Today’s passage is Luke 6:27-38. Jesus says to love our enemies and do to others as we would have them do to us. He says there’s no reward in loving people who love us but there’s a big reward in loving our enemies. He says to be as merciful as God is merciful to us. He says not to judge but to forgive and to give to others because we will be measured with the same measure we give.
Why does Jesus address himself to those who “hear” him? Why will my measure be poured into my lap?
Today’s passage is full of Jesus’ hardest sayings because he tells us to do the opposite of what we say human nature tells us to do.
In today’s passage Jesus turns human nature on its head and gives us the standard of love, generosity, and mercy that does not exist in the world but which we all recognize should exist.
No other passage in the Bible tells me so clearly that I am indeed a sinful, fallen man unable to live God’s rule unless he gives me the power to do it.
The opening line in today’s passage is key to me: “I tell you who hear me”(27), Jesus says.
Everything that follows that opening is exactly what I do not want to hear.
But once I have heard it, I’m stuck because there’s no way to unhear it.
Now I have to deal with it, now I have to obey it if I want to call myself a follower of Jesus.
I might be able to quibble over what it means to love my enemy, but all the examples are pretty clear.
“Do good … bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you”(27-8).
If someone steals my stuff, don’t try to get it back (29).
Don’t expect repayment of a loan (34).
Jesus is serious in his command to love my enemies.
He goes even further when he gives the golden rule of doing to others what I’d like done to me.
That means loving my neighbor as myself.
Jesus knows the impossibility of my being able or willing to do it without his help, without my daily asking for his help.
If I could follow the rule of love on my own, would I then need Jesus for anything?
Wouldn’t my own actions guarantee my salvation?
If I do to others what I truly want done to me, if I judge and condemn no one, if I give with no expectation of return, then I’m perfect.
But I know I’m not perfect.
I can’t even get past the most basic rule of not coveting other people’s things, health, good looks and fortunate circumstances.
And since I can’t get past that, how am I ever going to love, bless and pray for my enemy unless I have superhuman aid to change something desperately wrong in me?
Unless I put on Christ and, as Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, “clothe myself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience” (Col 3:12), I can’t do it.
“And,” says Paul, “over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
And just how am I going to even begin to do that?
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col 3:16), says Paul.
Without Jesus Christ and his word living in me, I cannot do what I deeply, truly want to do: love others as God loves me.
And to do that I have to “hear” Jesus. My hearing, however, is not very good and needs lots of help.
Application: to encourage my brother in law to study his QT passages before he studies his real estate books.
Lord, clean the ears of my heart that I may truly hear you and, strengthened by your word, love others as you do.
