Books of the Bible
Love Your Enemies           

Matthew 5:38-47

JOHN
Grace to you and peace from God our Father

ED
And from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

BOTH
Amen.

ED
For all of you young people in grades 5-9 who are taking notes on these Lenten sermons, the title of this sermon is:  LOVE YOUR ENEMIES. The text is Matthew 5:38-47.

JOHN
Well, Ed, how long were we sitting there in my office, looking at these texts, before we got some kind of direction to go?

ED
Sixty minutes. Ninety minutes. One hundred and twenty minutes. We had done our research. We had done our reading. We sat down together and tried to wade through these texts. “If somebody hits you on the right cheek, offer the other.” “Do not resist evil.” “Love your enemies.” We went down so many dead end streets and dead end alleys. It was awful. It was so confusing and perplexing. We thought we would never have a sermon done for tonight.

JOHN
The Bible says, “If someone slaps you on the right check, turn the other cheek to you and let them slap that cheek as well.” What does that mean for us today? How are we to understand that kind of text in our life today?

ED
You start. What do you think it means? What do you think that means for us today?

JOHN
It says in the Scriptures, “Don’t resist evil. Do not resist evil.” That is what the Bible says. I have a question for you. How about people like Gary Ridgeway? Gary Ridgeway, the man who is the Green River murderer, who murdered 48 young women. He murdered 48 young women. Strangled them. Choked them. How about people like that? Are we to turn our other cheek? Are we to turn away and ignore that kind of violence by an insane man? Is that what Jesus is trying to tell us here?

ED
Of course not.

JOHN
How about on a greater scale? How about Adolph Hitler who killed six million Jews? Are we to turn our backs and let six million more Jews die? Is that what Jesus is saying in this text?

ED
Obviously, of course not. That isn’t what that text means at all.

JOHN
How about those terrorists of Al Quaida who brought down the Twin Towers in New York and killed more than six thousand people. How about those terrorists today who are inflaming conflict in Iraq. Are we to turn our cheek towards them? And ask them to strike the other cheek? They will, I am sure.

ED
Of course not. Of course not. That isn’t what the text means. It doesn’t mean that we are to turn our backs on evil. Let’s apply these teachings to family situation with which we work. Let’s talk about physical abuse within the family. Let’s say that we have a man and a woman who are married to each other. This woman is coming to church every Sunday and hears this passage, “Turn the other cheek.” She interprets that passage to be: “Accept the abuse.” Meanwhile she is being physically abused week after week and year after year. Is that what this text means, that she is just supposed to live with the physical abuse, and put up with it, year after year after year? Is that what Jesus means?

JOHN
I don’t believe that at all.

ED
Well, how about sexual abuse. If you are part of a family which has an unstable father who has been sexually abusing one of the children, are you supposed to do nothing about it? Do you allow that father to sexually abuse other young children who are growing up in that family? Is that what this text is saying?

JOHN
No, I don’t believe that. That is not what this text is about.

ED
Well, how about emotional abuse? What if you have a woman living in her home and she is exposed, not to physical abuse, and not to sexual abuse, but to emotional abuse? You know, the Chinese water torture where you can’t see the actual physical marks. Where this man has been putting her down year after year? Is that what this text means? He can emotionally abuse me on this cheek and then he can emotionally abuse me on the other cheek? Is that what Jesus is saying?

JOHN
No, I can’t believe that is what Jesus is trying to tell us here. Not at all. This is not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is not saying that we are to allow people to do evil things to us or to our loved ones. We are not to be doormats for people and allow them to wipe their feet on us. We are not to be passive and just sit back and accept this kind of injustice or abuse. That is not at all what Jesus intends here.

ED
Are you saying that God wants us to pursue justice?

JOHN
Absolutely. God wants us to pursue justice. All these things that we have been talking about with Ridgeway and Hitler and the terrorists and these incidents of abuse that happen at home and in the family, these all have to do with justice. We want justice done in the these situations. God wants justice and we are to pursue justice. We are not to be a permissive society that allows all this kind of violence and abuse happen. God wants us to pursue justice but God does not want us to pursue vengeance. There is a big difference here. With Ridgeway, Hitler, the terrorists, that kind of abusive violence needs to be stopped. Justice is to pursue the killers and hold them accountable. That is not revenge.

ED
So I ask you a question. Let’s get personal here. Let’s say that the some person murdered  one of your daughters. Lindsay, Morgan, Shannon. Your daughter and she was murdered at a shopping center by some unknown assailant. Be honest. What would your reaction be?

JOHN
I don’t think there is any question about it for me. My initial reaction would be revenge. I would want revenge. I would be so angry I would want revenge. But I would hope that eventually I would want justice. But at first, I know it would be revenge, if I were really honest. … OK, but how about you, Ed? Suppose a killer killed one of your children or grandchildren. What would your reaction be?

ED
O, let me tell you. Vengeance. I would be deeply angry. I would want to retaliate against that person who killed my child or grandchild. I would want vengeance. And so our initial reactions as human beings are the same. But ultimately, as God heals the heart, we come to realize that what is really needed is justice. Justice means to make sure that people like Ridgeway are put away, that they are put in jail. That is what courts are for. We are feeling vengeance in our hearts. That is what the court system is for. In a judge and jury, you don’t have someone who is so emotionally embroiled in it that he does irrational acts. That way justice is done and not vengeance.

JOHN
What else as we work through these texts, what is another thing that we came up with here?

ED
These texts are difficult. To think through these texts is not easy. To figure out a sermon from these texts was not easy. Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” “Love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you.” What does that mean? It seems that there are  historic enemies all over the planet. There are deep seated, historic conflicts between the Jews and the Arabs. Between the Irish and the English. Between the Indians and Pakistanis. There are these deep, historic, long term conflicts. What is important is that God loves all of these people who are on both sides of the conflict.

JOHN
The key for the text today is this: We are to be compassionate as God is compassionate. Does God love the Jews any more than the Arabs? Does God love the Arabs any more than the Jews? No. God loves them both. The important thing is that when we have enemies is to remember that God loves our enemies just as much as God loves us. When our enemy in the good old USA was the Soviet Union, it is important to remember that God loved the people in Russia just as much as God loves us.

ED
We are to look in the world in the same way as God does. We are to love the world the way that God loves the world. We are to be compassionate to the whole world as God is compassionate to the whole world.

JOHN
One of the best examples of that is throughout the Bible we hear about this animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews. This occurs throughout the Bible. Do you remember the story about the Good Samaritan? It was a story about a man who was beat up by a robber and several people passed by. Who was the one who finally stopped to help? It was the Samaritan. That was Jesus’ point. The Samaritans were the ones who were hated by the Jews. The Jews actually hated the Samaritans but Jesus said, “No. It was the Samaritan who stopped to help the victim who had been robbed.”

ED
Or the story of the ten lepers who were cleansed. All ten lepers were cleansed but only one returned to say thank you to Jesus. Who was that? Jesus made a point of saying “that was a Samaritan.”  Jesus was trying to eliminate the animosity between Jews and Samaritans.

JOHN
At the heart of so much animosity is that lethal combination of race and religion. So many times, our enemies are people who are not of the same religion or not of the same race or ethnic tribe. In Iraq, the Shiites and the Sunnis Muslims. In Israel, the Palestinians and the Jews. In the world, the Christians and the Muslims.

ED
Jesus, throughout the New Testament, is trying to break down all the prejudices, all the barriers, all the “you are my enemy.” Jesus is trying to break down all the conflicts due to race, religion, class, economics or politics.  Jesus is forever breaking down all the dividing walls of hostility. Jesus does not want us to have enemies due to race or religion or anything else.

JOHN
It is interesting to think that even in our own history, we know that yesterday’s enemies are today’s friends. As we think about that, it is obvious that the Japanese are our friends. Germany was our enemy during World War II and now they are friends.

ED
My mother wasn’t supposed to marry a German.

JOHN
Or Russia. Of all the things that are happening in the ex-Soviet Union, we are now starting to get friendly relationships. Yesterday’s enemies are today’s friends. How good it is that we have our Russian brothers and sisters worshipping here in our sanctuary every Sunday afternoon and Friday night. These Russian Christians are our friends, brothers and sisters.

ED
What I like best about this puppet show was at the very end of it, Charlie Brown was responding to Lucy who had been very nasty to him. At the very end of the script, Charlie Brown said, “Lucy, I will carry your books home.” Charlie goes over to Lucy in order to carry her books home. Lucy says, “Charlie Brown, I have been so mean to you, you don’t need to do that. Why don’t you carry them just to the corner.” And Charlie said, “No, I will carry your books allllll the way to your house.” In other words, I am going to go the second mile, for you my enemy.

JOHN
In the text for today, Jesus is asking for us to go the second mile, to go the extra distance. Not for my friend. I will go the second mile for Ed. Ed is my good friend. I will go the second mile for my wife and my family. They are my friends. I will go the second mile for you in the congregation. You are my friends. But Jesus isn’t talking about that. He expects you and me to go the second mile. What Jesus is saying is, “Make the extra effort. Go the second mile … for those people that you consider you enemy.” That is what this text is all about.

ED
When you are filled with the heart of God, God is asking you to go the second mile for those people who in the past have been our historic enemies. Jesus’ teaching is very radical and revolutionary.

JOHN
What else did we find in here? There is one more thing we found, isn’t there?

ED
The one thing more? The danger of retaliation. The instinct is to retaliate. The danger of retaliation is that retaliation just makes matters worse. Down in Latin America in the recent past, they have experienced what is called “the cycle of violence.” There has been a cycle of violence between the left wing and the right wing. The left wing commits an atrocity and the right wing does it back. The left, the right. The right, the left. The left, the right. The right, the left. It becomes an endless cycle of violence. Pretty soon you have a circle and the cycle of violence that goes round and round…like in Israel with the Israelis and Palestinians. This cycle of violence gets worse and worse and worse. And something needs to be done to break that cycle of violence. Jesus warned us that it is dangerous when you get into that cycle of retaliation.

JOHN
Ed, you and I work with many families and marriages in our church. In the midst of so many of these family and marriage conflicts, one spouse will do something bad and the other spouse will do something to retaliate. It goes back and forth, back and forth, back forth, back and forth and it escalates. You got a real mess on your hands and these people are trying to destroy each other. The cycle of retaliation in marriage is absolutely devastating. In fact, retaliation does not help. In fact, retaliation makes things worse and worse and worse.

ED
Well, one time Jesus was with his disciples down on the shores of Lake Galilee. Jesus took his inner core of disciples up to the Mount of the Beatitudes. He sat his disciples down and began to teach them about the new moral guideline for his disciples. The Old Testament was not enough. In fact, the Old Testament law was wrong for these New Testament disciples. The Old Testament law was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That Old Testament law did not work anymore for these New Testament disciples. Jesus said, “I want you my disciples to learn a new moral code.”

JOHN
Then Jesus said, “Love your enemies. Go the second mile for your enemies. Do not retaliate. It will only come back to haunt you. Turn the other cheek. Live a life of love.”

ED
And all of his disciples responded, “O, that’s easy Jesus. We can do that. No problem.”

JOHN
No, not at all. The disciples said, “This is very hard. This is very difficult.”

ED
But, who said that following Jesus was going to be easy?

BOTH
Amen

 
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