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In touch

Up-to-the-minute jumping-off points for sermons, linking the reading to the latest news and global issues

Love your enemies

Jesus’ teaching here is hard but unequivocal - love your enemies (Luke 6.27 & 35)

 

Context

We live in troubling times. As I write (on Tuesday) the UK seems to be committing to sending troops to Ukraine should a peace settlement be reached. The US President and Netanyahu are still talking about forcible resettlement of more than 2 million Palestinians from Gaza. Churches and others are taking legal action against some of the policies of the Trump administration. And finally, we see the extraordinary news that the sick Pope has written to American bishops to condemn the theology expressed by the Roman Catholic US Vice President citing, in particular, the story we call the Good Samaritan which appears in Luke 10 just a few chapters beyond today’s lectionary gospel.

 

Ideas for sermons or interactive talks

This gospel passage follows Luke’s very distinct (and less spiritual than Matthew’s) version of the Beatitudes which was last Sunday’s lectionary gospel (although Roots focussed on the psalm). Love your enemies appears twice in the passage (vv27 and 35). But that is far from being the only extraordinary teaching here:

• Give your shirt to someone who takes your coat (v29).
• Bless those who curse you (v28).
• Expect no credit for loving those who love us or doing good to those who do good to us for ‘even sinners do the same’ (v33).
• Above all expect nothing in return for loving your enemies (v35).

Living up to such extraordinary teaching is an enormous challenge. Few of us do live up to that challenge but even if we often fail we surely should aspire to do so.

How would it be if we lived up to the challenge to love our enemies locally, let alone nationally and internationally? Often we are encouraged to think of the poor and the sick as ‘not like us’, as ‘other’. Those who flee their homes and take risky crossings in flimsy boats are seen as ‘problems’ or even as enemies to our way of life. In his letter to the US bishops the Pope calls on ‘all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters’.

This gospel passage does not mean that we will never disagree, but surely it does mean that we should take great care over how we disagree. It means that we should not use disagreement as a reason to diminish the value of another person. This is hard teaching to put into practice, especially with ideas and beliefs which are very close to our hearts. How can we build communities of forgiveness and peace - communities where we seek to resolve disputes and where we fight graciously without destroying each other?

 

Questions for discussion

In his letter to the US bishops the Pope writes of ‘the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized’. What implications does that have for the policies followed by our own government?

We are called in today’s lectionary gospel to go the extra mile in forgiving, in not judging and in not asking people to ‘pay for’ what we may think they have done. Justice is important but sometimes, what we think of as a quest for justice, may actually be a search for revenge - something infinitely less life affirming, although less costly.

• If the gospel offers us a challenge to sacrificial love, what does this mean for us in an unequal world?
• Does love in its true sense offer us ways of policy making so that our welfare system better supports the poor, the sick and those with disabilities?
• Does love offer us a guide to advocating for the people forced to choose between heating and eating as the cost of living crisis bites?
• If love is not our guide at the moment, should it be?

Dudley Coates is a local preacher in the Salisbury Methodist Circuit and a former Vice President of the Methodist Conference.

 

Check-in

Connecting faith with everyday, real-life issues for young people

Monday (17 February) was Random Acts of Kindness Day, when people are encouraged to perform simple acts of kindness to spread love to those we know, and perhaps even to those we don’t. There are lots of stories of things people got up to, spreading love and kindness to friends, family, teachers and even strangers. What random acts of kindness have you been the recipient of? What random acts of kindness have you performed for others?

Showing love in these ways for people we care about isn’t too difficult and can be fun – even acts of kindness for those we don’t know can be rewarding. But what if we were asked to show such love and kindness for those we don’t like?

At this week’s BAFTA Film Awards, Wicked took the awards for Costume Design and Production Design. Wicked tells the story of the unlikely friendship and fallouts of Glinda and Elphaba. In one scene, Glinda gives Elphaba a black pointed hat to wear to the ball, which causes her to be made fun of by the others when she wears it. She is humiliated and totally isolated. It creates a moment of drama when each character must decide how to react to the one who has wronged them, and the one they have wronged. Have you ever felt hurt or let down by someone? How did you react?

Glinda reacts by coming alongside Elphaba and dancing with her, an act of love amidst a difficult relationship. In this week’s passage from Luke 6:27-38, Jesus speaks about showing love to those we consider our enemies. What might that look like?

Jesus points out that loving those we care about and who care about us is not too difficult (verse 32) but calls on us to go further and love those we do not like. This doesn’t mean letting people walk all over us, and relies on us being in a relationship of safety with that person. It is a challenge to us to overcome any bad feeling between ourselves and others and to show love, allowing that to transform our relationship with that person.

Random Acts of Kindness Day is part of ‘RAK Week’ – what action could you take this week to show love or kindness to someone you don’t usually get on with?

Darren Philip is National Stewardship Consultant with the Church of Scotland where he writes resources for intergenerational ministry.

 

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