NYUBF | New York UBF

Luke Lesson 20 (2009)

AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN
(Love your enemy)

Luke 6:27-36
Key Verse: 6:35

“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is merciful to the ungrateful and wicked.”

For many centuries, there was long-standing enmity and hatred between Koreans and Japanese. But the hatred toward Japanese in the hearts of Koreans only intensified due to the 36 years of brutal occupation of Japan. Although in recent years their relationship seems to be getting better, whenever there is a competition between the nations, they automatically become arch-enemies. Some years ago, a very influential Korean pastor named Pastor Dr. Paul Cho was invited to speak to a group of ministers in Japan. When he got up to speak, he tried to say something nice about Japan but could not. He broke out in tears. A deep silence filled the audience of ministers. The pastor looked up and confessed how he felt. “I must confess that I hate you all. I don’t hate you personally, but I hate the fact that you are Japanese. I know that this is wrong, but this is the way I honestly feel. Won’t you please forgive me? I am repenting of my sin and ask you to pray for me.” With these words spoken, he simply bowed his head and began to cry aloud. When he looked up he saw that all of the Japanese ministers were crying also. After a few minutes, one of the Japanese ministers stood and said, “Dr. Cho, we as Japanese take full responsibility for the sins of our fathers. Will you please forgive us?” Dr. Paul Cho came down from the platform and threw his arms around the man who had just spoken. “Yes I forgive you and I commit myself to pray for you and Japan.” Dr. Cho said that he instantly felt healed of the bitterness that he had felt since he was a child. He was free.

What is the most distinctive Christian morality? What kind of people could be called authentic Christians? Are they praying people? Maybe. But don’t Muslims, Buddhists and people of most religions also pray? What about doing the right thing? Don’t all religions teach this? What about attending Christian conferences, participating in Christian activities or volunteering in some kind of relief work or community services? Those are noble and good things, but they don’t necessarily distinguish Christians from others. In today’s passage, Jesus said that Christians should love their enemies and do good to those who hate them and that is what makes Christians distinctive. (6:27, 35) Jesus said, “If you love those who love you… and do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that…. Love your enemies and do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the most High.” (32-35) Loving our enemies sounds idealistic, and we wonder if it is realistic. Some people might say, “Well, Jesus is just an Utopian dreamer because his teaching is unrealistic and impractical.” Was Jesus really serious when he gave this command? Did he really mean that Christians have to love their enemies and do good to those who hate them? What do you think? Was he just playing with ideas and words? If he wasn’t, how we can love our enemies and why we should love our enemies?

At first glance, we notice that Jesus’ sermon on the Mount written in Luke’s gospel chapter 6 is a lot shorter than what is written in Matthew’s gospel in chapters 5-7. As we studied earlier, the genealogy of Jesus recorded in Luke’s gospel (3:23b-38) is different from the genealogy recorded in Matthew’s gospel (1:1-16)? Why are they different? Are they conflicting? No. If you look at them carefully, the differences between them do not necessarily conflict but complement each other. Matthew’s gospel is written for the Jews and Luke’s gospel is written for non-Jews, the Gentiles. Obviously, Dr. Luke was not too interested in what Matthew might have been interested in, like Jesus’ teaching about true righteousness contrasted with rabbinic distortions of the Old Testament. In today’s passage, 6:27-36, Luke only focuses on Jesus’ positive command, the Golden Rule and elaborates on it with seven actions that involve true love. Jesus knew that practicing this kind of love is not natural. He knew that we need supernatural empowerment by the Holy Spirit.

Look at verse 27-28. “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” We know that the greatest command of God is to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and with all our minds and with all our strength and love our neighbors as ourselves. But here, Jesus didn’t say love your neighbors. Instead, he said to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us and pray for those who mistreat us.

Most of us might be aware that there are some people who don’t like you. They don’t like the way you dress or the way you talk or do things. Wherever you go, it’s not too difficult to find that some people who seem to get on your nerves and hurt your feelings. There are people who always seem to say negative things about you. In fact, when Jesus spoke these teachings to his disciples, they were not welcomed by the Jewish religious leaders. They had been constantly watched, scrutinized, spoken ill of and even condemned because they were following Jesus, the Son of Man. (6:22)

What is our first response to our enemies? Our natural response is dislike and resentment. At best, we want to avoid them. According to human standards, that’s pretty good. But Jesus said that’s not enough. We should love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us and pray for those who mistreat us. We don’t want to confront them, not to mention to love them. Why should we love those who hate us and do good to those who speak ill of us? It doesn’t even sound right when we say it out loud. One lady who had been abused by someone in the past really likes Psalms, particularly the phrase in Psalm 3:7, “Arise, O Lord! Deliver me, O my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked!” I can see how angry she felt against her abuser. We want to get even with our enemies and with those who hurt us.

But Jesus does not want to us to get even or take revenge? Why not? Doesn’t he understand our emotional pain, frustration and wounds? Yes, he does. Then why doesn’t he want us to get even? Wouldn’t it give us relief? Jesus knows that it’s unnatural for us to do what he asks us to do. So he didn’t say that we should like our enemies. We like someone we like and we don’t like someone we don’t like. Jesus does not demand us to like our enemies but he does ask us to love our enemies. So what does it mean to love our enemies? How can we love our enemies? He says that we should do good to them and bless and pray that good things may happen to them. By saying this, he wasn’t saying that we should be pretentious or artificial, doing what we really don’t mean.

I think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood what Jesus meant very well. According to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to love our enemies means that when the opportunity comes for us to defeat our enemies is the time when we must not do it. It’s true that there will be a time, in many instances, when you will have an opportunity to conquer the person who hates us most, the person who misuses us most, the person who gossips about us and spreads rumors about us. But to love our enemies means not to defeat them but do good to them.

Jesus’ command wasn’t for us to become more resilient to our abuse or become a better doormat for those who constantly hurt and take advantage of us. What’s the core of his command that says we should love our enemies and not to hate them but to love them? It seems that the core of his command is that we should not repay anyone evil for evil. When we do so, we are opening the door for evil to enter. That’s why Saint Paul said in Romans 12:17-21, “Don’t pay back evil with evil… My friends, don’t try to get even. Leave room for God to show his anger…. Don’t let evil overcome you. Overcome evil by doing good.”

Look at verse 28. “If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to the other also.” Let’s say that someone struck me on my cheek. My immediate response would be to strike him back. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. That sounds fair, doesn’t it? But in reality, this does not work. If someone strikes me once, I strike him back once or maybe even twice. Then the other person would strike me again, and so on until both of us are bloody and totally knocked out. That’s what can happen in the relationship between two individuals and two nations, like between Israel and Palestine. But if I, as a Christian, stop taking revenge and offer the other cheek, the fighting and abuse will eventually cease. We can stop striking or attacking our enemies only when we truly love them. It’s easy to call our enemies evil, forgetting that they are not completely evil. In fact, they have some good in them although we are reluctant to admit it. On the other hand, we are also evil when we appear to be good. We are all good and evil. In fact, there is some evil in the best of us and there is some good in the worst of us. That’s what we often realize about ourselves, when we are trying to do good but evil is right there with us. That’s why Saint Paul cried out in Romans 7:24, “What a wretched man I am!” What he meant is “What a terrible failure I am!” We are not perfect. No one is perfect, not even one. We are saved only by God’s grace. We are forgiven and fully accepted only because of God’s grace.

In the famous novel Les Miserables by French author Victor Hugo, the main character, ex-convict Jean Valjean, seeks to redeem himself from his past mistakes. I think most of us know the story. Having been convicted of stealing a loaf of bread, he had been imprisoned for nineteen years. After being released from prison, he had no way to start a new life because of his past record as a thief. He was rejected even by an innkeeper who did not want to take in a convict. It made Jean Valjean even more angry and bitter. However, the compassionate bishop takes him in and gives him shelter. In the middle of he night, Jean Valjean steals silverware and runs away. He is caught by the police, but the bishop rescues him by claiming that the silverware was a gift and that since Jean Valjean was in such a hurry he had even forgotten to take his two silver candlesticks as well. He does not have to return to jail. This event turns Jean Valjean’s life around. Jean Valjean assumes a new identity to pursue an honest life, becoming a factory owner and even a major. He becomes a force for good in the world, but cannot escape his dark past. An obsessive police inspector, Javert, continuously hunts and tracks him down wherever he goes. In fact, at some point, Jean Valjean had the chance to kill Javert, but lets him go. Thus, Jean Valjean loved his enemies and defeated evil with good.

The bottom line is that when we see others who do evil, we must see that they are also created in the image of God (Imago Dei). Therefore, we should not hate others for any reason. Hatred is evil. There have been hate crimes recently in our neighborhood and in many other places. It’s very painful to see what’s happening today. What we have to hate is evil itself, not the person who does evil. Otherwise, we must hate everyone, including ourselves. But we don’t hate ourselves. We love ourselves and want to be loved by others even though we are not perfect and we also do evil. According to Jesus as much as we want to be loved, so we must love them. Jesus said in verse 31, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” This is called “The Golden Rule” because it sums up all the Law and the Prophets. (Mt 7:12)

Here, we learn that the only way to defeat evil is good and the only way to defeat hate is love. I know it’s not easy. Sometimes when we try to love our enemies, our love is not appreciated and often it is misunderstood. Sometimes we even receive more persecution and abuse. But we should believe that in the end, good will defeat evil and love will defeat hatred. That should be the unchanging faith and confidence of God’s children. And that is what distinguishes the character of Christian faith, morals and ethics.

In fact, we see that Jesus had a great vision to defeat evil through good. He had vision to defeat hate through love. And that’s what he did through his death on the cross. People mocked him, insulted and spit on him. Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man, was completely rejected by men and women of the world. They shouted, “Crucify him, crucify him!” (Lk 23:20) But Jesus didn’t retaliate them. He was willing to drink the cup of suffering and death. He embraced evil people in his love and mercy. In his terrible pain and suffering on the cross, he prayed to God, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do.” (Lk 23:34) In fact, when Jesus died, God died. By his death on the cross, evil is crucified so that good may reign. Hate is defeated and evil is defeated in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Now, we who believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection may continue to practice love, the love that embraces even enemies. This isn’t just idealism. This is the reality in our Lord Jesus Christ through those who seriously follow Him. This is the power of good and the power of God’s love.

Look at verses 33-36. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners’, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because He is kind to be ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Christians should love everyone, including those who hate us and mistreat us. Obviously, we should struggle a lot harder to love our enemies than to love those who are loveable and likable. Our love should be genuine and provide care for the welfare of another person regardless of who they are. What Jesus is teaching us is not something just idealistic and beautiful and only possible in theory. It is the only way to defeat evil and hate.

Of course, our nature does not make this way easy for us. But when we realize how God showed his mercy to each of us who is evil and accept God’s desire to show His mercy to all of His people, we can even begin to see that they are lovely, created in the image of God. And we can love them by the power of the Holy Spirit in us. Well, we may still dislike someone around us for some reasons or for no obvious reason. We don’t have to like everyone. Someone may dislike us and even hate us. But we should not defeat them by doing what is evil. Instead, we show them love by doing them good, blessing and praying for them, not reluctantly but willingly and more and more. Then we are truly claiming your victory. And we are revealing our true identity as God’s children. We will be truly happy in this world and our reward in heaven will be great.

We know that it’s not in our own capacity to live up to God’s will and his standard. But when we are filled with the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, it’s more than possible. That’s God’s victory and our victory. That is God’s vision and our hope for this world. Let us not live as nominal Christians but live as authentic Christians by seeking the victory of good over evil and love over hate.