Luke 6:27-36

Transcript

00:00:00:10 – 00:00:22:57
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us on Wednesday as we continue through the gospel of Luke in what Luke calls or what is called in Luke the Sermon on the Plain Luke chapter six. It’s kind of the equivalent of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, with which people are probably more familiar, though I think today’s passage, Michael, is going to sound familiar.

00:00:22:57 – 00:00:52:58
Clint Loveall
I think not only really anybody who’s been around church to some extent, but I think we read some things today that people who know very little about the faith and maybe even would say they know very little about Jesus, probably know these things. So jump in here, verse 27, chapter six, and we’ll look at this next passage. I say to you that, listen, love your enemies do good to those who hate you.

00:00:54:09 – 00:01:14:15
Clint Loveall
Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. 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. Give to everyone who begs from you. If anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

00:01:14:58 – 00:01:37:17
Clint Loveall
If you love those who love you, what credit is that for? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you for? Even sinners do the same If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much.

00:01:37:17 – 00:02:09:23
Clint Loveall
Again, but love your enemies do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great and you will be children of the most high. For he was kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful just as your father is merciful. I think we encounter in these words something very close to the core of what we understand Jesus message should be.

00:02:09:23 – 00:02:33:46
Clint Loveall
And as I said, I think this idea of love your enemies do to others as you would have them do to you. This is almost universally known, even I think, outside of people of the faith. If you asked people who didn’t know much about Jesus, do you know anything that Jesus said? I think a lot of them, if they could come up with anything, would come up with the kind of things we encounter here.

00:02:34:03 – 00:03:03:48
Clint Loveall
And Luke puts them in in sort of stark relief, you know, don’t lend to people if you think you’re guilty. In other words, don’t use good as an opportunity to break even. That good doesn’t count the responses and the results. That good is about the action itself and not what happens after that. And there is a kind of openness in this.

00:03:03:48 – 00:03:27:10
Clint Loveall
Michael. It’s really a kindness that pays no attention to what happens next. And it’s a it’s a deeply challenging kind of theme. But I do think we’re close to the heart of Jesus message. And certainly I think Luke would want us to see close to the heart of Jesus himself.

00:03:27:27 – 00:03:48:01
Michael Gewecke
Which was one of those passages that I think we need to be very careful because it’s very easy to miss the depth of a text like this. You use the word challenging. I think that’s the right word. But on the face of it, this could appear to just be kind platitudes, the kind of thing that you learn in Sunday school, Right?

00:03:48:01 – 00:04:09:55
Michael Gewecke
Love your neighbor. Be nice to those even those people who aren’t nice to you. It could seem like it’s just a simple do good and be a good person. And that’s what life is about. But that’s not at all what this text is pointing us towards. If we look closely, we are called the love our enemies and do good to those who hate you.

00:04:10:24 – 00:04:40:06
Michael Gewecke
Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. These words are absolutely challenged and they dig down to the deepest part of our hearts and our souls, and they call us to a different way of being in the world. Because, you know, many traditions of the Christian faith, certainly the reformed tradition is going to point out the sinfulness of humanity about how at our core we are self turned, we are self-interested, we seek our own inner interest and benefit.

00:04:40:21 – 00:05:02:27
Michael Gewecke
And here Jesus is calling us to a life that is against that, so much against that, that we see that Jesus is willing to actually give up his own life for us as the ultimate portrayal of the teaching that he’s teaching here, that the at the end of the day, loving your enemy for Jesus requires him dying for them.

00:05:02:27 – 00:05:26:33
Michael Gewecke
And I think that when you hear Luke teasing this out, this is not just a kind of, you know, simple children’s sermon calling us to be nice people, that this is a challenging text where Jesus is instructing his disciples that they need to be reprogramed from the sinful heart that we are born with to be a different kind of people operating in the world.

00:05:26:33 – 00:05:31:57
Michael Gewecke
And this is a the marching orders for what it looks like to be in that kingdom.

00:05:32:43 – 00:06:00:52
Clint Loveall
I think these are some of the more humbling words that we encounter in the Gospel, this idea that we’re not evaluated on how we love and treat those that we love, that love us, that the measure of our faith is not have we been good to our family and have we been good to our our coworkers and the people that we have good relationships with?

00:06:01:13 – 00:06:37:06
Clint Loveall
But how have we treated those that don’t like us? How have we treated those who abuse us? How have we treated those who speak against us or who we don’t respect or who do wrong? I think this is one of the one of the most difficult and possibly most misunderstood good, or at least under emphasized kind of themes that we see in the gospel.

00:06:37:06 – 00:06:59:04
Clint Loveall
I think these are among the hardest words that Jesus has to say to us, You know, of course you love people who love you. Yes, it’s easy to be gracious to people who deserve it. Anyone can do that, that the mark of faith is what do I do with the person who has slapped me, who has struck me, who took my coat?

00:06:59:18 – 00:07:31:35
Clint Loveall
How do I treat that person who I have no reason to be gracious to that I have no responsibility to be loving toward that person who doesn’t deserve it. And that, this text suggests, is the thermometer, the barometer, the measure of how faithful I’m I’m being in my service to Christ. And that is that is a brutally difficult task.

00:07:32:04 – 00:08:03:30
Clint Loveall
It’s a it’s an incredibly challenging way to live. It is we we spoke yesterday a little bit about the idea of Jesus versus culture or anti worldly. I don’t think there’s anything more word worldly, less worldly. And maybe in the moment we’re in, particularly Michael, then this where I don’t know where else you would look to see this outside of the church, outside of the Christian faith.

00:08:03:59 – 00:08:29:42
Clint Loveall
I’m not aware of anyone else who really says this. I mean, yes, there are some ideas about civility and niceness and manners, but this isn’t that this is so much deeper than that that I think if you understand it, it is it’s frighteningly humbling. It is on the verge of how is it possible, how could I do that kind of territory?

00:08:29:42 – 00:08:44:42
Clint Loveall
And and I think when we have those moments, when we have that kind of strong reaction to a text, it is often a good sign that we’ve encountered something that moved us out of ourself and put us in connection with the gospel.

00:08:44:56 – 00:09:27:28
Michael Gewecke
I think that some of those most challenging words come at the end of this text where in verse 35 it says For God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Just sit with that for a second, the ungrateful and the wicked. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve had conversations both with myself and with others in which that the common belief or the easy road is to say, Well, hey, listen, if they’re not working hard or if they’re not contributing, or if they’re not grateful, or if they don’t change, then why would we help them or why would we serve them or why would we love them?

00:09:27:28 – 00:09:58:33
Michael Gewecke
There’s this this deeply human response that says you get what you deserve, but what Luke is showing us through Jesus’s teaching is that in the kingdom of God, we don’t get what we deserve. And that is both grace and also it’s unbelievably, I think the right word is humbling to know that that’s extended and offered to other people to the people we call Wicked, to the people we consider ungrateful.

00:09:58:58 – 00:10:31:19
Michael Gewecke
If we’re if we’re courageous enough to sit with that and to really reflect for a moment what we’re learning about the character of God, we discover that God is in many ways, He lives at the edge of our ability to even understand, because at our best, we struggle to understand how we would do this. Yet here Luke is making it clear that the mercy of God, the love of God, the compassion of God for the last in the least, it extends far beyond the boundaries that we would set for it.

00:10:31:44 – 00:10:53:04
Michael Gewecke
And that is, I think, a challenging call for us to return to Jesus over and over again and to find again the depth of His love and grace, and to discover that grace not just for ourself, but for others, and not just for others, but for those who we might consider to be outside the bounds and somehow mysterious.

00:10:53:05 – 00:11:00:14
Michael Gewecke
See Jesus as love, grace, God’s ability to extend that goes far beyond what we can imagine.

00:11:00:50 – 00:11:28:40
Clint Loveall
Yeah, there’s a couple of a couple of interesting things. I think from a sort of interpretation language, it it’s interesting and I don’t know the Greek here, but in verse 27, but I say to you, you know, if you try to connect that with who? Well, who said something else, you know, in Matthew, you see that they said this, but I say this here in Luke, we just jump into that.

00:11:29:07 – 00:11:55:04
Clint Loveall
But but this is so stunning that it priests opposes who said everything else. But I say to you in other words it’s contrary by its very nature. But I say to you that listen, not simply I say to you that listen, it’s put against something and that something is essentially everything else that you’ve ever been taught or heard.

00:11:55:30 – 00:12:34:03
Clint Loveall
The other thing I think is really intriguing about this, Michael, is it introduces the concept that Christians are to be marked by an unusual and extravagant and maybe even what looks like a foolish ethic of love of generosity, of openness, of forgiveness, that that we are to be marked by a kind of giving of those things that almost doesn’t make sense, That that is confusing.

00:12:34:12 – 00:13:05:29
Clint Loveall
That is stunning. Staggering, really, because that’s what we see in Jesus. And yes, we strive to love our spouse well and our children and our friends and family well, But most people do that. What distinguishes the people who follow Jesus Christ is how they show love to those who they’d rather not love or who don’t deserve love, or who have shown them something the opposite of love.

00:13:05:29 – 00:13:38:40
Clint Loveall
And I think, you know, that’s a that’s a good thing for us to remember, that the ethic of Jesus, the morality, the call of Jesus, it is in its own way, strange. Maybe that’s not a strong enough word. Absurd is probably too strong a word, but somewhere in the middle of those terms is this idea that what Jesus is asking only makes sense to Christians because Jesus asks it.

00:13:39:07 – 00:13:41:47
Clint Loveall
And I think that gives it some weight.

00:13:42:05 – 00:14:11:45
Michael Gewecke
Well, if only it was just that. I think we can imagine a teacher saying this. We can imagine someone using words to call us to this kind of living, but it is unimaginable that someone would live it, that someone would truly, in the words of verse 35, love your enemies. We can we can conceive of, you know, what that might look like at its best.

00:14:11:45 – 00:14:45:43
Michael Gewecke
And maybe, you know, under the right circumstances, we are inspired by the idea that you could aspire to that. But in the gospel, Jesus does this. This is his work. This is what he is doing. And so when we talk about the idea of Jesus being a savior, which is not a word that we have here, this isn’t a text talking about Jesus as Savior, but this is where Christians come to that idea, because we see that Jesus not only teaches this, but he lives it that this is a practice part of who he is.

00:14:45:43 – 00:15:08:16
Michael Gewecke
And you used that language of Jesus here is showing us this. This isn’t just an ethic. It’s a way of life. It’s a way of living in the kingdom. And I think that this is calling Christians to a particular identity. And this identity is rooted in the way that God intends the world to be. And the only way that we can live in that identity is if we participate in the way of Jesus.

00:15:08:16 – 00:15:43:37
Michael Gewecke
And that is the kind of exclusivity that I think that Christians believe in. At our best. It’s not an exclusivity, namely that is looking to build walls that keep people out, but rather that compels us from the very center of our of our souls that if it’s not for Jesus, then we couldn’t possibly do this if it’s not for his way of living the way that he taught, but then the way that he proclaimed that with his life, that if it’s not for that, we couldn’t possibly have a hope of doing this for ourselves.

00:15:43:46 – 00:16:06:32
Michael Gewecke
And so therefore, we put our exclusive hope, our faith, our trust in him, that he will be the one who enables us to do this work, that we joining our words with Luke at the end of verse 36, We might be merciful, just as the father is merciful. That’s an incredible statement. And if we’re going to live into it, it’s only going to be by the grace of Jesus Christ.

00:16:07:24 – 00:16:49:08
Clint Loveall
Imagine that the implication of this passage that the way you treated this someone, the way you acted and spoke towards someone or about someone, the way that you offered assistance to someone had no bearing on who they were and how they had treated you, whether they were good to you, bad to you, liked you, didn’t like you. Imagine, imagine that life lived in such a way that the response to others was consistent no matter who the other was or what the other had done.

00:16:49:55 – 00:17:21:14
Clint Loveall
And and when we begin to catch a glimpse of the impossibility, really, of that, we begin to be ready to see who Luke is painting a picture of Jesus to be. And I think so, yes, there is definitely a sense in which this is a calling for our life, but it’s also a signpost that points points to Jesus’s life.

00:17:21:14 – 00:17:52:46
Clint Loveall
Because as we come to our own, as are our own struggles, our own ineffectiveness to try and live this way as we hear Jesus say these words and think, Boy, I don’t know. We realize he’s not simply talking about us. Luke is describing the way that Jesus lives. And I think, you know, that gives this passage kind of a a twofold power in in regard to our reading of it and our understanding of it.

00:17:53:09 – 00:18:15:30
Michael Gewecke
And Luke’s way of telling it is less argumentative than what we have in Matthew, where it’s the idea, you know, that some say I say to you in this, it’s far more of a self revelation. It’s Jesus teaching us the way and not just teaching it with words, but ultimately throughout the book of Luke showing it with his life.

00:18:15:30 – 00:18:43:24
Michael Gewecke
And I think that maybe some of the offering that we get from Luke is really a cold dose of, of simple reality that this text is not difficult because it’s hard to understand. It’s not difficult because the vocabulary is challenging. It’s not difficult because theologically it is beyond our ability to comprehend. It’s a difficult text because of what Jesus calls us to.

00:18:43:46 – 00:19:02:51
Michael Gewecke
And so then the challenge is to hear him and believe him and seek to live that out. And there are some places of faith where true wisdom does not come from our mental acuity, but comes from our trusting practice. And I think that’s what this text calls us to.

00:19:02:58 – 00:19:27:46
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and maybe a last thought, Michael. You know, I maybe we should have started with this. I just now occurring to me, the word enemy is interesting because I don’t know, you know, in Jesus context, most of the Jews might have referenced the Romans, right? They they had many of them would have had a significant group of people that they would have literally called enemies.

00:19:28:15 – 00:19:54:25
Clint Loveall
And being kind to those people who were not kind to them, showing love to those people who showed hatred toward them would have made no sense. It would have. I mean, I don’t know what we do with the word enemies. I wonder if we you know, if we sort of each took a mental checklist and said if I listed my enemies, who might they be?

00:19:54:25 – 00:20:30:14
Clint Loveall
And maybe in the political realm, you’d have people who say, well, the conservatives or the liberals may be to some extent, you might say, you know, communists or Taliban in some vague form. But but I wonder at a personal level how many of us would be comfortable thinking that there is probably a person or more in our life whom we really consider our enemy, and at very best we think, well, maybe I don’t wish them harm, but I certainly don’t wish them good and I’d rather not have to deal with them at all.

00:20:30:32 – 00:20:43:15
Clint Loveall
Certainly, I’m not going to be gracious and loving toward them. That word enemy is interesting, and I think it would be it might be a beneficial challenge for each of us to spend a little time there.

00:20:44:09 – 00:21:05:02
Michael Gewecke
You said that at the beginning of the conversation. I think it’s a good place to end these texts are challenging texts to read because they call us out of ourselves. And I hope that’s been your experience today, because to whatever extent we can hear those words, we discover our Jesus Christ whose saving work for us is outside of our self for the sake of working within us.

00:21:05:02 – 00:21:15:48
Michael Gewecke
And that is the great gift that we have in the faith. Hopefully, there’s been something challenging and encouraging in this conversation for you today. We’ll we’ll be back tomorrow for the last study of this week. We will see you then.

00:21:16:17 – 00:21:16:49
Clint Loveall
Thank you.