The other Scripture readings for the day are 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50 and Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40. For this sermon, I found very helpful (and quoted extensively from) Mary Hinkle Shore’s commentary at Working Preacher.
Here’s the worship livestream from Christ the King and the sermon podcast audio:
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
As you know, I was at the Quake youth conference last weekend, and I was struck by the way the keynote speaker opened his talk. He started by saying, “We’re here today to talk about Jesus. The entire point of all this is Jesus, so let’s find out why Jesus is worth talking about.”
And then because it was a conference with 750 teenagers, he told a story about bodily functions. But he worked it back around to talking about Jesus, and doing his best to explain to all these teenagers why we’d gathered to talk about Jesus for a weekend, why Jesus was worth their energy and attention.
You and I are here this morning to talk about Jesus. We’ve gotten out of bed and come to church to hear something about the difference Jesus makes for us, for our world. If that’s not why you came today, well, I hope God surprises you this morning.
Those of us who gather in church week after week can forget how profound Jesus’ message is. Listen to what Jesus says in today’s reading. If someone tries to steal from you? Give them some extra. In fact, give to everyone who asks of you, and if they don’t return what they borrow, consider it a gift.
Don’t just love the people who love you; love your enemies too. Do good to those who hate you. Be merciful, just like God’s been merciful to you. (It’s amazing how controversial it being merciful can be.) Don’t judge others. Forgive.
And maybe the best way you can summarize Jesus’ teaching is verse 31: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Those few words we call the “golden rule” might be simple enough to teach small children, but actually living it out is enough to change the world. This is a profound ethical teaching.
2,000 years after Jesus said these words in his sermon on the mount, we’re here this morning because we are still wrestling with how to live out what Jesus taught. These are tough commands to follow.
It’s a lot more natural to seek vengeance and retaliation than to answer hate with love. If someone steals something from me, my immediate human response is to fight to get it back, not to offer them what I have left.
One of the verses that speaker at Quake brought up—and this is a great verse for a retreat with teenagers—was Romans 12:2. “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (NIV)
Jesus’ message is profound because he calls us to a life that refuses to conform to what this world expects. And this isn’t a passive response, just allowing ourselves to get run over. This takes active faith.
Dr. Mary Shore writes:
“Earlier in this chapter of Luke, Jesus has spoken to those excluded, reviled, and defamed on his account. [Some of you heard that part last week, right?]
He offered them blessings and encouraged them toward joy. Now he encourages all who hear him to live out of that same joy, regardless of what others are directing toward them. When they do, they will be resisting hate, curses, abuse, theft, and judgment by responding to those things with love, mercy, nonviolence, generosity, and forgiveness…
When we return hate with hate, the original hate has won! It inspires and directs our actions. This is not to be. In the reign of God, what we do is not directed by what others do to us. In the reign of God, what we do is a response to the God who alone fills us…
When we live the ethic of this Sermon in the face of this world’s violence, we are collectively saying to those who hate, abuse, strike, judge, and condemn, ‘You are not the boss of me.’ We are demonstrating that bad behavior cannot goad us into reacting in kind. We are resisting the evils we deplore.”
I don’t think we have to pay attention to the news very long to realize how countercultural Jesus’ ideas are. Our world is built on ideas of retribution, might makes right, strike first before you get hit. Put yourself first. Take as much as you can; don’t waste your money on others who might not deserve it.
But we are different because of Jesus. Paul says “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” But “if there is a physical body, there is a spiritual body.” We are spiritual beings, raised by God to new life.
Rather than conform to the ways of this world, Jesus invites us to be transformed, to be renewed, to have our hearts opened to generosity, to kindness, to love.
We’ve showed up here today to be trained in the way of Jesus, to encourage one another as a community to reject the violence this world loves, and to instead bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
If you’re upset at what’s happening in the world right now, are you praying for the people you’re upset at?
I say that as someone who’d sometimes much rather leave an angry comment on a news story, or click share so other people can get upset too. What would change if we loved and prayed for our enemies, if rather than demanding our fair share, we gave without expecting anything in return?
And to be clear, part of what’s so great about Jesus’ teaching is that it’s good and valuable no matter what political party is in power, no matter what any government might do. This is about how we interact with the people around us, how we love our families, how we treat our neighbors.
There are so many things in this world we cannot control, but we can control how we treat the people around us. We can choose whether we seek revenge, or offer forgiveness. We can choose whether to rise to our enemies’ bait, or to respond with love. We can choose to allow God to transform our hearts and make us more like Jesus. That’s what we’re doing when we pray, right? We’re asking God to align our wills with God’s will, to see through the lens of Jesus.
Our call as God’s people is to transform this world, not to conform to it, to remember we bear God’s image and so do our neighbors. We can choose to speak up when the poor are oppressed, when the needs of the people on the margins are ignored, when injustice hurts the people around us.
We can choose—as we’ll sing in a minute—to “build a longer table, not a higher wall…[to] build a broader doorway, not a longer fence…a safer refuge, not a larger jail.”
And when we fall short, when we fall into the greedy, violent, hopeless patterns of this world, when we fail to live the way Jesus told us to live, there’s grace for that. God offers forgiveness.
It’s not easy; the life Jesus lived got him arrested and executed by the state. It got him remembered and worshipped for thousands of years; it showed billions of people how to live, but first it got him killed. It’s easier to conform, to fight back, to write off the people who don’t like us, to match hatred with hatred. Turning the other cheek can hurt!
Our Psalm today started by saying, “Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers.” That’s a lot easier said than done! But again, there’s grace when we fall short.
And we’re not doing this on our own. The only way we can live out grace and love is because we ourselves have received it from God. The Holy Spirit is at work in you, on you, and through you.
Jesus is worth talking about because the ways of this world aren’t working. Violence leads to more violence. As Ghandi said, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” There are people starving around the world, full prisons and crumbling schools. Jesus tells us it doesn’t have to be this way.
In the person of Jesus Christ, God has entered into this world to show us a better way. It’s more than just ethical or moral advice, it’s love in action. Given the opportunity to judge and condemn the world, God instead chose to love it, to love us.
Jesus came, proclaiming the arrival of God’s kingdom. In God’s reign, there is good news for the poor. Release for the captives. Recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed.
In God’s reign, there is love sufficient even for enemies, love sufficient even for sinners like us. Living in love got Jesus killed, but on Easter he broke the power of death. We are different because of Jesus.
May God continue renewing us, transforming us and making us new, so that we may live out the good news of Jesus in this world. Jesus, fill us with your love.
And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen