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Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany – February 23, 2025
Luke 6:27-38
“Love your enemies,” Jesus says at the beginning of our gospel reading for today. And then, just to make sure we heard it, he says it again in the middle of the reading: “Love your enemies.”
He’s got to be kidding, right? He cannot be serious. Doesn’t he understand how awful my enemies are? He wants me to love them? He must be talking to someone else. Maybe this is addressed that guy or those people – you know, the obviously bad and wrong people. They’re the ones who need to hear this, not me.
Sorry folks. Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” And he is talking to you. We instinctively want to deflect these words or direct them to someone else, because if there’s one thing we love, it’s hating our enemies. People seem to enjoy it, actually. It makes people feel righteous. We see this in social media posts gleefully fanning the flames of division while projecting one’s own virtue. We see it in how eager people are to take offense, and to cast their opponents in the worst possible light. We see it in the way people are so quick to judge and so unwilling to try to understand. We see it in how people love to divide the world into good guys and bad guys. It feels so good to have an enemy to hate. We really do seem to enjoy it.
Lest you think I’m just scolding others, let me tell on myself. Some of you might have seen the first USA versus Canada hockey game, which took place a couple of weeks ago in Montreal. You might have heard that the hometown Canadian crowd booed when the US National Anthem was sung. It was hugely disrespectful, and while I could kind of understand it intellectually given recent political rhetoric on our side of the border, when I heard it, emotionally, as an American it made my blood boil.
And so when the players for Team USA immediately started throwing punches at Team Canada the second after the puck was dropped, I loved it! Every time a red, white, and blue jersey bodychecked a red jersey into the plexiglass, I loved it! Whenever there was a goal and “Free Bird” started blaring over the speakers, I loved it!
The funny thing is, I sincerely love and respect Canada. I love living close to it and visiting up there often. But for three periods of intense hockey, it felt so good to have an enemy! I loved it! I’m not necessarily proud of this, I’m just being real with you. Outrage is a heck of a drug. Whether it is sports or politics or nations or neighbors, we love to have enemies to hate. It is who we are as human beings.
And so when Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” he has to be kidding, right? And to make things worse, Jesus doesn’t just ask us to have an abstract love for them, he calls us to love our enemies with our actions: “Do good to those who hate you.” “Turn the other cheek.” “Do not judge.” He can’t be serious, can he? Please tell me this is all just more hyperbole from Jesus!
Well, yes and no. There are times when enemies should be opposed. Jesus himself turned over tables in the temple. He told the Pharisees to pound sand when they got all up in his business. He engaged in spiritual combat with the devil.
There are times when we are called to oppose enemies too. Political involvement is a valid way to influence society in the direction you’d like to see it go. For someone who serves in law enforcement, even if they are a Christian, it is their duty to restrain the enemies of society. They aren’t to turn the other cheek to violent offenders – they restrain them, using force if necessary. If someone is literally abusing you, you don’t just pray for them – you also call the police to make the abuse stop. If you as a citizen are called to serve on a jury it is your duty, even as a Christian, to judge the case and declare someone guilty if that’s what the evidence shows. In daily life, parents are to exercise judgement in the discipline of children, teaching them right from wrong with guidance from God’s Word.
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged,” is not a universal law for all times and places, and it is not to be interpreted through the postmodern ethic of “Do whatever seems right to you.” There are times for godly discernment and discipline in families, in the church, and in society.
So there are indeed caveats to these words from Jesus. God has established all kinds of earthly means to oppose enemies and restrain evil, and in a still-fallen world, they are all still necessary. We use scripture to interpret scripture, and there are plenty of other scripture passages, even other teachings from Jesus’ own mouth, which bring some nuance to Jesus’ call to love our enemies.
But still – he said it, didn’t he? “Love your enemies!” He said it twice, and we shouldn’t let these caveats make us too comfortable too quickly. I think we’re supposed to wrestle with these words. I think we’re supposed to squirm a little bit when we hear them. So what could Jesus be trying to tell us? What could he be trying to teach us?
The key to understanding these words of Jesus is to be found in what he tells us about God. It’s only a few words in the middle of the passage, but they are so important! These words are the lens by which to view everything else Jesus says in this part of his sermon! Jesus says that God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. And then he says, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Here Jesus describes God as loving his enemies!
God is described as being kind to the ungrateful. God is described in other parts of the Bible as a jealous God who desires the affection and the appreciation of his people. To not be grateful to God is evidence of unfaithfulness, a serious sin for which God has every right to be angry. But here Jesus says that God is kind to the ungrateful.
God is described as being kind to the wicked too! Even after all the commandments, all the calls to holiness, even after the sacrificial system was put in place as a means of grace for the people to make atonement, God’s people still insisted on being wicked! They turned from God to idols. They abused themselves and each other. They disobeyed God again and again. And yet, Jesus says, God is kind to the wicked.
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” Jesus says.
God loves his enemies! And so when Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he is only telling us to do what God is already doing. He is telling us to see those enemies in the same way God does. He is giving us a vision of God’s love, which is a love so great that it sees beyond the sin to love the sinner, a love so great that it responds to ungratefulness and even wickedness with kindness. The mercy we are called to share is rooted in the mercy of our Father in heaven.
When Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” he is only calling us to reflect the love God has shown to us. And God has shown this love to us nowhere more clearly than in Jesus himself.
At the time of this sermon, Jesus is inching ever closer to the cross, where God’s love would be lifted up for all to see. Jesus loved his enemies by letting himself be handed over. He did good to those who hated him by enduring their mocking, their abuse, their striking him on the cheek. Jesus gave up everything for the sake of the enemies of God. He was robbed even of the clothes on his back. He asked God to forgive them as he died. And because of all this, you are not judged. Because of his saving work on the cross, you are not condemned. Because of his sacrificial love, you are forgiven.
Just as our reading last week from earlier in this sermon was not a checklist to perform to accomplish our salvation by intentionally becoming poor, or hungry, or weeping, or hated, neither is this call to love our enemies a means by which we are to earn our salvation. Rather, it is a call to reflect the love God has already shown towards us, most especially through his dear Son, our crucified Lord and savior.
It might be jarring to hear, but we live much of our lives as enemies of God. This is what scripture tells us our condition is, and as hard as it is to admit it, it is even harder to deny it. We too are often ungrateful for all of God’s blessings. We take so much for granted. We take so much credit for gifts that have been given to us through no worthiness of our own. We treat God’s precious gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation, as nothing, without appreciation of or devotion to the Divine Giver. But, Jesus says, God is kind to the ungrateful!
We too fall into wickedness in countless different ways – through our stubborn rebellion against God’s will, through our rampant selfishness, through our choosing the world over the Word again and again. We fall into wickedness especially when we revel in the hatred of our enemies, relishing that feeling of righteousness it gives us. But, Jesus says, God is kind to the wicked.
God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked! Can you believe it! Well, you should believe it, because that’s the gospel! In Jesus Christ, God has been kind to us! For even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. God is merciful, and the more deeply we come to believe and trust in this mercy, the more merciful we will become. In Jesus Christ we see that God loves his enemies, and the more deeply we come to believe and trust in this love, the more we will start to do the same.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church