7 Epiphany Year C 2025: Luke 6:27-38

When I was working at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Arlington, VA, we held a children's chapel during the liturgy of the word every Sunday. One Sunday, we were talking with the kids about the call to love our enemies. The kids were struggling with the lesson because none of these K-3rd graders had enemies. Plus, their only exposure to an enemy was probably in a superhero cartoon, so of course none of them had an enemy like the Green Goblin. And so the kids had a really hard time understanding what it was to love an enemy because they couldn’t understand having an enemy.

While adults understand that enemies occur in real life and usually don’t have masks and superpowers, we oftentimes have the same problems with this text as the kids in children’s chapel had. We wouldn’t identify people as enemies. Sure there are people that I don’t particularly like. There might even be people that I think are actively against me, but I don’t feel comfortable calling them enemies. It just feels like a really intense word. Same with “hate” and “curse” and “abuse” - although a better translation for “abuse” might be “mistreat”. But this text boils down to Jesus calling us to the love of agape towards those who wish ill upon us. This kind of love is characterized by a commitment to the well-being of others, regardless of personal cost or reciprocation. Jesus wants us to have the love for others, regardless of their relationship to us, that God has for us - a love that transcends human emotions and is rooted in the will and character of God. The call to this kind of love makes following that call both easier and harder. Easier because we don’t have to feel any particular way towards those whom we are called to love. We aren’t called to like them or make friends with them. But harder because not liking them doesn’t mean we can ignore them. I have a friend who commented “we like Jesus” and she got corrected, “no, we love Jesus”. But we can love people we don’t like. And I think Jesus would feel the compliment of being liked as well as loved - he would certainly recognize the difference.

Why are we to do all of this? Jesus says to do all these things and we will be children of the Most High. To be a child of someone, in Jesus’ time, did not suggest subordination. It said that you were of the same substance, the same essence, of the parent. So to do these things, to have this kind of forgiveness, this kind of mercy, this kind of generosity, is how we become image bearers of the god in whose image we were made. Human compassion is to mimic God’s mercy.

Jesus knows that this is not an easy call to follow. The people to whom he’s speaking have been attempting to follow this covenant, to be the children of the Lord, since the Lord brought them out of Egypt and they began their new covenant at Mount Sinai. We know it’s hard to follow because, as much as we have been trying, we have a mixed record. A quick  look at our successes and failures as the Abrahamic faithful over the past thousands of years is evidence enough.

One of the things that consistently makes following God’s will so difficult is a changing society that invites us into the weeds. As soon as your book on Christian ethics is published, it’s out of date as a thousand more “what about”s come up. So instead of worrying about pouring over case studies in ethics or throwing up our hands and quitting, we find a livable solution in Christ where we are always striving for improvement while not letting our limitations cripple us into inaction.

What Jesus is getting at is like what Richard Rohr said: “Christianity is a lifestyle - a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established ‘religion’ (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one’s ‘personal Lord and Savior’...The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.”

When my colleague Mother Susan was in her ordination process, a bishop asked her the question “Who is Jesus Christ?!” She answered, “Jesus Christ is the greatest liberator from oppression ever!” She was told to go back and study the catechism with her rector, as the answer the bishop was looking for was “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior” - which makes it funny that she was told to study the catechism because that’s not what the catechism says. The catechism doesn’t encourage us to simply have a personal relationship with Jesus that doesn’t call us to anything beyond who we already are. It focuses on what it means to have Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Jesus calls us to be all in, not as our personal buddy but as the guiding light for our lives. “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior” is an answer that doesn’t in itself call us to anything greater than that proclamation. But liberation from oppression? That calls us to follow the liberator in being more like him. Now there are costs involved. Now we have to live differently than we might otherwise choose to live. It calls us to not take the name of the Lord in vain. Let me explain.

I was listening to a Bible podcast that was talking about the name of the Lord. And during their conversation, they reflected on that commandment “do not take the name of the Lord in vain”. They noted how the way we tend to interpret the commandment, mainly as a prohibition against swearing, is a misinterpretation. The way to really make it clear that we’re missing something is by holding it up next to the other commandments: “thou shalt not kill” and “thou shalt not commit adultery” are huge commandments next to “and don’t cuss”. There are only 10 commandments, why would God waste one on policing our language - and put it right after “you shall have no other God before me” and “you shall not make for yourself any idol”? So what are we actually being called to do here? The Hebrew word translated as “vain”, “shav” was significant in religious and ethical contexts. The Israelites were being called to worship God in truth and sincerity, avoiding idolatry and falsehood. The use of "shav" in legal and religious texts underscores the importance of integrity and authenticity in one's relationship with God and others. So if we are not taking the name of the Lord in vain, then we are avoiding religious hypocrisy. We aren’t looking for ways we can follow the letter of the law while dismissing the spirit of the law. We are proclaiming our God in our actions and our words. More recent translations of that commandment read, “you shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name”

What Jesus is calling us to do is to be like God. Which isn’t particularly helpful, because that isn’t possible. But we have so many guidelines to help us to be more like God. In the same way as you eat an elephant one bite at a time, the way you become more like God is one act of compassion at a time.

The Book of Common Prayer gives us language for what we are called to do in a prayer For our Enemies. To pray for them and for us: O God, the Father of all, whose Son commanded us to love our enemies: Lead them and us from prejudice to truth; deliver them and us from hatred, cruelty, and revenge; and in your good time enable us all to stand reconciled before you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.