This sermon was delivered Gordon McCulloch to the congregation at Holy Trinity in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 24th February 2019; Holy Trinity is a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries.
Genesis 45:3-11, 15 1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50 Luke 6:27-38 Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42
“Please join me in a short prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)
1. Introduction
One of the most difficult commandments of Jesus is to “love our enemies”; … and if you are like me, you will find that most of the time it is impossible to do. In fact if you can love your enemies just as Jesus commanded, please show us how you do it.
Oh, and yes, we have all heard someone glibly saying, “oh yes, we should all love our enemies, I do not have a problem with that”, but let me qualify this, we are not talking about a recent falling out with someone, or the ability to deal with an awkward person, we are talking about those who are really mean, and are really out to get us; and hell bent on destroying us for some reason or another. How then, can we say “I can love my enemies”.
What I am getting at here is that if we are not careful, “showing love towards an enemy”, is usually or somehow communicated as fear … and when a bully or an enemy smell that fear, it somehow encourages, strengthens or empowers them into hurting us more. … Is that not correct? … And if you don’t relate to this, then you have never really been tested.
Jesus is saying here, that when are being treated so harshly, and so unfairly, we are being tested, and it is a horrible experience; it’s an experience where all hope can leave us, weakens us and … when we have nothing left to fight with, we are directed to “love our enemies”, because … because somehow … that is where the victory lies whether we understand it or not.
And to make matters worse, as I said earlier, we are not talking about a simple fall out, (although it includes that), I am talking about trials that can last for years and years, and so endurance and perseverance are also needed as well as that love for our enemies. This is truly horrible topic, but it can be a horrible world in which we live, however we are not to worry because Jesus tells us in John 16:33, that “In the world we will have tribulation: but to be of good cheer; because he has overcome the world”.
Jesus managed to overcome a world that hates their enemies; but it is our world, and surely then it’s a natural thing to do … to “love those who love us, and despise those who hate us” … … but then Jesus tells us, “we are not of this world” because we are in him.
And when I hear things like this, I worry … because I have no trouble at all loving my family, my wife, my loved ones, and those whom I enjoy their company … (ok not all the time, we do have our falling outs), but at the end of the day we still love each other, and pull ourselves together against our problems, encouraging one another, and getting on with life, which is fine, like everyone else.
But there are those whom we don’t love, and it is to them that Jesus says, see those people whom you love, and look forward to being with; I want you to treat your enemies the exact same way, and love them just the same … even though, they may not love you back.
It not natural is it? … There is a very funny scene in the movie “smoky and the bandit” where a weary truck driver pulls up at a road side café, (do you know the scene, I love it), and where the waitress had just served him, when three tough looking, unshaven leather jacketed bikers, you know the Hell’s Angels type come in, and decide to give him a hard time. Not only did they verbally abuse him, one grabbed the hamburger and chips off his plate, and the third picked up his coffee and began to drink it and spill it over him.
I ask you, how would you respond to that? … And even though I am giving a sermon loving our enemies, I still love what happened next. … Well, this truck driver simply and calmly stood up, paid his money and went on his way.
Then one of the bikers said to the waitress who had witnessed the whole scene, “not much of a man that”. … She replied, “he is not much of a driver either … he has just run over three motorbikes”.
Revenge
Sorry I just love that … but that is a scene of revenge. … It’s a scene of justice, or Karma as the young ones now say, and I suppose we all like stories like that because when someone does something bad to us, or wrongs us, our first natural and instinctive reaction is to get them back. Correct! … Our first instinct is to make them hurt, as just as much as they have hurt us … and that is considered normal in our world today … and that is why we like those kind of scenes … but Jesus turn all this on its head and tells us in verse 27 to “Love our enemies, do good to them which hate us. Bless them that curse us, and pray for them which despitefully use us”.
Today in our passage of scripture we’re going to see Jesus sharing with his followers how they, or we, are to respond to those who are our enemies, and as you can gather, it is not easy. …
The answer to this is given by Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount. It is a sermon recognized by many as the greatest sermon ever preached, and in this sermon, Jesus lays out some foundational truths of Christianity, and one of the foundational truths that we must get right is this “love our enemies”.
So how are we to respond to our enemies? … Well Jesus shares with us many responses, and you will be glad to hear that I do not have time to discuss them all this morning, so I will talk about one of the response, and maybe I will get the chance another day to discuss the others, but one of the responses is to “keep that love in our hearts”.
“Retain love in our hearts, despite those who hate us”.
Now, I do not think for one second that this was any more popular with the Jews than it is with us today, in fact I am sure it was worse because the religious leaders of the day were constantly quoting from the Old Testament, and one of the old commandments was to “love your neighbour and hate, (yes hate), your enemy”, which still goes down well today.
But Jesus contradicts this in his Sermon on the Mount and says that, “If we love those who love us, what credit is that to us? Because even ‘sinners’ love those who love them”.
Hatred and revenge
When Jesus calls us to love those who hate us, he is calling for us to do something that’s totally contrary to our human nature. Our human nature as I said wants revenge! Our human nature tells us that when someone messes with us; we’re going to get them back because … if we get back at them, they will know next time not to mess with us again; and besides … revenge is sweet … it just somehow makes us feel better. … But guess what; hatred and revenge especially if it is drawn out over time, is a horrible thing that literally, destroys us from within.
The physical effects of hatred and revenge
Hatred, and the need for revenge, destroys us physically within as we all know. Scientific studies have been done to show the damage hatred and the accompanying anger does for someone. At the very least, it raises our breathing rate; it causes our blood pressure to rise, putting a strain on our hearts. … And repeated bouts of anger triggers headaches and lead us into abusive behaviour towards others, if we allow it. … And anger can also cause a break down in our immune systems, lowering our defences, and cause us to be susceptible to various things in the air. A case in point was one of our teachers last weekend, left school in a rage and in tears after a confrontation by some very ungrateful pupils. She couldn’t get it out of her mind, and returned on Monday morning chocked full of the cold, and she had said, she was raging all weekend. … Anger and hatred do work together and truly weaken us physically, if only we knew.
The emotional effects of hatred and revenge
Nursing anger and hatred can also destroy us emotionally as well. … Why, because it wears us out, it unsettles our judgement … which in turn confuses the issues and encourages us into making bad decisions. … Hatred and revenge is also the vital ingredient in fuelling any embarrassing outbursts that we may have, as the anger gets a grip; … outbursts which in turn may lead to guilt, shame and even depression through powerlessness. … And when we are in that state, we are not the most enjoyable of people to be around. … Is this news to you, no, we have all been there? … This is normal human life as we know it, and it is a result of hating those who hate us, and keeping that hatred in our hearts.
The spiritual effects of hatred and revenge
And from that, we move briefly onto the spiritual effects of anger, and the need for revenge, because we are told throughout the Bible that the essence of God is … love, “God is love and we are his children”. And if we are harbouring any hatred and anger in our hearts, causing physical and emotional outbursts, “where then is there love”?
And if there is no love inwardly, then we are not demonstrating love outwardly … we will be demonstrating something else … something we would rather not … something that is contrary to God’s command of loving each other; in other words, there will be a disconnection from God, because we are not truly loving him either. And, and if we are not loving him whom we cannot see, then we are certainly not loving those whom we can see.
If we have evil in our hearts.
And to go further, let us add Psalm 66 verse 18 to this, which says, “If we have evil in our hearts, then God will not hear us”. … Is it no wonder then that God does not answer our prayers? … Wow, this is strong stuff … and it can explain why many people feel disconnected from God … not because they are not trying hard enough to please or contact God through their prayers and good deeds, but because they are harbouring “things in their hearts”, that ought not to be there; … things of hatred and injustice and revenge. Now I must say this … and I am extremely sorry to say this, but some of those things that we are harbouring maybe justly deserved, in fact, most of them can be justly deserved; because bad things happen to good people, or even, very bad things have happened to some very good people … undeservedly … and it is a shame, and we do feel for them, but the only cure as far as Jesus is concerned for such injustice is to swap, or replace that anger … with love.
Anger commands our thoughts
But to move on … have you ever noticed that when we’re angry at someone … and I mean really angry … it becomes our focus? … It doesn’t matter what’s going on around us, our thoughts and focus, all our being are upon the person or persons who have wronged us … (and as I have just said, probably with just cause) … but we become trapped in that hatred … our own self-created hatred. … It makes us then hard to function properly as a person and as Christian, as a child of God. We have all been there and don’t let anyone tell you different, because it is the natural way of the world … but remember, we are not of this world; because Jesus overcame the world and it is him whom we are here to worship today.
Conclusion
So we all struggle to really love our enemies as Jesus said because … … we do not understand how, or even why it works. … Now I am not saying for one second to cow tow to our enemies, or back down to them, or even appease them, no I am not saying that, I am saying stand firm against them … do what is right … but keep ourselves right, by keep that love and peace in our hearts regardless, because fuelling anger and desire for revenge will only destroy us, and help the enemies cause.
Yes it’s very difficult, and yes we have failed so many times like most people, but at least we now know that harbouring anger is not a solution, otherwise Jesus would not have commanded us to love our enemies as a basic fundamental principle.
Finally.
Finally, for now, I hope I have shown you a part of that understanding this morning, but truthfully, this is only an introduction … there is so much more to loving your enemies than this. … I mean I could have mentioned, verse 27, “do good to those who hate us”, or verse 28, to “bless them that curse us”, or even “pray for them which despitefully use us” … because they all give us answers to loving our enemies.
Verse 29 even goes onto to tell us to “give to everyone who asks of us, and if anyone takes what belongs to us, we are not to demand it back”, (which is a really good one), but all of these opinions produce great sermons, with praiseworthy answers … all I am saying is … that I cannot cover this topic in one short sermon.
There are so many good verses to expound upon, all of which are contrary to our human nature; which means … Jesus is trying hard for us to learn this fundamental lesson: … a lesson that if done correctly, totally confuses our enemies, because they already have in their minds, a prediction of how we will or should respond, and they are thus ready for us. … Showing love towards an enemy confuses them, and somehow gives us the advantage … upsetting their vindictiveness towards us, and giving us a chance to turn the situation around.
We all know that loving our enemies is the answer, the way to go, and I just hope and pray something this morning enables us to do just that.
Amen.
