Today we come to the end of our sermon series, “Seriously, Jesus?” As we look at some of the things Jesus said that we wish he had not said, I think what we read today really takes the prize.
Of all the Bible verses we talked about in confirmation class, this may be the one the kids struggled with the most. It may be the one adults struggle with the most, too. All of it goes against what our instincts tell us to do.
Listen to what Jesus said again:
“I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you”
None of that makes any sense to us. Are we supposed to just do nothing when we're attacked, just stand there and take it? Are we supposed to give everything we have to anyone who wants it, whether they need it or not?
If it makes you feel better, nobody else seems to like this statement of Jesus any more than we do. I read several Bible commentaries on this passage, and they all seem to struggle with it just as much as we do. It just does not seem like a reasonable way to live our lives. After all, if we don't defend ourselves, who will? If we give stuff to someone just because they ask for it, we won't have anything left for ourselves. And then, after we've been beaten and taken advantage of, how in the world can we love the people who did that to us?
It goes against all our conventional wisdom. In fact, it went against all the conventional wisdom of Jesus' time. All this sounded just as strange, and just as impractical, to the people who heard Jesus say it as it does to us today, maybe more so.
What we need to remember, though, is that Jesus did not come to give people the conventional wisdom. There'd have been no need for him to do that. He would not have gotten killed on a cross if he'd done that.
If there's one thing that should come through in our look at all these hard statements of Jesus, it should be that Jesus is telling us that if we want to follow him, we have to be different. We cannot call ourselves Christians if we just go along with the crowd and do what everyone else does.
That's the point of what Jesus says next. He says, look, there's nothing special about loving people who love you. Even tax collectors, the people who were considered at the bottom end of the social scale, loved people who loved them. There were not very many people who did love them, but they loved the ones who did. Jesus says if you're just friendly to the people who are like you and agree with you, there's nothing special about that either. Even pagans, people who don't believe in God at all, do that.
Followers of Jesus are supposed to be different. There's no point in saying we follow Jesus if our following him does not mean that our lives change in some way. If we defend ourselves when we're attacked, well, everybody does that. If we just give when we're forced to give, well, everybody does that, too. If we just do what everybody else does, our Christian faith is meaningless.
Now, Jesus does not say that we can take ourselves out of a bad situation. If someone is being abused, Jesus does not say they should not try to get away from the abuser. Jesus is talking about not joining the battle. He's not talking about being a punching bag.
Also, let me say that I'm no better at this than anybody else. If I'm attacked, my instinct is to fight back, too. I'm not just talking about a physical attack, either. If someone disagrees with me, whether it's about faith or anything else, my instinct is to come back at them just as hard as they came at me. And I don't give to everyone who asks just because they ask. I'm not making excuses for myself. I'm just being honest. I need to work on it. We all need to work on it.
The thing is, though, what happens when we come back hard at someone who disagrees with us? We start an argument, right? And what happens then? We have hard feelings. We have people who are upset and angry, often including ourselves. We're usually upset and angry, too. Did we really accomplish anything that way? We may have made ourselves feel better for a minute or two, but now we've got a problem that will last long after we can even remember what our original argument was about.
I think the main point of it all is when Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” That's a really hard thing to do. I wrote in the newsletter this week about the people who conducted the bombings at the Boston Marathon. I don't love those people. In fact, I have no desire whatsoever to love those people. Anyone who would do what those people did does not deserve my love.
But of course, that's exactly the point, right? As Christians, we're supposed to love people who do not deserve our love.
That's what Jesus did. Jesus loved the “tax collectors and sinners”, the people who the rest of society did not love. Jesus loved Judas, who betrayed him. Jesus loved the Roman soldiers who beat him. Jesus even loved the people who had him killed.
See, Jesus did not ask us to do anything he did not do. When Jesus was arrested, he did not fight back. In fact, he specifically told his disciples not to fight back. When Jesus was beaten, he did not fight back. When Jesus was mocked and taunted, he did not fight back. When Jesus was hung on a cross and killed, he did not fight back. He could have. He's the divine Son of God. He had all kinds of power, much more than he ever actually used while he was on earth. But he did not.
It's also what God does. None of us deserves God's love. None of us is worthy of it. None of us, on our own merits, has any right to come anywhere near God. Yet God loves us anyway. Even when we ignore God, God still loves us. Even when we criticize God, God still to loves us. Even when we deny God, God still loves us. Even when we betray God, Got still loves us. God does not ask us to do anything that God is not willing to do.
It's hard, though. Because this is not a story. I've mentioned this once before, but when I was a kid, I'd read these children's stories where people would do this, where they'd keep loving people who were being mean to them, and those people would start to feel ashamed of themselves and start to change. In real life, it does not work that way. It might, but it probably won't. Jesus did not say we are to do these things because it'll make others change. That's not the point. We're supposed to do these things because that's what a follower of Jesus is supposed to do.
Jesus knew others might not change. The Bible does not tell us that the Roman soldiers changed because of what Jesus did. It does not tell us that the Pharisees changed. That was not the point. The point of living the way Jesus told us to live is not to shame others into changing. The point is that living the way Jesus told us to live is what a follower of Jesus is supposed to do.
We are supposed to love people whether they love us or not. In fact, we're specifically supposed to love people who don't love us. We're supposed to love people who beat us and take our stuff. Again, we can take ourselves out of a bad situation, but we're not supposed to respond with anger. That's just not what a follower of Jesus is supposed to do.
It's hard. We don't want to do it. I don't want to do it, either. But Jesus did not say, “do this if you want to.” Jesus did not say, “do this if you feel like it.” Jesus said this is what his followers are supposed to do. Period.
This is where we decide whether we truly want to be followers of Jesus or not. If we do, we need to decide we're going to try to do these things, whether we feel like it or not. We'll fail sometimes, but we need to keep trying if we want to be followers of Jesus.
We had two young people come up here today and say they want to be followers of Jesus. Most of us here have said that at one time or another. Jesus said that if we want to follow him, we have to do some things we don't want to do. Are you willing to? Am I?
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