Sermon for February 23, 2025: Even the Sinners based upon Luke 6:27-38

Love Your Enemies, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=54226 [retrieved February 26, 2025]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/boojee/2929823056/.

Luke 6:27-38
‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
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‘If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’

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Early this week, after I’d spent time clearing ice dams from our roof and attempted to snow-blow in a vicious wind, I came upon this reel which encapsulates my feeling about winter pretty succinctly. 

(I tried to embed the video here, but it keeps messing everything else up... just go to this link and then come back to the sermon:
​ https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGBXI8uR_JO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link)​

 In case it’s not clear, the farmers in that video are in a world class pout, complete with foot stomp, because they are stuck doing something they don’t want to be doing. In this case, all the work needed to keep warm in a long Ontario winter. I’ve seen other people post similarly pouty and stomp videos, usually in good natured fun, like the librarians complaining about not being able to read all the books at work, but sometimes in real frustration presented in a light-hearted way, like the tired farmers in the video I showed you. I remembered this reel when I started working on today’s sermon because I am feeling a bit pouty and stompy not just about winter, but about our scripture for the day. Because Jesus once told a bunch of people to love their enemies. And, I don’t much feel like doing that right now.  

Today’s scripture is the next part of Jesus’ sermon that we started last week. As Jesus stood on a place level with those who needed him most, he preached the first part of the sermon: the blessings to the poor and marginalized and warnings to the rich and exploiters. Then, we have today’s reading, a shift into what one commentary I read called the “How then shall we live” section. With powerful people threatening safety net programs that are literally keeping people I love alive, I was ready for the blessings and warning of last week. It was good to be reminded of Jesus’ particular mission of care to those who struggle and his particular warning to those with wealth and power who would take advantage of them. That is a Biblical vision of Christianity that serves a strong counter to the current impulse in much of American Christianity to align itself with hateful authoritarianism in order to maintain cultural power. I wanted to hear and read out loud to you “blessed are the poor, for yours in the kingdom of God” because it is good to be reminded, in this moment, that God never demanded that we humiliate impoverished people for simply being poor.  

Then came this week, when friends of mine are worried about being fired from jobs they are very good at, and when a local politician unrepentantly outs a teenager, putting that child, her family, her team, and her school in danger, and when yet other friends don’t know if they are going to get paid for work they’ve already been contracted to do... I’m for sure feeling like I have some enemies, and, I’m supposed to preach about loving them. I don’t want to be as mad and worried as I have been the last several weeks. A lot of that anger and fear is rooted in love... mostly love for people I know but also for groups of people who I know do not deserve to be harmed the way they are being harmed right now. I am actually feeling pretty loving right now, but, it’s mostly love for my friends and for the kinds of people Jesus blessed in the first part of the sermon on the level place. It is not yet love for my enemies.  

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” Jesus, what on earth on your talking about. There are powerful people threatening the well-being of people I actually love. How could I bring myself to love them when they are using their power to harm people? While this question feels timely, I am not the first Christian to ask it. I’m sure that the people who listened to Jesus say this for the first time likely asked this question, too. 

I would be remiss not to point out how this series of verses is regularly used to coerce people into staying in abusive relationships and excuse powerful people from truly making amends for the harm they cause. In her book How to Have an Enemy, Rev. Melissa Florer-Bixler describes how this direction to “love your enemies” has been “used as a cudgel to suppress movement work for liberation and the freedom of individuals to escape harmful situations.” I very much do not want to use this text this way, or have it used on me this way. So, how do we hear this encouragement to love in a way that does not repeat and reinforce harm?  

Here’s one thing I’m holding onto as I try to figure out how to love my enemies. Fred Craddock, John Hayes, Carl Holladay, and Gene Tucker have a commentary on this text that points out that in advising his hearers to “bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you,” Jesus presumes that the people listening are more likely to be abused than to be these ones abusing. Notice that Jesus isn’t instructing the powerful in the verses. Craddock and his colleagues argue that this means that the abusers are not demonstrating “kingdom behavior.” Which means that it is presumed that those who harm the vulnerable place themselves beyond the bounds of God’s realm. They can find their way back, but only with sacrifice. This also means that Jesus’ real audience... his greatest priority... is those who are vulnerable to the abuse of the powerful and the people who want to stand with them.  

With that in mind, Florer-Bixler argues that Jesus isn’t telling the poorest and most vulnerable people in the ancient world to excuse and ignore the ways they are harmed. Instead, Jesus is inviting Christians to be in the world in such a way that reflects the lavish grace of God, not the revenge-based order of the world. Craddock and company refer to this as choosing not to “draw your behavior from that of those who would victimize [you].” In his commentary on this text, Stephen Ray talks about it as understanding that those who would follow Christ would behave in ways that reflect how they know God is at work in this world. This means not seeking retribution or relying “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” kinds of reciprocity. Florer-Bixler puts it this way: “[Jesus] turns and asks those who follow him, those who are the embodiment of God’s reign, to remove themselves from the hierarchies of power and systems of destruction, and instead to make of themselves the embodiment of God’s reign.” The kind of love Jesus’ asks of his followers will never be found in revenge. It also will not be found in cheap grace that ignores harm and avoids accountability.  

As we discern how to act in Christian love in an era that valorizes vengefulness, I am struck by another part of Craddock and company’s commentary that read, “God does not react; God acts in love and grace toward all...” I am seeing many wise organizers advise people not to run down our attention and energy waiting for every piece of bad policy and reacting to it. This is a moment that demands attention and action that is shaped by being consistent in what is most important to us. We who follow Christ and know we carry within us the Imago Dei, the image of God, cannot spend all of our time simply reacting. Instead, we must act in ways that makes clear that the harm being dealt to the vulnerable runs contrary to the Gospel. And, we must be persistent in our testimony.  

That whole business about “going the extra mile” and “turning the other cheek” are examples of acting in ways that do not reproduce the violence of the empire, but instead highlight how it is contrary to the will of God. Florer-Bixler, quoting Rowan Williams, notes that a soldier hitting a peasant’s cheek is intended “to be the end of the story.” To offer up the other side of the face is to take the story back, adding your own chapter. This is what Florer-Bixler describes as not simply be a “reception of violence” but a refusal to be destroyed by that violence in repeating it.  

I’m still puzzling out what it means to refuse to participate in the vengefulness and hatefulness of this present age. I think some of it is continuing to be a bold space of hospitality, refusing to abandon transgender people in order to protect resources we are afraid of losing. Also, we must do our own turning of the cheek, refusing to allow coercive violence to have the last word.  And, we mustn’t turn inwards, hoarding what we have because we’re afraid to share with those in greater need. I believe this moment also demands loving our enemies enough to keep talking to them, being examples of another way to be in this world. Even the sinners love the ones who love them. May we love Christ enough to believe that our enemies can change their minds.  Let us remember the good measure that has been placed in our laps, and live with love that runs over.  
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Resources consulted while writing this sermon:  
The reel of the farmers who are tired of the snow: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGBXI8uR_JO/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== 
 Fred B. Craddock, John H. Hayes, Carl R. Holladay, and Gene M. Tucker, Preaching the New Common Lectionary: Year C Advent, Christmas, Epiphany (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985) 
 Melissa Florer-Bixler, How to Have an Enemy: Righteous Anger and The Work of Peace (Harrisonburg: Herald Press, 2021) 
 Stephen G. Ray Jr, "Seventh Sunday After the Epiphany," Preaching God's Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year C Featuring 22 New Holy Days for Justice, Dale P. Andrews, Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm, and Ronald J. Allen, editors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012).