"Love...WHO?" given 2/19/2017

Many of your know that back in the last two weeks of 1995, Donna and I had the opportunity to visit Israel and Egypt. On the Monday after we returned, I called up a long-time friend who lives in another part of the country. He was on another line when I reached his office. While I waited to talk to my friend, I chatted with his secretary. Elizabeth is an evangelical Christian-- a very nice young woman who I've never met face to face. But I've always found to be extremely helpful and friendly and charming on the phone.

When I told her where we’d just been, Elizabeth shared with me that she would be going with her church to the Holy Land in the next month. We talked a while about her excitement at seeing the places where Jesus walked. And she shared with me how much she was particularly looking forward to a re-baptism ceremony on the banks of the Jordan River. When she found that this had been a first-time trip for me, she exclaimed,

"Oh, how I'd love to hear your sermon on your first Sunday back!"

Later in the week, when I turned to Lectionary reading for today, I read, "Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you, turn the other cheek."

I can't imagine anyone visiting Israel and only having the experience that my telephone friend Elizabeth was anticipating. I can't imagine anyone seeing nothing but the holy sights, nothing but the churches and shrines and ruins and digs and places where our Lord Jesus most probably lived and walked. Everywhere we went on those streets and ancient places, we had the experience of being torn away from the spiritual realities of the past, and thrown up against the political reality of violence and oppression in everyday life in that land.

I recall sitting with Donna by the shore of the Sea of Galilee one evening. A young Israeli couple in bathing suits walked by, arm in arm. As they passed us, I could see slung across the young man's back, an assault rifle. I recall standing at the top of Mount Carmel, and glancing sideways at the man I was standing next to. His coat fell open, and tucked into his waist was a handgun.

In a Mission Secondary school in Bethlehem, we met one of the students. He was on crutches, because a stray bullet fired at random into that Arab city, had hit him while he was in his classroom. At the wailing wall, on the streets, even at the Holocaust museum, everywhere we went we saw armed Israelis-- Army, Air Force and police, and just ordinary civilians.

At the Jerusalem city line, our tour bus had to pass through a road block manned by Israeli police and army with automatic weapons trained on the road. The city had been closed to all non-resident Palestinians for six months--even commuters with jobs in Jerusalem could not enter. Everywhere we went, we saw Palestinians being stopped, questioned, searched. Checkpoints dotted the roads. Our guide, a Palestinian Christian commented, "They all carry guns, while we cannot even carry knife in our pockets to cut an apple with."

To be fair, I must tell you that the violence was far from one- sided. One night on TV, we saw the story of an Israeli cab-driver stabbed by three Palestinians. Another night, the news told us that a convoy of Israeli police and Palestinian authority police on the road to Jericho were fired upon.

In the face of all that oppression and violence, our group heard a Israeli speaker express hope in the eventual triumph of peace. People-- both Israeli and Palestinian-he said, were slowly growing more and more tired of living that way. Both sides were slowly coming to a consensus that the time had come to compromise. No one had anymore to gain from the Occupation--except for the fundamentalists and terrorists and crazies on both sides. If they could be kept in check-- maybe there was room to hope. Tragically, subsequent events have proved that hope is still premature.

On Sunday, our Northern Illinois group worshipped at St. George's Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem. We heard an eloquent and moving sermon, preached first in English for us, and then in Arabic for his parishioners, by the Dean of the Cathedral. He described the plight of the Jews in First Century Jerusalem under occupation by the Romans. He compared it with the plight of Twentieth Century Palestinian Christians and Moslems under the current Occupation. He spoke of violence in the New Testament, and violence in his own land and time. He prayed for an end to violence, an end to the Occupation, an end to hatred.

"Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you, turn the other cheek."

Those words come from Jesus' sermon on the mound. They are among the most familiar of his teachings to our ears. When we hear them, they sound like Jesus to us. Their authenticity is unquestioned by us. You and I have heard them many times, but they always have a power to strike at our hearts if we let them. Not that we always live by them, unfortunately. But we know-- at least in our hearts-- that we cannot blithely ignore them.

"Love your enemies. Do good to those who harm you." Those words challenge us, because they are so terribly clear. There's no mystery here. A child can hear these words and understand exactly what Jesus means. A child can hear them, and immediately see how beautiful life would be if men and women were more willing to live by those words. But of course, a child would know how very few men and women in this world have chosen to truly live their lives by those words.

And yet, just the existence of these words in the Gospel makes a difference in the world. Just the very fact that Jesus said them makes a difference in our lives--even if they don't always guide our thoughts and actions. At least these teachings of Jesus serve to make you and to make me, aware that as followers of Christ, we are called to a higher standard, a nobler morality, a different style of life from the rest of the world. We know that we are called to strive, to live, to be something better, something more committed, more serious, more loving, more joyful, more giving and forgiving.

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." Is civilized life on this planet really possible on such terms? No self-defense? No armies? No national security? No lawsuits?

Just do good and love everybody. Even the drunk driver who totals my car, Jesus? Even the robber who breaks into my house? Even the murderer? Even the rapist? Even the exploiter and oppressor? Even the polluter? Even them, Jesus? Even them, despite what they've done?

And Jesus answers, "to the one who strikes you on your cheek, turn the other cheek. From the one who would take your cloak, offer also your shirt." Are you kidding Jesus? Can he really be serious? Does Jesus really mean all that, or are those merely impossible ideals--platitudes that would be nice to live up to?

Look at Jesus' own life and witness. It was more than naive, impractical ideals for Him. He forbade His followers to defend Him with violence when He was arrested. He healed the severed ear of one of those who came to arrest Him. He prayed for his accusers and executioners, even after they had mocked and tortured Him, even while He hung on the cross, dying.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote:

Probably no admonition of Jesus has been more difficult to follow than the command, "Love your enemies." Some... have sincerely felt that its actual practice is not possible. It is easy, they say, to love those who love you, but how can one love those who openly and insidiously seek to defeat you?.. Jesus, they say, was an impractical idealist.

In spite of these insistent questions and persistent objections, this command of Jesus challenges us with a new urgency. Upheaval after upheaval has reminded us that modern man is traveling along a road called hate, in a journey that will bring us to destruction and damnation. Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, the command to love one's enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival. Love even for enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of the world. Jesus is not an impractical idealist; He is the practical realist..."

Dr. King was right. Jesus was a practical man. He was born homeless. He was a political refuge as an infant. He grew up alongside the poorest of the poor. He was part of a family, with parents and brothers and sisters and all the love and occasional squabbles that entails. He made a living with his hands, performing hard physical labor. He lived for thirty years in a small town up in the boondocks. After His first sermon in his hometown, the people Jesus grew up with tried to throw Him off a cliff.

Jesus knew-just as well, if not better than you or I know-- what everyday life in this world is like. So there's no doubt that Jesus understood just how hard it can be to love your enemy. He never spoke of the ethical life, the moral life, the path of discipleship as being easy. On the contrary, Jesus warned us time and time again that we might well be persecuted or ostracized for following His way. He warned us that it was a way of sacrifice.

Jesus realized that you and I can only genuinely and totally love, after we've freely committed our lives, our time, our gifts, our total selves to the God who made us. So when Jesus told us "Love your enemy", He knew that was really a call to total self-surrender to the Will of our Maker.

Yet He meant every word of it. Our responsibility as His followers is to figure out how to live out that "love your enemy" ethic in our everyday lives. Our Lord in turn, promises that if we will make the effort to forgive, the power to love will be there.

Love your enemies and pray for them. Does Jesus mean "love" in the emotional sense? No. Not at least, at first. Eventually we may be able to come to that point. But on the most basic level, loving our enemies means no more and no less than not wanting them to do or to suffer any wrong or evil. Then working slowly with prayer, we can come to a point where we wish them good—ultimate good in their lives-- then very same ultimate good that you and I l wish for when we love our own selves. Still, it's a tall order.

How is the Israeli mother supposed to will the good of the Palestinian boys who throw rocks at her son in the streets? How is the Irish widow supposed to will the good of the terrorist who blows up a pub in which her husband is having a drink? How is the longtime employee who's been laid off supposed to will the good of the personnel director who made the decision?

Around 395, St. Augustine wrote "If I had slain thee when thou wast mine enemy, how could I have made thee my friend?" Augustine also warns us that if we pray that God might slay the wicked one, Our God will reply, "Which one of you?"

We've all heard the old preacher's saying that must learn to love the person, but not their deeds. In order for us to be able to do that, we must first learn to divorce our enemy from their enmity. When you and I have been wronged, we are perfectly clear to oppose the wrong done to us. We are perfectly free to resent the enmity in the heart of our enemy. We are perfectly free to hate the evil that is at the heart of that enmity

But we are not free to hate or to resent that person. We are only free to pray that God might cleanse this person from the power of the evil within them. That, after all, is willing their greatest good, if you think about it. That, after all, is loving our enemy.

If we can come to see that those we call our enemies are just as human-just as vulnerable-just as much a child of God as we are, maybe we can at least get to the point of being able to pray for them-- even if all we can pray is that God will forgive them because we can't. At least that's a start.

Sooner or later, we must get around to working to be reconciled with our enemy, that their enmity toward us may be banished. Sooner or later, we must begin to try and forgive the wrongs they have done us. Perhaps we can even bring them, by the witness of our forgiveness, to Jesus Christ.

You and I can learn to develop and maintain within ourselves the power, the habit of forgiving. Anyone unable to forgive is unable to love. It's impossible even begin to think about loving our enemies unless we accept in our own minds and hearts, the necessity of forgiveness. We may well need to forgive over and over again. It won't always be easy. It may take us a lifetime.

But that is the most profound way-the only way really, of praying for those who oppose us. We may even find ourselves forgiving those who haven't even asked for it. That too, is willing their greatest good. That too, is loving our enemies. As Dr. King reminds us, preaching on “The Prodigal Son”, the person wronged is the only person who can initiate forgiveness.

"The wrongdoer may request forgiveness. He may come to himself, and like the prodigal son, move up some dusty road, his heart palpitating with the desire for forgiveness. But only the injured neighbor, the loving father back home, can really pour out the warm water of forgiveness."

Let us pray,

Lord Jesus, even on the cross, you forgave. Even on the cross, you loved. Teach us how to forgive. Empower us to begin to love, even those who oppose and harm us. Teach us by your example, and by the love that you so freely offer to us in our lives, how to want to love and forgive. Amen.