Fourth Presbyterian Church: A Light in the City

Sunday, February 20, 2022 | 10:00 a.m.

Really, Jesus?

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 96
Luke 6:27–38

As many of you know, we recently wrapped up a sermon series entitled “Things Jesus Never Said.” If I were a preacher who regularly titled her sermons, I would call this one “Things We Wish Jesus Never Said.” After all, isn’t that true? “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat, do not withhold even your shift. Give to everyone who begs from you, and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.” Really, Jesus? Are you sure these are the kinds of instructions you want to teach those who try to follow you?

Now before we jump into this text fully, we need to reorient ourselves as to where we are in this Gospel. We are in the middle of what we call the Sermon on the Plain. And the audience for this particular sermon is not just a large crowd of those who already consider themselves Jesus’ disciples. It also contains a whole multitude of people who have come from all of Judea (probably including Galilee) and Jerusalem, and New Testament scholar John Carroll also posits it is likely that people were there from Tyre and Sidon, as well (John Carroll, Luke, p. 147). That was known as Gentile territory.

I tell you all of this because it is critical for our understanding of the text to realize that Jesus’ congregation that day was incredibly diverse. It was chock full of people who probably did not regularly spend time together, even including those who might look at the other sitting across from them and think not just “stranger” but “enemy.” Bringing it into our current context, we can imagine the congregation as being like our current House of Representatives. That is the group of people to whom Jesus is speaking.

And that might be why Jesus begins his words with “But I say to you all who are still listening.” The verb form used for listen is not a one-and-done kind of thing. It indicates a regular, ongoing, continual action. “But I say to you all who are still listening,” Jesus says. In other words, Jesus must have realized that some of those in the congregation were already beginning to shut down and tune him out.

After all, they were sitting in the presence of those they considered to be their enemies; those with whom they shared nothing in common; those who did not recognize their humanity; those who might even do them harm. Undoubtedly, some folks in that congregation might have been listening to Jesus’ teaching and thought, “Really, Jesus? Are you sure you want to say these things?” before beginning to check their emails or scroll through social media as a way of disconnecting.

Apparently, yes, Jesus did. “Love your enemies,” he begins. “Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you.” Another way to think of these instructions is to summarize them with “Do not retaliate. Do not engage in an eye-for-an-eye kind of thinking and acting. Do not give people what you think they ‘deserve.’” As people who long to live in God’s world, actively be different. Do the opposite from what might be your first reaction. Do not seek to return evil for evil.”

Now, we do need to recognize how the church has often misused these verses. I have heard from women who stayed in abusive relationships that their pastors would pull out these verses as a way of insisting they stay in the relationship regardless of the harm being done to their bodies and spirits. And I have heard from people who sneer at these words from Jesus because they have been taught this means that regardless of how inhumanely another person treats you, you are not supposed to stand up for yourself. If I understand the text, as well as the historical context for it, neither of those conclusions are accurate interpretations.

God does not desire for any of God’s people to accept abuse or evil as just the way it is and to think somehow God wills it to be that way for them. These instructions from Jesus might indeed counsel us to not retaliate, but they do not counsel passivity. Rather, Jesus’ instructions are all about unexpected restraint, generosity, and kindness as intentional acts that will inevitably expose injustice and evil for what they are (Carroll, p. 147).

Allow me to explain using some of theologian Walter Wink’s interpretation. According to Wink, Jesus’ words paint a picture of nonviolent resistance to oppression. For example, in the culture in which Jesus lived, first-century Palestine, a person’s left hand was used for what we could call bathroom functions. I fully realize that might not be what you want to think about so soon after eating breakfast, but that is the way it was. That implies that one never struck someone with one’s left hand. You just did not do it.

As a matter of fact, if you were considered “superior” to another person, that meant you would strike them with the back of your right hand. For if you struck them with the palm of your right hand, that indicated an equality between you and them.

So with that in mind, and knowing that Jesus was probably talking to those who encountered this kind of hostility rather than to those who perpetuated it, we realize that by telling them to turn the other cheek after being struck with the back of the right hand, they are forcing their oppressor to either acknowledge them as an equal (if he strikes you with his palm) or to stop harming them all together. It is an act of subversion. An act of nonviolent resistance.

It is the same with the coat and shirt example. More than likely this kind of a situation would arise when one owed a debt to another, probably an unjust debt. Furthermore, most people only wore two garments—an outer coat and an inner tunic or shirt. Therefore, when your oppressor came to collect your debt by taking your coat, if you also offered him your shirt unasked, suddenly you are standing there naked, something that just was not done at that time. There were strict restrictions regarding the repayment of debts. One of those restrictions was that you were not allowed to leave a debtor naked at sundown no matter what.

Again, Jesus is offering those in his congregation who were still listening a strategy of nonviolent, nonretaliatory active resistance. As you gave your shirt too, the oppressor would inevitably insist that you keep it, perhaps even throwing your coat back at you. That way you would not expose yourself nor would you expose the injustice being done in that moment. As John Carroll writes, “In Jesus’ vision of things (also known as the world God rules), genuine power resides with those who, faced with evil, respond with unflinching, courageous, nonretaliatory kindness” (Carroll, p. 152).

Unflinching, courageous, nonretaliatory kindness. According to our text that is what following Jesus looks like. Can you imagine living in a world in which acting with unflinching, courageous, nonretaliatory kindness was the norm? Can you imagine what our current House of Representatives would be like if that were the posture each one carried into the room? Can you imagine the dramatic difference that could make in our nation, in our world? To me, it sounds a whole lot like living out of a posture of grace, a posture that reflects the unflinching, courageous, nonretaliatory grace of God.

Yale Theologian Willie Jennings once reflected on the dramatic difference this kind of posture would offer just in terms of interpersonal relationships. “Grace is to live in the possibility of what does not exist. Grace means that you can actually look at the other person recognizing that there’s not only things that you don’t like—but there’s things that you hate—and still ask yourself: Can I be open to the possibility that something can be created where there’s nothing right now?“ (quoted in Kirsten Powers, Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts, p. 15).

Journalist Kirsten Powers, in her new book entitled Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts, puts it this way: “Grace helps you see that other people’s beliefs and actions belong to them, and that marinating in judgment, rage, hatred, frustration, and resentment toward them helps nobody. In fact, it harms you. . . . Grace is first and foremost a matter of the heart. It is an orientation toward the world and other people.”

“When Jesus said to love your enemies, he wasn’t talking about the love we have for friends or family or chocolate. He was talking about what the Greeks called agape, or as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described it, ‘redeeming good will for all people.’ Agape is seeing the divine spark in other people, no matter how you feel about them. ‘Loving is not liking,’ as Richard Rohr likes to say. So it is with grace” (Powers, pp. 8–9).

Again, it is no wonder why Jesus begins this part of his sermon with “But I say to you all who are still listening.” Living our lives together operating out of a posture of grace, acting in every area of our lives, of our church’s life, with nothing less than unflinching, courageous, nonretaliatory kindness—well, that seems almost impossible, especially in our day and time when even simple grace and kindness are in such short supply. What does that even look like?

The Reverend Dr. Barbara Lundblad, a wonderful preacher who will preach here at Fourth Church this coming May, wonders if it looks like what happened in the life of Judy Shepard, the mother of Matthew Shepard (Barbara Lundblad, “Simple, Yet Not So Simple,” 18 February 2001, day1.org). Do you remember Matthew? Back in 1998, Matthew was brutally beaten by two men, one of whom thought Matthew had made a pass at him. They beat him almost to death and then tied him to a fence on a country road and left him alone on a freezing night. Even though someone found him the next day, Matthew died at the hospital a few days later. The damage done to his young adult body and brain could not be overcome.

The two men who killed him were arrested, tried, and convicted of the brutal crime. According to the laws of the state of Wyoming, their crimes deserved the death penalty. But Matthew’s mother, Judy, came before the judge and asked for their lives to be spared. She did not speak of forgiveness. She certainly would never be able to forget.

But it appeared that Matthew’s mother, a person whose life had been shaped by the Gospel, was somehow able to look into the two faces of those two men and perhaps see that something new might be able to be created by the power of God that she could not even imagine at that time. In that courtroom, she decided to practice what Jesus was preaching—unflinching, courageous, nonretaliatory kindness. I am not sure I would be able to do the same.

Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. These indeed might be tough teachings we wish Jesus had never said. And yet, he did. Not only that, it is the way Jesus both lived and died, showing all of us that it is the way of life that God intends for us all. For it is the way of life that contains the power to change everything, especially those of us who practice it. Unflinching, courageous, nonretaliatory kindness. I hope we are all still listening. Amen.

Notes
Thank you to Barbara Lundblad, who highlights Walter Wink’s work in her 2001 sermon on Day1.