Epiphany 7 – 2019
Luke 6:27-38
Marian Free
In the name of God who asks from us only what will serve our own sense of well-being and wholeness. Amen.
Some forty years ago there was a movie about the life of Jesus. It is so long ago that I cannot remember the name of the movie or on which gospel it was based. I do remember two things. One, the language used in the film was that of the King James Bible which sounded clumsy and archaic. The second is the way in which the movie portrayed Jesus teaching the parable of the sower. Time has probably clouded my memory somewhat, but as I recall, Jesus was speaking as he walked through a crowded market. What that meant was that those who heard the beginning of the parable didn’t hear the ending and those who heard the ending had no idea how the parable began. The image jarred at the time, and it jars now as I recall it. The gospel writers don’t describe Jesus walking and talking. Mark depicts Jesus teaching from a boat. In Matthew’s gospel the bulk of Jesus’ teaching occurs in the Sermon on the Mount and in Luke Jesus’ teaching is presented in the Sermon on the Plain and during the journey to Jerusalem. Whenever Jesus is teaching, he appears stationary.
That said, while those who were present would have been able to hear the beginning and the end of the story, if Jesus teaching consisted of a string of sayings such as we have in today’s gospels, I imagine that the crowds would have scratched their heads and wandered away in confusion. Just as Jesus almost certainly did not walk as he taught, so too, it is unlikely that he stood up before a crowd and presented a series of unconnected aphorisms such as we find in today’s gospel. The gospels indicate that Jesus was a good teacher. He able to gain and hold the attention of the crowds who surrounded him, and he taught in such a way that many came to understand that he was the anointed one. No proficient teacher would include such diverse and unconnected material in one lecture as we have before us today.
Love your enemies, give your coat and your shirt, don’t complain if someone takes away all your goods, lend to those who can’t pay you back, forgive, don’t judge and give generously. No doubt, over the course of his ministry Jesus said a number of things in a variety of different contexts – over meals, as he and the disciples walked along and at times when Jesus was teaching a crowd. He may have been responding to a question from the disciples, commenting on the behaviour of the Pharisees, making an observation or simply repeating Old Testament wisdom. What is almost certain is that Jesus didn’t say all of these things at the same time.
After Jesus’ death, his followers will have recalled and repeated Jesus’ teachings. At some point, and being anxious to keep Jesus’ memory alive, someone has gathered his sayings together and created some sort of order. For example, today’s gospel suggests that the collator of the material has grouped similar sayings together – the sayings about non-resistance are placed with sayings about love of enemies, the saying about being merciful is connected with that about not judging and the saying about giving more than what is asked is put in the same context as that of giving abundantly.
This means that we don’t have to insist that the sayings in this morning’s gospel fit together neatly nor do we have to worry about their relationship one to one another.
Like the beatitudes which on the surface are counter-intuitive, the sayings reverse our usual way of thinking. Jesus insists that poverty, grief and persecution are to be seen as a blessing not as an affliction, that they are life-giving and not soul-destroying. Jesus goes on to demand that we live in ways that are counter-cultural, non-reciprocal, non-judgemental, selfless and generous. In other words, we are to behave in ways that are contrary to our natural instincts and which have the potential to set us apart from the society in which we live. Like it or not, Jesus tells us to love our enemies, to give to those who can give us nothing in return, to refrain from retaliation, to forgive and not to condemn.
Contrary to expectation, applying these values to our lives does not leave us impoverished, down-trodden, taken advantage of or abused – just the opposite. Self-sacrifice, love of those who do not love us and generosity towards others rewards us in ways we cannot begin to imagine. If we live according to these principles, we will discover that instead of being small and petty, jealous and judgemental, we become expansive and open-handed, gracious and understanding. We are not called to make sacrifices for the sake of sacrifice. We are called only to let go of those things that limit us and to relinquish those things that have us in their power. God does not make demands that are burdensome and life-denying. God seeks only our well-being, our development and our wholeness. Indeed, when we learn to graciously accept what life throws at us and when we focus more on others than on ourselves, our world-view is enriched and enlarged, our anxieties are diminished, our hearts are expanded and our sense of satisfaction with our lives and our place in the universe is increased beyond our imagination.
In the upside down, back-to-front kingdom of God what we give up is more than compensated for by what we get back.
Swallowsrest 