Merciful
Lk. 6:27-38[1]
We all know that love is one of the defining features of our
faith. The “great commandments” are to love God and to love our neighbors. Our
Scriptures, our hymns, our liturgies constantly reinforce the fact that love is
at the center of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. After all, he
did give his life for us all in one of the greatest acts of love a person can
do for others. As he put it, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down
one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn. 15:13). While none of us perfectly embodies
this, we do our best to live up to the example Jesus set for us, as we sing
together “they will know we are Christians by our love”!
Our Gospel lesson for today, however, takes us beyond loving our
friends. Jesus says it this way: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate
you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Lk. 6:27-28).
This takes us to a whole different level of what it means to love another
person. In fact, here I think Jesus is intentionally calling us to love those
who do not treat us like friends. He is calling us to love those whom we
perceive to be a threat, or those against whom we may harbor hard feelings, or
even those who may have actively harmed us. When you put it this way, the words
to “they will know we are Christians by our love” may not be so easy to sing.
I think that one of the essential components to this kind of love
is mercy. Jesus said it: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk.
6:36). I think we learn what it means to love by working to develop the
character of God in our own lives. The essential definition of God’s character
is that he is “merciful and gracious, … abounding in steadfast love and
faithfulness” (Exod. 34:6). Throughout the Bible, God loves us simply because
he chooses to have mercy on us. And God never stops loving us this way. If we
read the story of Israel in the Hebrew Bible, that’s the way God showed love
for them time and again. That’s how our Father is merciful, and it’s a good way
to measure the extent to which we practice our love.
In our Gospel lesson, Jesus points out that God does not just
extend this kind of love to those who love him. In fact, reading the story of
Israel makes it clear that they abandoned God and betrayed his love for them
countless times. And in response, God continued to show mercy, kindness, and
love to “the ungrateful and the wicked” (Lk. 6:35). That’s the kind of love
that Jesus practiced in dealing with Pharisees and sinners and everyone in
between. And he demonstrated it most clearly when, hanging on the cross, he
prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Lk. 23:34).
I don’t think anyone would argue that this is quite a high
standard of love. It may seem impossible to us “mere mortals.” We all have
various types of baggage that get in the way of loving even our friends and
families, let alone those who are “other,” or those who are “enemies.” In my
experience, the two biggest obstacles to being able to love in this way are
fear and pride. Fear says, “if I get too close to you, you may hurt me.” Pride
says, “If I let down my guard, you may damage my self-worth.” In both cases,
our fear and pride lead us to at best keep others at a distance and at worst
they turn into hatred. It’s impossible to love anyone when we’re caught in our
own fear and pride.
I think the way to overcome our obstacles to practicing this kind
of merciful love toward all people is compassion. If we can “walk a mile in
their shoes” as the old saying goes, it can make all the difference in our
ability to love others. I think the task is to try to imagine ourselves in
their place. When we can try to understand what it must be like for those whom
we deem to be “others” or “enemies” to live their lives, it can help us to find
some compassion for them. When we can learn to see that them as human beings,
perhaps not pleasant to be around, but human beings nonetheless, with the same
needs as ours, we may find ourselves taking the first step toward the mercy
that enables us to love them.
As Jesus pointed out, this is a love that goes beyond loving those
who love us back. I think we may have a tendency to overlook this part of
Jesus’ challenge to us. It’s hard enough for us to love those who are our
friends and family. Part of the problem with loving anyone is that you make
yourself vulnerable to them. And that means they can at times hurt you. Even
with our friends and families, we have to make the choice to be merciful in
order to love them at times. And the way we do that is we let people off the
hook. Again, that’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. But if we can
remember that God continually lets us off the hook, maybe it will help us.
When Jesus calls
us to love our “enemies,” he’s calling us to something that may seem out of
reach to us. Most of us have lived long enough to have someone whom we would
consider an “enemy.” We perceive them to be a threat to us. It may be too much
to start with trying to love that person. We may have to start with those we
simply consider to be “other,” those we just don’t like to be around. If we can
learn to have compassion for them, if we can learn to practice mercy toward
them by letting them off the hook, we may find ourselves able to love them.
Once we learn to love the “difficult” people in our lives, we may find
ourselves drawn to extend that compassion to our “enemies,” extending the same
mercy to others that we have received.
[1]
©2019 Alan Brehm. A sermon written by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm for worship 2/24/2019
at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
