Epiphany 7 – 2022
Luke 6:27-38
Marian Free
In the name of God whose ways are not our ways. Amen.
An area of study for theological students is homiletics which, according to Wikipedia, is ‘the application of the general principles of rhetoric to the specific art of preaching’. Rhetoric is the art of persuasive speech that was developed long ago in Ancient Greece. There were schools that taught rhetoric and there are books and books by a variety of these ancient scholars who taught techniques like diatribe (an argument with an imaginary opponent), false conclusions, and the use of series ( 3, 5 and more ) and of rhetorical questions. Many of these tools are so ingrained in our language that we use them unwittingly and certainly many of our politicians and public speakers use them to persuade us to their way of thinking. Paul was a master of rhetoric and he used every technique available to decimate the arguments of his detractors and to convince the recipients of his letters that his understanding of the gospel was the only possible view.
Jesus on the other hand, was skilled at the rabbinic forms of argument as can be seen in his debates with the Jewish leaders.
But back to homiletics – the art of preaching. It will be clear to most congregations that not every preacher has studied (or mastered) the art of preaching – some of us speak too long or don’t have a consistent argument. Whether or not I am successful at the art is of course up for debate. Homiletics was not taught when I attended theological college but along the way I have learned that it is important to gain the audience’s attention (with a story or example) and to try to have just one take away message.
According to these basic principles, Jesus (or Luke as his recorder) has completely failed in what we have labelled as the ‘Sermon on the Plain’. As can be seen from today’s gospel, what biblical scholars have labeled as a ‘sermon’ is in fact a collection of loosely related sayings. Indeed they almost certainly began as a collection of Jesus’ sayings which were gathered together according to some theme or other known only to the original compiler. It is highly unlikely that Jesus, faced with a large and attentive crowd, felt that the best that he had to offer was a series of unconnected sayings . Even with the best memories in the world Jesus’ audience would have found it harder to remember a list of sayings than to have remembered stories or parables. I don’t imagine that after Jesus’ death his followers sat around and recited lists of sayings. More likely than not they would have remembered them one by one, possibly discussing what they meant before remembering something similar that Jesus said.
In whatever context Jesus delivered the sayings attributed to him, they were memorable. This I suggest is because they were and are so counter intuitive and counter cultural that they make an audience sit up straight and ask: “‘love your enemies.’ Did Jesus really say that?” “‘Give without expecting something in return.’ Who does that?” and “surely we can’t be compared with sinners – can we?”
The drive for self-preservation is at the core of every living being. In humankind it reveals itself in competitiveness – for land, for resources, for power – competitiveness that spills over into aggression when we feel that our access to land, resources or power is threatened. We see this in the build up of troops on the border between Russia and Ukraine, the take-over of Afghanistan by the Taliban, the violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar, the on-going conflicts in Ethiopia and Sudan and the far too many other struggles for ascendancy between nations and races all over the world. We have witnessed this need to look after number one most clearly during the pandemic. The emptying of supermarket shelves as people took more than they needed at the expense of those who did not have the resources – physical or financial – to obtain the bare minimum; the hoarding of vaccines by nations that could afford them, and the sometimes inhumane closing of borders to protect those within them.
How Jesus’ sayings must have rankled Jesus’ audience! There was nothing in Jewish teaching that encouraged love of enemies and as for being compared with sinners our gospel records make it quite clear that the ethic of the day was to separate oneself from sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes. How could Jesus possibly imply that they were equal – in loving, doing good and lending – with those who were so obviously outside the definition of ‘good’.
Jesus’ challenge in these sayings (which are loosely connected by the theme of love) is that we who believe should not be self-absorbed and self-satisfied, that we go over and above what is expected – in love, in generosity and is forgiveness, that we should confront (suppress even) our human nature and that we should behave in ways that reflect the presence of the divine in us – the divine that is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. In other words we should not only love our neighbour, but also our enemy, that instead of taking advantage of others we should allow them to take advantage of us , that when asked to do help we go over and beyond and, that we give generously without expecting anything in return.
How slow, how resistant we, as Christians, have been to take these teachings to heart! How far short have we fallen from these ideals! How little are we distinguishable from the society around us!
It is only by taking Jesus’ words to heart and acting on them that our lives will become more and more like that of his and that we will stand out from the world in which we find ourselves and ultimately be among those who will lead the transformation of the world.
Swallowsrest 