[02/24/2019] James Stytle brought the message and was gracious enough to allow me to post in its entirety. If you take the time to absorb his words, I’m sure you’ll find God speaking to your heart.
Last week, we began Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain. We covered Luke, Chapter 6, verses 17-26. Jesus taught that the poor, hungry, sad, and hated would be blessed and the rich, satiated, laughing, and well liked would be full of woe. Today, we continue Jesus’ Sermon with verses 27-38, where Jesus gives us instructions. As I have mentioned before, one of my teachers said that a good sermon should upset people; otherwise, you are just telling people what they want to hear. That came to mind as I prepared for today, as this topic is not what a lot of people want to hear.
But I say to you who listen: Love your enemies, do what is good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone hits you on the cheek, offer the other also. And if anyone takes away your coat, don’t hold back your shirt either. Give to everyone who asks you, and from someone who takes your things, don’t ask for them back. Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do what is good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do what is good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High. For he is gracious to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you; a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over—will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
Those are not easy instructions. They go against human nature. I think that is the idea – they cause us to move away from our base, carnal nature. That is not easy, but we need to stop ourselves from being like the disciples in the 6thchapter of John, who upon hearing hard teachings, turned away and quit following Jesus. We can do this difficult task. We are no longer bound by our human nature. With baptism, we were born again, born of the Spirit. The bonds of our human nature were broken.
We are to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. I remember trying to get my daughters to be nice to each other when they were young. I shared with them the Old Testament version of this. “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.” Proverbs 25:21-22. I told them that if they really want to get their sisters, just be nice to them. In the New Testament, Jesus gave us a more mature version, with no curse or divine retribution on our enemies, just love on our part.
Jesus taught that we are to bless those who curse us and pray for those who mistreat us. The more we learn about human behavior, the more we understand Jesus’ instructions. When somebody hurts you in some way, consider them for a moment. Why did the person treat you that way? Are they suffering? Are they confused or scared? Do they think their value must come at the expense of another? When the background of the person is understood, often we see the pain in their life. We should pray that they will experience God’s love and peace, that they will feel loved and accepted, that they will know they are of worth. God loves all of us equally. In Matthew 5:45, Jesus taught that God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and the life-giving rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous.
If somebody strikes our cheek, we are to offer them the other one, and if somebody takes our coat, we are to offer them our shirt also. Jesus is not telling us to make ourselves victims. He is telling us how to respond. In Chapter 5 of Matthew, He precedes this instruction with the phrase, “don’t resist an evildoer.” He does not say to make ourselves readily available to an evildoer, but to practice nonresistance. That is a core teaching of all Peace churches – nonresistance. When, at Gethsemane, Jesus told his follower (identified as Peter in John’s Gospel) to put away his sword, Jesus disarmed all of us. We should pity and seek to help those who resort to violence, not respond in kind. We should pity and seek to help those who steal what they need to survive.
Remember, all that we have is a blessing from God. In Doctrine and Covenants, Section 163, we are told, “Break free from the shackles of conventional culture that mainly promote self-serving interests. Give generously.” In verse 30 of today’s reading, Jesus said, “Give to everyone who asks you, and from someone who takes your things, don’t ask for them back.” In Proverbs 19:17, we learn that kindness to the poor is really a loan to God, and He will reward us.
In verse 31 of today’s reading, we are taught the Golden Rule. Jesus said, “Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them.” I hope this isn’t blasphemy, but I prefer Immanuel Kant’s version, which he called the Categorical Imperative. He said that we should act such that we would will the maxim of our actions be universal law. In simpler terms, we should only behave in a way that we would want everyone to behave in that circumstance, even if we were on the receiving end of the action.
The other thing I remember from studying Kant back in the 20th Century was his teaching that doing what you want to do, no matter how good it is, does not count as making a correct moral decision. Jesus taught that idea in verses 32-34. He said that we don’t get credit for loving those who love us, because even sinners do that. We don’t get credit for doing good to those who do good to us, because even sinners do that. We don’t get credit for lending to those we know will pay us back, because even sinners to that. We are to do the hard work. We are to overcome our human nature. The bonds of human nature were broken. We are to exercise the freedom we have been given through baptism. Jesus said, “But love your enemies, do what is good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High. For he is gracious to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” Luke 6:35-36.
As hard as those instructions are, Jesus upped the difficulty in verse 37. Not only are we to act against our human nature, but we are to control our thoughts also. Jesus said, “Do not judge.” That reminds me of Yoda – “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” We are not to judge each other. If we are not to judge, then we are left treating everybody the same. We are to see everybody as worthy of our love, our compassion, our kindness, our generosity – BECAUSE THEY ARE WORTHY! One of our Enduring Principles is Worth of All Persons. God views all people as having inestimable and equal worth. You have never met a person who was not a beloved child of God.
Knowing that many people would still be asking what was in it for them, Jesus said, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you; a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over—will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” Luke 6:37-38.
We are to love everybody, bless everybody, pray for everybody, give freely to everybody, and judge nobody. Those are not easy tasks, but we can do them.