she did. But she is such a witness to the power of the gospel.
Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.
Such love is not practical, but it can change the world.
Amen.
(With thanks to the Rev. Dr. Barbara Lundblad and the “Day1” radio ministry).
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sermon for:
February 20th, 2022
