“Love, Do, Bless, Pray” a sermon on Luke 6:27-38

Luke 6:27-38
“Love, Do, Bless, Pray”
Preached Sunday, February 20, 2022

I’ve shared with you all before how I was a camp counselor at Camp Asbury, one of our United Methodist East Ohio Summer camps, for many years. One of the tricks they taught us in staff training for working with kids was the “yes and” technique. Now, the “yes and” is to be employed when a kid is complaining about something. You start with the yes - that’s the affirmation of whatever they are feeling:

Yes, I know you don’t want to brush your teeth
Yes, I understand at home your bed time isn’t for another hour…
Yes, I get that you’re mad that we’re going on another hike…

Now normally here we’d say BUT,

But, the moment you say BUT - everything you just said before is negated and the kid - or person - adult brains actually work this way too - is pushed back into defense mode! Time to fight and plead my case more! So, instead of BUT - you say AND:

And, here at camp we brush our teeth in the morning.
AND, our group’s bedtime is now.
AND, we do activities together.

AND, believe it or not, I’ve seen this work countless times. And I even still use this when dealing with difficult situations with other people. So add the “yes and” technique to your conflict management toolboxes.

So let’s keep this in mind while we turn to this week’s Gospel reading, part 2 of the Sermon on the Plain - you might be more familiar with hearing it called “The Sermon on the Mount” - that’s in Matthew. The sermon on the plain is in Luke - much of the same content, and it’s the crux of Jesus’s teachings in the two Gospels, the Gospels writers just differ on the elevation of the ground on which Jesus was standing. So in the book of Luke, it is all one continuous sermon that Jesus is giving. The lectionary, however, breaks it up into 3 sections so we get it over three Sundays. Part 1, last week, the 6th Sunday after Epiphany. Part 2, this week, the 7th Sunday after Epiphany. And part 3 would be the 8th week after Epiphany EXCEPT how many Sundays there are in the season of Epiphany is based on when Easter falls. So we won’t get an Epiphany 8 this year as we will observe Transfiguration Sunday this year, always the last Sunday before Lent.

So I as we delve this week into part 2, I want to remind you how part 1 ended: With the woes part of what we call “The Blessings and Woes” in Scripture:

But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
“Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
“Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.

The woes can be difficult to deal with - we’d much rather have the blessings. And still, they are important. While I have some qualms about The Message Interpretation of the Bible, I think it puts the woes into a way we can better make sense of them:

But it’s trouble ahead if you think you have it made.
What you have is all you’ll ever get.
And it’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself.
Your self will not satisfy you for long.
And it’s trouble ahead if you think life’s all fun and games.
There’s suffering to be met, and you’re going to meet it.

It’s not just about physical wealth, satisfaction, and laughter - but our outlook, our actions, our worldview.

Okay, now that we better understand the woes - imagine yourself hearing Jesus preach these woes as someone who was poor, as someone who was hungry, as someone who was mourning and weeping - you might think AH-HA! You’re gonna get yours! You might have a good dose of schadenfreude - that all too apt German word that means finding pleasure in other people’s misery. You might even take it a step further and think, oh the woes are coming to you alright, I’M going to be your woe! I am going to ACT on the woes and make your life miserable - like God’s white knight or avenger.

BUT! Jesus starts this week’s reading - really, the next sentence in the sermon after the woes - no pause or break in between - Jesus starts with a big but here - and that “but” is meant to stop those thoughts about “ha-ha, you’re gonna get yours” right in their tracks. Jesus starts, “BUT I say to you…”

And then Jesus says how we are to treat one another, to live as Christians. We know that the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love neighbor. This section of the Sermon on the Plain can be seen as a breakdown of what is means to love our neighbors so Jesus says we are called to:

Love.
Do Good.
Bless.
Pray.

Sounds lovely doesn’t it? It seems like something you’d find at Hobby Lobby on a big wooden sign to hang in your kitchen…

Except that’s not the whole story of what Jesus says. I mean, he is saying that, yes. That we should love, that we should do good, that we should bless and pray….AND, Jesus is using the YES and technique.

He says:

““If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.” I’d interject here: AND love your enemies, do good and lend, expecting nothing in return.

As Christians we are called to love. We love our family, our friends, those who love us AND we are to love our enemies.

As Christians we are called to do good - as Methodists you might think of the famous quote attributed to John Wesley:

“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”

AND Jesus isn’t just saying to do good to those who love us back or those who do good back to us, sure, we should do good to them AND we are called to do good for those who hate us.

As Christians we are called to bless others - AND not just those who bless us back, but those who curse us.

As Christians we are called to pray - AND not just pray for those who are praying for us but even those who would abuse us.

And - no ifs, ands, or buts about it - these are HARD teachings.

Love your enemies.

I think as 21st Century Christians, we don’t like to think of really having enemies - we want to get along with everyone. Also because, historically, people do NOT treat enemies nicely. At all. Mostly with violence. And we want nothing to do with that. And, the fact is, as Christians, we really should have enemies in this world. The definition of enemy is “a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.” As Christians, we hold to a lot of counter-cultural ideals - like, say, loving your enemies! People over profits. Peace over war. Community over individualism…so yeah, we have enemies. AND, we are called to love them. That doesn’t mean excusing their behavior or values that are harmful, it doesn’t mean a lack of accountability - it doesn’t even mean liking them, it means loving them. It means let God’s love shine through you. Through doing good to them, blessing them, praying for them. I especially want to lift this up for the verse “pray for those who abuse you” as it’s been used against women, children, and other vulnerable people in abusive relationships. By no means should this verse be used to convince people to stay in abusive relationships, to convince someone to not seek safety from abuse, or to shame needed boundaries for those who have left abusive situations… Remember that God desires wholeness and wellness for each and everyone of us. You can pray for and love those who would harm you - with healthy boundaries in place to protect your wellbeing and safety.

So back to these hard, counter-cultural teachings of Jesus. In December, a certain politician, who, honestly, I would probably consider an enemy of mine - cause what he stands for and what I stand for are at direct odds with each other, in a speech he said that following the teachings of Jesus, specifically Jesus’s teaching to turn the other cheek which is in this Gospel reading that we are focusing on today he said, and I quote, “it's gotten us nothing.” He expounded that if he and his party want to win - they have to stop following the teachings of Jesus.

Now, it’s easy to point fingers at politicians and campaign trail speeches. It’s easy to point to our enemies and say, “WOAH! They are SO off base!” And, well, while I do think he is WAY off base, he’s really just saying out loud what many of us think or do - most of the time without even realizing it.

Cause these are the teachings of Jesus, to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, to pray for our abusers and yes, even to turn the other cheek -these are HARD teachings! They’re hard because they go against the whole way that the world works. Most of our world operates SOLELY on loving those who love us, doing good to those who do good to us, blessing those who bless us, praying for those who pray for us. We give and we expect it back. Our world is a tit for tat world. And we swim in this water and we can so easily just go with the flow of the rest of the world without even realizing it. That politician was right. He was right that you don’t win by the world’s standards by following the teachings of Jesus. As Jesus himself says elsewhere: Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

So we come to the question:
Do we want to win? Or do we want to follow Jesus?
Do we want to follow the ways of this world or be Children of the Most High?

And I really do think that most of us here today, we want to follow Jesus. We want to be Children of the Most High. We want to get it right. And, like I said, it’s hard. We will mess up. We won’t always get it right. Our love will fail. And! The Good News is: even when our love fails, God’s love never does, God’s love remains steadfast. God will ALWAYS love us AND God will always love our enemies. And through the love of God, may we all find room to love - yes, to love God and to love those who love us AND to love our enemies.

God of love, help us love.

Amen.