That's Different

This is the message at the most recent United Methodist Oahe Manor Sunday service, November 10, 2013.  The Bible verses are Luke 6:27-36.

Mark Twain once said that he was not bothered by all the things in the Bible he did not understand.  What really bothered him, he said, was all the things in the Bible he did understand.

When we read these verses, we can see what Twain meant.  These verses are not hard to understand.  But they are really hard to live.  These are things we wish Jesus had not told us to do, because we really do not want to do them.

Look at it.  Look at the things Jesus tells us to do here.  Love our enemies.  Bless those who curse us.  Pray for those who mistreat us.  If someone takes our coat, do not withhold our shirt.  Give to everyone who asks.  If someone takes something that belongs to us, don't demand it back.

There's some of that we might, grudgingly, be able to go along with.  We might, possibly, understand that we need to pray for people who mistreat us, so that their hearts could be changed.  We can least understand in theory why we should love our enemies.  Maybe, possibly, we could even do that, as long as we did not have to, you know, actually have anything to do with them.  And on a good day, we might even be able to bless someone who cursed us, at least after our first emotions settled down.

But some of this other stuff?  No way.  We reject that out-of-hand.  Someone takes my coat away from me, and I should just smile and give them my shirt?  I should give to everyone who asks, no matter how much they have or how little I have?  If someone takes something of mine, I should just let that go and not do anything about it?  None of that makes any sense.

Jesus tells us what we're supposed to do these things.  For one thing, he says, look, if we just love people who love us, that's meaningless.  We're no better than the unbelievers.  Everybody loves people who love them.  Same thing with doing good for people who do good to us.  There's nothing special about that.  Everybody does that.  If we only lend money to people we think can and will pay us back, all we've done is conduct a business transaction.  That's not something that has to do with God, that's just good business.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we're supposed to do more than just be like everybody else.  We're  supposed to be different.  We're supposed to live our lives differently from people who don't follow Jesus.  If we don't do that, our claim of following Jesus Christ is meaningless.

Jesus says it's not our job to judge people.  It's not our job to condemn people.  It's our job to love people.  It's our job to show mercy to people.  It's our job to forgive people.

I suspect most of us agree with that in theory.  We know we're supposed to love others.  We know we're supposed to forgive.  We know we're supposed to show mercy.  We agree with it in theory, but in practice, it's something that's hard to live out.

It's just as hard for me as it is for you.  I don't do this any better than anybody else does.  In fact, I'm sure I'm worse at it than many people are.  I try not to be greedy, but at the same time, if someone takes something of mine, I'm probably not going to just smile and say “Sure, here it is, take it.  In fact, take some more, too.  Have as much as you want.”  I certainly don't give to everyone who asks.  I judge who it is and what they're asking for and what they're going to do with the money.

Some would say Jesus did not mean for us to take all this literally, and that's possible.  I mean, Jesus did not live in a world of telemarketers.  Jesus did not live in a world where there are people who's whole job is to call us and ask for money.  I don't know that we have to be too hard on ourselves if we don't literally do everything Jesus told us to do here.

But we also need to make sure we're not too easy on ourselves.  Because, again, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are supposed to be different.  We are not supposed to just do what everybody else does.  We're supposed to be better.  Better at giving, better at forgiving, better at showing mercy, better at all of that.  In short, we're supposed to be better at showing love.  Love for our enemies.  Love for people who curse us.  Love for people who mistreat us.  Love for people who want our stuff.

So what do we do?  Well, I don't know that I have a nice, easy answer for you.  I think it's something we need to work on.  I think we need to pray about it, certainly.  When we're dealing with people who hate us or curse us or mistreat us, when we're dealing with people who want us to give us things or who just come up and take them, we need to think about these words.  We need to ask ourselves what Jesus would want us to do.

Whatever our answer is, we need to make sure it's an answer that's based on love, because that's what Jesus' answer would be based on.  Jesus told us, after all, that the two most important things are that we love God and that we love people.  However we answer this question, if the answer is not based in love, then it's not Jesus' answer.

We may wish Jesus had not told us to do these things, but Jesus did.  If we claim to follow Jesus, we cannot ignore what Jesus said just because we don't like it.  We need to deal with it honestly.  We need to pray about it.  We need to ask what Jesus wants us to do.  And then, we need to act the way Jesus did.  We need to act out of love for God, and love for others.