Scripture: Luke 6:27-38
27 “But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; 28 bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. 29 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. 30 Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive payment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35 Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.[a] Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38 give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap, for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
Sermon
When I was young my parents had a coffee table book of photographs from, I believe it was, the past 50 years. There was a whole section addressing the social crises of the 1960’s, including the protest movement against the war in Viet Nam. This photograph, by photographer Bernie Boston, was in that book.
As a child I stared at it in wonder. It was terrifying, and also thrilling. It was taken during the 1967 march on the Pentagon, a protest of about 100,000 people. They gathered for a rally at the Lincoln Memorial and then marched across a bridge that spanned the Potomac. When they got there, they were met by the 503rd Airborne Military Police Battalion. The young man is placing a carnation in the barrel of an M-14 rifle. All I could think looking at the photo—which I did, again, and again—was, What happened next?
The title of the photo is “Flower Power,” and it ran in the next edition of the Washington Star, a paper that no longer exists. It’s named for a movement started by Beat Generation poet Alan Ginsburg who, “in his November 1965 essay How to Make a March/Spectacle, promoted the use of ‘masses of flowers’ to hand to policemen, press, politicians and spectators to fight violence with peace.”[i]
This is not far from what Jesus was encouraging the people to do in today’s passage from the Sermon on the Plain.
I’m not saying that the people of Galilee and beyond didn’t have the normal, sometimes difficult relationships with family, friends, and neighbors. They were involved in scuffles, and hurt feelings, and grudges, undoubtedly, just as we are. They probably froze one another out, and walked away from one another, and had hard feelings. In that department, they had everything we have, except for social media on which to complain about it. But that was not the driving force of life in an occupied territory, with the Roman soldiers breathing down their necks, and their well-being threatened unless they toed the line.
This passage is about how Jesus encouraged people to respond to the powerful punching down, harassing and even harming civilians by the forces of the Roman Empire. We can assume that the New Testament writings were shaped by that life under occupation. There are many things the regular Joe on the street would encounter that required a particular strategy, a special form of resistance. And that’s what Jesus is doing here. He’s describing a pattern of resistance. I think one version of scripture does a good job of helping us to hear that subtlety. It’s “The Message” by Eugene Peterson, which is not a translation, but a paraphrase.
Listen, now, to that first paragraph we heard, verses 27-31, in Peterson’s version.
To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the supple moves of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more payback. Live generously. Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them!
Jesus is telling the people: Don’t let the empire—these people whose intention it is to leave you feeling powerless and frightened—don’t let them set the terms of engagement. Don’t give back as good as you get. If you do, violence wins. Hate wins. Instead, disarm them with kindness, even love. Maybe, carnations! The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, goes as far as to say,
“Instead, if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.”
~Romans 12:20
In other words, if their actions bring out the best in you rather than the worst, it will drive them crazy. It will strip them of the power they are trying to exercise against you. It will leave you with the greater dignity, and leave them wondering whether it’s worth their time to rough up the little guys at all.
Of course, nonviolent resistance has been with us for a long time. Hindu lawyer and leader Mahatma Gandhi, who read the Sermon on the Mount every single day, used nonviolent resistance in a successful campaign to liberate India from British rule. Gandhi encouraged the people to use Satyagraha, or “Soul Force” rather than brute force to obtain their objective of a free Indian state. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, inspired by Gandhi, embraced the same strategy in his work to obtain Civil Rights for Black Americans in the 1950’s and 60’s, and mentioned “Soul Force” in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Gandhi and King are probably the best-known proponents of nonviolent resistance, but Jesus seems to have been onto something very much like it two thousand years ago.
Here’s the next paragraph of our passage as The Message renders it:
If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that. I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.
There’s nothing wrong with loving those who love you. In fact, it’s pretty irresistible, being loved, and of course we will be grateful and feel affection for those who love us. But that can be a transactional arrangement. Jesus is suggesting that love that is generated from our faith—from our imitating God’s limitless love for us—is potent and life-changing, both for the one who loves, and for the one who is loved. I’ll remind you now that love is not always a feeling. Love, in a revolutionary sense, is a verb. In this sense, it is an action entirely independent of how we are being treated.
This is probably a good time to drop into this sermon the fact that, this passage is most emphatically not about domestic violence. If you or someone you know are experiencing that, please, please reach out to people you trust or your local domestic violence shelter for help. Do not read this passage as if it were about your situation. It’s not.
Here’s Peterson’s last paragraph:
Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don’t condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you’ll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you’ll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.
Of course, we can use these strategies with our not-quite-enemies, too. We can choose to live generously always. With friends, foes, and with people we aren’t quite sure about (and maybe who aren’t quite sure about us). Generosity isn’t just about taking people food (though, that’s always a great move). We can be generous with our attention. We can be generous with our time. We can be expansive with our forgiveness. Each of these things will, as the original text’s agricultural metaphor says, “be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over…” This is not transactional. This is grace. As kind Saint Francis reminds us, it truly is in giving that we receive.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] From “Flower Power” (photograph), Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_Power_(photograph).