Matthew 5:43-48 (NIV)
Love for Enemies
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
What is love? If you were to ask the “Average Joe” on the street, what would their answer be? If you were to ask 100 people, you would probably get about 100 different answers, about 100 different definitions of what love is.
In today’s world, in today’s society, you might get answers that sound like love. You might get someone to tell you being nice to other people. You might have someone tell you that love is all about physical attraction, sexual desire. Someone might say that love is when you really like someone else.
But I’m not interested in what the world has to say about love. As a follower of Christ, I want to know what God has to say about love.
I think most of us are familiar with John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”
I think less of us are familiar with 1 John 3:16, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”
Still further, in Romans 5:8, it says, “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” While we were still sinners, while we were enemies of God, while we were diametrically opposed to the things of God, he still died for us.
Jesus begins this passage in a way that will become familiar to us as we read through the Gospels, “You have heard that it was said.” The people of Israel were following the teachings of their religious leaders, who were, at the time, primarily the Pharisees and Sadducees. What many of these leaders did was to take the commands of God from the Torah, what we know today as the Old Testament, and take them and follow them as closely as they possibly could.
They would take one of the commandments of God and stretch it out to its most logical conclusion, so that they could make sure they were following the laws of God as best as possible.
So here we have a law, from Leviticus 19, to Love your neighbor. So, they took this law, and the thought to themselves, “How can we follow this law to it’s fullest?” Well if you try to spread this law, or this command to its logical conclusion, the opposite of love, so it is thought is hate, and the opposite of your neighbor is your enemy. So, the logical way to fulfil this law is to love your neighbor and hate your enemy. Seems to make sense.
The problem is, this is never what God intended. God has never called us to hate our enemy.
Jesus came, in part, to let us know how God wants us to live. Jesus came as an example of the best way to live.
Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
This was a hard teaching for the Jewish people to hear. You see the enemy for them, at this time in their history, was Rome. It was Rome that stood in the way of the Jewish Nation. It was Rome that stood in the way of practicing religion the way that they believed. It was Rome that oppressed them. It was Rome that took their money. All problems could be traced back to Rome.
And, if it were possible, the people who were hated worse that the Romans? It was the Samaritans. You see, the Samaritans were the descendants of the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, after it feel to the Persian Empire. While the people of the Southern Kingdom of Judah, had kept themselves pure, the Northerners had intermarried with the occupying forces. Therefore, while they Samaritans claimed a Jewish heritage, they were seen by the “real Jews” of the South, as “half-breeds,” half-Jewish, half-Gentile. To the devout Jew these people were less thank human.
If you want to get an idea of the hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans, think about the hatred that the Nazis had for Jews in WWII, or the hatred that the KKK has for people who are not white. If the Jews saw a Samaritan in a place they shouldn’t be no one would blame them for dispensing discipline, up-to and including killing them.
This is why the people were so disturbed with Jesus told a parable about a “good Samaritan” in Luke chapter 10.
Jesus starts of the story in a way that would have been very familiar to the people at that time. Highway robbery was common, so they wouldn’t be surprised to hear that a man was attached and left him to die on the side of the road. They didn’t expect what would come next.
First, a priest came by. In your mind you might picture your Sunday School teacher. He passed by on the other side of the road so that he wouldn’t become ceremonially unclean. The same thing happened when a Levite passed by. You might want to imagine a dignified preacher. Passed by him on the other side of the road. If either of them had stopped to help this man they would have had to have come in contact with the man’s blood, and filth, and would have been ceremonially unclean. They wouldn’t have been able to enter the Temple or preform their priestly duties. They would’ve had to undergo a rigorous ritual of cleansing. It was too much trouble, better to just pass by.
Next came a person that the Jews listening to Jesus didn’t expect. A Samaritan. Now, again, the Jews hated the Samaritans, and there was no love lost from Samaritans to Jews. If Jesus’ listeners were expecting anything from the story, they would have been expecting the Samaritan to pass by too, or maybe for the Samaritan to finish off what the robbers had started.
But instead the Samaritan did what was unexpected. Jesus had a way of surprising people with what he said. Instead of killing the Jewish man off, he took care of his wounds, and provided for his care until he was well again.
It turns out this Samaritan was more of a neighbor to the Jewish Man than his fellow Jews.
How can this be? He was a Samaritan, he was the enemy. The Samaritans were literally “in bed” with the enemy. They were half-breeds.
But if the Samaritan is my neighbor, that means my enemy is my neighbor. But if my enemy is my neighbor, and I am commanded to love my neighbor, then that means I have to love my enemy who is my neighbor…
Jesus says, “Yup.”
You have heard that it was said love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you love your enemy. Pray for the person who persecutes you. Don’t you know that God loves his enemies?
He sends rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. He gives sunshine to the good and the bad. Both things are important and vital to an agrarian society. Without rain nothing can grow, without the sun nothing can grow. Without these things there is only death, and God gives them to both his friends and his enemies.
Jesus goes on to give even greater emphasis. “If you love those who love you, so what? Don’t even tax collectors do that?” Now here was another group no good Jewish person liked. The tax collectors were Jews who worked for Rome. They worked for the oppressors. They were traitors to their Jewish heritage. To a point, they were almost worse than Samaritans. Samaritans couldn’t help who they were, they were born that way. But the tax collectors collaborated with the Romans by choice. They stole from their brothers. They robbed the chosen people of God!
“And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” Those pagan Romans and Greeks, who worship false gods. They know enough to love their own.
So, if pagans and tax collectors loved their own, what set apart the people of God if they were living the same way.
We, as followers of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are called to be different. In the book of Genesis God called Abraham to leave his people. God called him to be separate, to live differently. One sign of difference was circumcision. In ancient times this was not something that could be hidden. In public places, where only men were allowed, it was not only common, but often required that men be naked. In the public bath houses, in public games, men were naked. It would be very easy to notice if someone were circumcised or not. It was an unspoken declaration that you were serving the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, rather than the pantheon of Gods other cultures followed.
Another sign was the diet prescribed to the Jewish people. Only Kosher foods. This again, would have been a public display of your differences. You wouldn’t shop at the same stores/stalls as other people. It would have been very conspicuous in Ancient times.
So if you are living and loving like everyone else, so what? If there is no difference between a Christ follower and a pagan, why in the world would anyone want to be a Christian?
We, as Christians are not to live like the rest of the world! We are called to be different!
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Some people like to skip over this verse. It makes people uncomfortable. “Perfect? There’s no way I can be perfect.”
Well, yes. You cannot be perfect. But then again, if Jesus is giving you a command, I believe that he wants you to follow it.
We have to be careful that we don’t pull this verse out of context. This verse, this statement, this command, was not given.
This command was given in the context of the verses that come before and after it. They come in the middle of what is now called the “Sermon on the Mount.”
Specifically, it comes as the conclusion of the verses we just read. The word “therefore” means we need to go back and re-read the passages that came before it. In Chapter 5 of Matthew we have Jesus give the Beatitudes, He talks about being salt and light, of fulfilling the Law, of Murder, Adultery, and Divorce. He speaks about making Oaths, and an “Eye-for-an-Eye.” What is he talking about?
Another title I’ve heard for this Sermon of Jesus given in Matthew chapters 5 through 7, is “The Sermon on the Kingdom.” Jesus is giving us a picture of what it looks like to live in the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven.
This command to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” cannot be taken out of the context of this passage.
Neither can it be taken out of the context of the culture in which Jesus spoke it. Jesus was speaking to 1st century Jewish people.
So we need to understand what it means to be perfect in this context. To the 1st Century Jew being perfect was different than what we think of as perfection today.
Today, when we say “perfect” we mean without any blemish and without any flaw. This is not what was meant in 1st Century Jewish culture.
The Bible, as you may well know, was not written in English. English didn’t even exist when the Bible was written. The people who inhabited the British Isles were primitive barbarians at best. The New Testament was written in Greek. The word here translated at “perfect” is the Greek word “teleioi.” Teleioi has a nuance of completing or to accomplishing. You don’t have to be flawless or without blemish to accomplish or complete something. You just have to complete it!
Those of you who have taken the GSNC tests the past month. Were all of your scores perfect 100%? Some of them were, but not all of them, but they were all completed, so they were all “teleioi.” They were, in that sense, perfect.
Is this podium that I am using perfect?
In a sense, no. There are cracks in it. If I were to get a laser measure I could probably note that this portion isn’t perfectly square, or it isn’t perfectly even all the way through. The wood-grain is messed up, the logo has some scratches in it.
But in another sense, it is perfect. What is the function of this podium? It is to hold up the materials that I set on it. Is it accomplishing what it was designed to do? Yes! So, in that sense, it is “teleioi” or perfect.
In context of verse 48, in the 5th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, what does it mean to be “teleioi?” What are we being told to accomplish or complete? We are to live the life that God is calling us to live, and what is he calling us to live? Love. Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. Yes, even the Romans, even the Tax collectors, even the Samaritans.
In chapters 6 and 7 Jesus goes on to explain what that looks like to love your neighbor and your enemy; giving, praying, fasting, storing up treasures in heaven, not worrying, not judging, asking, seeking, knocking, going through a narrow gate, learning to recognize good fruit, building your house on the rock.
The problem with being perfect, with being “teleioi,” is that you can’t do it. You can’t. People have tried, and failed. Israel tried and failed and failed and failed over and over again.
You can’t live the life that God wants you to live, you can’t be perfect in accomplishing the things God wants you to accomplish, without God.
That is why, again, we can’t take this verse out of context. At the end of Chapter 7 Jesus gives the parable of the wise and foolish builder.
The wise man built his house on the rock, the foolish man built his house on the sand.
If you want to stand firm, if you want to be perfect, if you want to be “teleioi” you can’t do it on a foundation of sand. You must build your life of the foundation of Jesus Christ. Only by his power can you accomplish and complete what he wants you to, which is to love God, with all your heart, soul, and strength, and to love your neighbor (which includes your enemy btw) as yourself.
