Another Look… 

By Pastor Susan 

I don’t know about you, but I found the message this past Sunday very challenging. In the  continuation of Jesus’s “Sermon on the Plain” (Lk 6:27-38), he exhorts all his listeners to do  the unnatural: love your enemies, do good to those who harm you, bless those who curse  you, pray for those who mistreat you. Furthermore, he says if they insultingly slap you on  the cheek, give them the other; someone who takes your coat should not be denied your  shirt as well; give to anyone who asks you, and if someone takes or borrows from you, don’t  demand it back. Umm, what? What about justice, Jesus? Who’s going to take care of the  evildoers, Jesus? If we respond this way, won’t evil just grow rampantly unchecked? Isn’t it  our duty as God’s people to set things straight? 

Consider the mindset of the people listening to this. Jesus has just come down from the  mountainside having prayerfully chosen his Twelve disciples, reminiscent of Moses going  up the mountain to meet with God and coming down to give the Commandments to the  twelve tribes of Israel. This echo is not lost on the people – they are anticipating hearing  Jesus speak, perhaps as the one who will lead Israel out of “bondage” to Rome and restore  her sovereignty and privileged position as the chosen people of God. This man who can heal  and feed and raise from the dead must be the one who is going to bring the hammer down  on the Romans. So, they’re all leaning in to hear what the plan is for this glorious takeover. 

And then Jesus says to “love your enemies” and “pray for those who mistreat you.” Let them  take from you without demanding back; bless those who curse you and make life difficult  for you. I imagine jaws dropped and fingers went into ears to see if they’d heard him right.  This does not seem like a good plan to change the world – to upend the powers that be and  set things back to rights. This, Jesus, is nuts. From the world’s perspective, Jesus is  advocating a posture of weakness, not strength. This plan cannot possibly produce victory.  

But see this with Jesus’s eyes. Deeply rooted in the reality of the kingdom, the kingship, of  God, he knows experientially that by abiding in God’s presence, through faith and  obedience, he maintains a loving relationship with the one who holds all power in the  universe. God’s power is his power. What then is there to fear? Turning the other cheek, blessing those who curse, and not demanding recompense does not change his access to this  power. On the contrary, it channels this power subversively to upend and overturn the  powers and principalities of the world. When we live by the world’s rules for justice, which  (let’s be honest), are really closer to revenge and retaliation, the cycle goes on and on. I  curse you, you curse me; I cancel you, you cancel me; I unfriend you, you unfriend me, and  on and on. This is how evil is perpetuated. We want to use power from the top down to  squash out evil and unrighteousness. But Jesus uses power differently.

Jesus teaches that the power we have because we attach ourselves to and abide in an all powerful God should be wielded subversively – squelching evil from the bottom up. If  someone exerts worldly power over us by insulting us, mistreating us, unjustly taking from  us, we exert power from God not to retaliate, but to bless, pray, give. This is how God uses  his power. God is “kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (Lk 6:35); therefore, we are to “be  merciful, just as [our] Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). In our becoming like God in this way, do  you see what happens? It stops the cycle of retaliation and revenge. It puts a wall in front of  evil and says, “No further, at least through me.” Now, will some who do evil use this lack of  retaliation to continue to do evil? Yes, probably. But – some will wake up and see this is the  better way. And God is all about giving every person every chance to change. And imagine, if  more and more people responded to evil this way – evil’s power to reproduce itself  diminishes.  

Joseph’s life was an excellent illustration of this (Gen 45:1-15). His brothers almost killed  him but instead profited by selling him as a slave. He was unjustly accused and jailed, then forgotten in jail after helping emancipate another prisoner. This happened over years, not  

days. But when reunited with those who had harmed him, he blessed. We sometimes think  this is possible only for those who are “especially spiritual.” And it is – but all of us can be  “especially spiritual” if we are deeply rooted and abiding daily in God and his limitless  power.  

Paul spoke in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15:35-58) about the resurrection body  because they wondered what it would be like. Paul’s response is to talk about seeds. Seeds  hold within them the body that they will become. A seed of corn is not a corn stalk, but it  does produce a corn stalk if the seed dies. Likewise, Paul suggests that our natural body  (which includes our hearts, minds, and souls) is like a seed that when it dies, it releases the  spiritual body it holds inside. But an apple seed will not produce a corn stalk. Likewise, a  “natural body,” a human being who does not hold Jesus’s likeness within in this life will not  be raised like Jesus in the next. “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters,” Paul says, “stand  firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because  you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (v 58).  

Paul’s teaching forces us to view Jesus’s teaching as non-negotiable. Jesus’s admonition to  respond in love, prayer, blessing, and generosity towards those who will us evil is not a  suggestion or reserved for “super-spiritual” people; nor is it an “add-on” to our salvation. It  is necessary to our salvation. If we wish to be raised like Jesus, we must become like Jesus in  our natural bodies which are seeds that, having died, produce an imperishable, resurrected  body that fully resembles our good and glorious Father and lives for eternity. Sisters and  brothers, let’s grow us some Jesus!