Epiphany 7 – 23 Feb 25
Readings: Genesis 45: 3-11, 15; Psalm 37: 1-11, 40-41; 1 Corinthians 15:35-50; Luke 6:27-38
Some of you may know I’m a Legatee with Brisbane Legacy and until I began my locum ministry here, I was the Legacy visitor for Greenslopes Hospital – I’d visit once a week and go around the wards visiting Legacy clients. I hope to take it up again when I finish the locum. Earlier last year, I visited a woman on three or four occasions – she was younger than most of the older Legacy widows I was visiting. She’d emigrated to Australia from the Ukraine quite a while ago. On one particular visit she disclosed to me that her ex-husband in the Ukraine, a former soldier, had regularly beaten her - and in the course of doing so had told her to turn the other cheek “because that’s what the Bible says”.
The Gospel for this morning follows immediately that of last week – St. Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. I remarked last week that the Beatitudes were provocative and intentionally so. As if they weren’t radical enough, Jesus takes his listeners further. He begins a longish instruction at verse 27 “but I say to you that listen – love your enemies”, and to make sure no one is in any doubt, repeats it at verse 35 “But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.” So, this is what we might call the central theme. In between he gives a number of examples – practical application of the principles he has just laid out in the lives of his listeners; returning curses with a blessing, turning the other cheek, not asking for return of your own stuff that others may have taken and so on, ending with Luke’s version of the Golden Rule – “Do to others as you would have them do to you” – much quoted, but more often than not quoted quite divorced from its radical scriptural context. All the examples Jesus gives involve responding to injury or unreasonable demand with nothing but generosity and the abandonment of all claims to retribution or restitution.[1]
How might we think about the Gospel today? Jesus is not laying down maxims or attitudes to be followed literally. But we need to recognize that some people do, and in doing so cause tremendous damage and hurt that is absolutely inimical to the Gospel and its values. My example at the beginning is a case in point. The words about loving your enemies and turning the other cheek are difficult. But to some people these words are more than difficult, they can cause a visceral reaction of spiritual and psychological hurt either because of the people that come to mind when they hear them or because of the context in which the words were quoted at them. There are people who hear these words as “Love the husband or partner who makes your life a misery with coercive control,” or “Do good to those who sexually abused you when you were a child; bless those who stole your innocence so blatantly that every relationship you have ever had has been a painful struggle; or pray for the one who beat or verbally abused your mother (in my case it was my aunt) in front of you when you were a child.” There are women and children who have fled from their homes to escape the drunken rampages of a perpetually violent man, who have been told by some churches to turn the other cheek and go back and love him. Some of those women and children are now dead because of callous misuse of this passage.[2]
It may be useful to return to last Sunday’s sermon when I said that in the context of the Beatitudes “Being vulnerable provides scope for God’s power, for God’s way of working.” Jesus is rejected by his own people – the self-satisfied congregation in the synagogue at Nazareth after he speaks of a reversal of the ways people expect things to be – how God had acted through Gentiles.[3] St. Matthew’s version of the same event adds the words “And he did not do many deeds of power there because of their unbelief.”[4] Applying the same train of thought here – it’s the vulnerable who come under the grace of God. Untrammelled, coercive, violent, rapacious use of power is not part of the Kingdom of God. So maybe these words about turning the other cheek are addressed not to the vulnerable and suffering who in most instances don’t have much choice in the matter, but to the ones who do have a choice – those who hold the power. Jesus was directing his words to those who were able to strike back. He is saying, “Next time you are about to retaliate against someone who has offended you, stop and think, maybe this time you could think about it differently. Don’t think about retaliation, maybe think about being merciful. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Jesus says – and his listeners then would have immediately recognised that he was referring to the Holiness Code at the heart of their own faith tradition, given its most concise expression in in the Book of Leviticus “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”[5] Jesus is seeking to inculcate a fundamental attitude according to which one would be prepared to be vulnerable to a degree foolish by the standards of the world. And this only makes sense in the context of the reversal inherent in the values of Gods’ Kingdom – the way God works in the world. Advantages, disadvantages, power relationships are all turned on their heads.
I think it’s also useful to reflect that Jesus is not speaking just to individuals, but he was speaking to a group, a crowd, a community of God’s people. In view of this kingdom relationship with God, the community is to be merciful, as God is merciful. The community is to refrain from being judgmental. If it forgives, it will experience God’s forgiveness, if it is generous in giving, it will meet with an extraordinary measure of generosity in return. The sense is not that God waits to see the level of human generosity before deciding to be generous in return. God is extravagantly generous. But just as the volume of water one might draw from a tank depends upon the capacity of the vessel one brings, so the human receptacle determines the amount or measure God can give. Any limitation stems from the human side.[6]
So the gospel should perhaps lead us to reflect on our own capacities; our capacity for mercy, our capacity for blessing, our capacity for generosity, our capacity for acceptance rather than judgmentalism, our capacity to put aside thoughts of retribution, our capacity for prayer, and above all our capacity for love.
As always, Malcolm Guite captures this beautifully in his reflection on Luke 6:37 – with a nod to John Lennon.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged
Imagine if we took these words to heart,
Unselved ourselves and took another’s part,
Silenced the accuser, dropped the grudge….
Do not condemn and you will not be condemned.
Imagine if we lived our lives from this
And met each other’s outcasts face to face,
Imagine if the blood-dimmed tide was stemmed.
Forgive and you yourselves will be forgiven.
What if we walked together on this path,
What if the whole world laid aside its wrath,
And things were done on earth as though in heaven,
As though the heart’s dark knots were all undone,
As though this dreamer weren’t the only one?[7]
[1] Brendan Byrne The Hospitality of God – A Reading of Luke’s Gospel Collegeville Press Minnesota 2015 p78
[2] https://southyarrabaptist.church/sermons/how-do-we-love-those-who-have-hurt-us-badly/
[3] Luke 4: 21-30
[4] Matthew 13:54-58
[5] Leviticus 19:2
[6] Brendan Byrne ibid p79.
[7] Malcolm Guite Parable and Paradox – Sonnets on the sayings of Jesus and other poems Canterbury Press Norwich UK 2016 p46 “Imagine”
© The Rev’d WD Crossman