“A Lesson in Love”

Luke 6:27-42

 In between the rains and my work times, I’ve been seizing moments to play in the dirt of my yard.  When I take a close look at the gardens around our house, I don’t like what I see.  Ivy-like plants infest our front garden, fertilized by a neighbor’s cat that favors the area as a litter box.  These weeds threaten to choke out the potentilla, the rose, and the irises growing there.  Dandelions are always the fastest-growing plant on our lawn, and in our backyard vegetable garden, it’s the quack grass that heartily resists my best efforts to prepare the soil for seeds and crops.  My battle for the sake of our gardens will carry on throughout the summer.  My life is too busy with family and work activities for me to ever gain the upper hand over the unwanted weeds.  Many would disagree with me, but I don’t believe that gardens are about perfection.  For me, anyway, gardening is an exercise in humility, patience, and endurance.  Being about the business of planting, caring, admiring and harvesting is enough.  Sure it’s a lot of work, but it’s good, life-honoring work.  Sometimes the work overwhelms or discourages me, yes, but giving it up wouldn’t be any better.  I’ll just enjoy the wonder of gardening, of participating in this part of God’s creation, and keep on playing in the dirt.

 Reading through today’s text, Jesus’ teaching about living a life of love, is a bit like scanning my gardens in the spring.  In the gardens of my heart and yours there grow many undesirable attitudes that blossom into selfish actions and unkind words.  Jesus’ words point these out to us, and they call us out to the garden shed to pick up a hoe and to do the work of weeding our lives again.  Here our work is definitely not about a perfection that we will ever achieve.  Here we are laborers working under the supervision of the Master Gardener, putting into action His instructions and trusting in His wisdom in hope that we may do His work faithfully.  Our work of practicing Christian love is an exercise in humility, patience and endurance made possible by the humble, patient and enduring love of Christ our Lord.  Have you got your hoe in hand?  Let’s get started.

 So how loving do you think you are?  Where would you put yourself on a scale of one to ten?  You get along pretty well with your spouse and children, right?  You try to be a good neighbor to those around you.  You’re polite to those who serve you in stores and restaurants.  So the garden of your heart is in pretty good shape already, you think.  It could always use a little clean up here and there though, so where do we get started?  Jesus tells us where: "But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (vs. 27-36) 

 How loving do you think you are?  Jesus points us in a different direction to answer that question.  Don’t look at those you are closest to.  Test your love by thinking about your attitudes towards people who take advantage of you, those who hold beliefs that oppose your own, those who are rude and ungrateful, those who demand a lot of you and offer you little in return, and those who don’t seem to have any idea how much they hurt you with their behavior.  These people are our enemies.  The thought of them doesn’t give us warm, happy feelings inside.  We feel cheated, challenged, bullied, disrespected, weak and angry after encounters with them.  We want to avoid them, fight with them, or avenge ourselves on them.  Love is the furthest thing from our thoughts about our enemies. 

 But love is what Jesus commands us to have and to show for these people.  We can ignore His words, pretend we didn’t hear Him.  We can re-interpret His words to soften their demand.  But those are dangerous decisions and bad choices because they amount to a rejection of our Lord and His love for us.  If we let weeds like resentment and hatred for our enemies grow freely they will eventually choke out the virtuous plants the Lord has planted in our hearts.   The right response for us when read Jesus’ teaching about love is for us pay attention to the ways we fail to love our enemies.  Then we can confess these to God.  Turn to God in repentance, admitting your desire for revenge.  Ask Jesus to forgive you and help you to love your enemies in the ways He describes.  God’s response will be wonderful, for His faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness; He plucks those sinful weeds right out of our hearts to allow His love to grow there.

 God calls upon us to have the same attitude towards our enemies as we do our friends.  This seems unfair to us.  Those who lie about us or steal from us or manipulate us are wronging us.  They don’t deserve our love, we feel.  Do we deserve theirs’ though?  Don’t we also wrong them with our cold shoulder avoidance, our angry arguments, and our resentful gossip?  Does God love us because we deserve it?  Isn’t His love for us made clear in the fact that He gave His Son Jesus to die for us when He could have condemned us for our sins?  Jesus is teaching us that love doesn’t wait for its objects to become worthy of its blessings.  Love is, and love always makes the first moves.  “As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”  God loves us, and Jesus calls us to love everyone in the same way.  We are to love others as God loves us; not on the basis of merit, but on the basis of mercy.  “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” 

 God is merciful to all of us.  We all need His mercy.  It is a sin-inspired illusion to believe that we are better than other people.  Yet such faith comes all too naturally to all of us.  When others hurt us and do wrong, we see their bad behavior as evidence that we are good.  “At least I don’t act like that!”  “How could anyone do such a thing?”  So Jesus teaches us that loving people goes hand in hand with seeing ourselves and others honestly.  "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you." He also told them a parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.” (Luk 6:37-42) 

 Don’t put yourself in a judge’s seat because none of us are qualified to be judges; God is the Judge, only He can see the truth clearly.  Don’t spend your time condemning the actions of others; Satan is the one who accuses and condemns, and Jesus died to set us free from following in his hell bound footsteps.  God loves us, and He teaches us to love.  To love we must forgive as God forgives us.  In loving we will give to others because God gives everything to us.  Loving is not easy for us; we need God’s help.  People who are used to loving those who love them, don’t know how to love.  Those who give to others expecting a gift in return, don’t understand love.  Sin blinds us to the ways of love, but Jesus offers us His nail-pierced hand to help us out of the ditch of selfishness. 

 We love others as we learn to examine our own hearts and acknowledge our own weaknesses.  Jesus did not come to save people who were already righteous.  He came to rescue us from the deadly consequences of our sin.  When we see or suffer from the sins of others, though we will be tempted to judge and condemn them, the Lord bids us to stop pointing a finger at others and let our attention rest on ourselves.  The speck we see in the eye of another can only distract us from seeing the log in our own; it doesn’t remove it.  The log is only removed from our eyes as we identify it, confess our sin, and believe in the forgiving power of Jesus to extract it.  All of us, friends and enemies alike need God’s mercy, and thank God, His mercy is not in doubt.  Christ died for us.  Christ rose from the dead for us.  God received us into His family through Holy Baptism, forgiving us our sins.  God invites us to His table to feast on His love for us and revel in His presence.  God delights in us as His children, and bids us to follow His dear Son, Jesus, in the family business of love and forgiveness.  Jesus is the King of love; we couldn’t ask for a better teacher. 

 Let us pray: Lord Jesus, we thank you that you truly love us.  We do need your help to love others.  Show us when we fall into selfish ways of thinking and acting, so that we can confess our sins to you.  Fill us with faith in your love as we listen to your forgiving gospel and receive its blessings by remembering the power of baptism and by faithfully eating and drinking your precious body and blood.  Strengthen us to take daily steps in loving people as you love them.  Amen.