Matthew 5:43-48
We are reading the teachings of Jesus, starting with the sermon on the mount, so that we can remember what early Christians remembered about things Jesus said. Many of us grew up believing in Jesus because of what other people said about him – that he was the Son of God, that he died for our sins, that believing in him was a ticket to heaven. Those are things that have become very important over the centuries the church has existed. But they weren’t the reasons first century Jesus communities followed him. They were attracted by the things Jesus said about how to live with dignity under violent oppression from Rome, about how to have each others’ backs in an unpredictable society, about how to form communities that made life better for everyone. So we’re reading those teachings so we can remember what the first followers found life-changing about Jesus.
Today we’re reminded to “love our enemies.” That’s about as counter-cultural as you can get. In the first century there were plenty of enemies to hate: Rome, Roman soldiers, landlords, puppet rulers, anyone who would turn you in to the authorities to protect themselves. Jesus said to love all these folks, and people still came to hear him. How could that be? Contemporary politicians tell us that we should hate people not like us – those in the “other” political party, people from other nations who speak languages we don’t know, people out to take our jobs and expand the kinds of food we can buy in grocery stores, people who don’t look like us. There’s money and popularity to be made in hate. So why did people come to hear Jesus talk about love? And why did they think love made life better for everyone?
I’m drawn to teachers today who tell us that the opposite of love isn’t hate – it’s fear. There was plenty of fear in the first century and there’s plenty of fear in our world today. Fear of war, of disease, of failure… I suspect people then and people now are tired of being afraid. When we discover the ability to love others, particularly those who might threaten us, we discover that love wipes out fear. It’s smart to be cautious and careful in many situations, but those aren’t exactly the same as being afraid. Fear takes our power away from us. Love gives it back. Fear makes us helpless. Love gives us the power to decide who we will be and how we will live. When you love someone who has the power to hurt you physically, you take away their power to kill your spirit. And sometimes you transform their desire to harm you.
I remember the story of the Jewish couple in Omaha who cared for the white nationalist when he was ill. They brought him food, gave him rides to the doctor, and befriended him. In the end, he changed his mind about hating Jews. Love can do that.
This week Pat and I were confronted by one of the residents at LaGrave who told us our food was terrible. We didn’t get angry. We wished her a good day. The next day she apologized profusely about the way her illness sometimes made her lash out without wanting to. Love can make a space for healing to happen.
Lots of people are quick to tell us that love doesn’t work in a dangerous world. We can’t love our neighbor when our neighbor isn’t like us. Jesus tells us it does work, and then shows us time after time that he’s right. I wonder what would happen if we believed him.
The author David French writes: The biblical call to Christians to love your enemies, to bless those who curse you, and to exhibit the fruit of the spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – does not represent a set of tactics to be abandoned when times are tough, but rather a set of eternal moral principles to be applied even in the face of extreme adversity. When it’s hard to love, we’re quick to say it couldn’t work anyway. But Jesus tells us that God is love and we are love and the only way to be true to ourselves and to God is to keep loving, even when it’s hard.
The poet June Jordan spoke in 1977 to a group of people who cared about children’s literature. In that speech she suggested that “love is lifeforce…. I see love as the essential nature of all that supports life.”
Jesus tells us “God is love.” Our religious heritage has taught us to think of God as a being beyond all beings which we relate to as other – beyond ourselves. In the distant history of humanity when religions sprang into being, it made perfect sense to think of God in that way. The entire creation was a mystery and the only way to imagine the origin and sustaining of all that is was as mystery. Surely someone powerful was behind the way the world worked.
Over the centuries humans have come to understand much more about how creation works. I’m no scientist, but I’m intrigued by the new science that tells us everything is interrelated. That the energy which pulses within us as electrons vibrate and molecules multiply and blood circulates is connected to all other energy so that we are not really separate beings but just small parts of a great being-ness. Whatever happens to you impacts me, whether I know it or not. In light of this amazing way to understand the world, I’ve come to think of God not as a separate life at all, but as Life itself. For me God has become the energy that is life and moves through all life. God is the motion within us and between us. When Moses met God in the burning bush and asked God’s name, he was told, “I am.” The very essence of being is God. Then Jesus tells us, “God is love.” I picture God as vibrating love which unites all that is, moves in and through all that we know and all that is yet to be discovered. Across time and space – as tiny as the smallest particle and as big as the whole universe all at once.
Love isn’t something we add to our common life. It IS our common life. On Tuesday night at Justice Conversations we were wondering about whether or not it’s possible for humans to create a society that’s just, equitable, compassionate, caring about one another. Can we act without violence? Can we share earth’s resources so that everyone thrives? It’s a bit of a stretch for the imagination. There’s so much evidence that we can’t do it. Maybe that’s because we think of love as something we have to learn instead of something we essentially are.
“Love is lifeforce.” The life which animates us, beats with our hearts, courses through our veins is at the same time God and love. When we love, we aren’t learning a new way of being, we’re remembering who we are. We’re remembering that our very life is the presence of God in us and through us. Long ago Eckhart Tolle shocked the viewers of an Oprah Winfrey special by asserting, “I am god.” He wasn’t claiming to be an omnipotent being greater than all others. He was affirming that the very life within him was one and the same with the life of all that is and that “all that is” is holy. So Eckhart is God and so are you and so am I and so is all that is. Not one of us God in totality but all of us completely and inextricably woven into the very being of God so that there is no other, no separation. When we remember that, then we remember that we are one with every other person.
Jesus who tells us to love our enemies also tells us that we are to love God, love neighbor and love self. We hear that as three things to do. But maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s just one love because God and neighbor and self are all one being. When we begin to see that those we fear, those we’re tempted to hate or disregard, are connected to us – heart to heart, life to life – then maybe even though we dislike what people do, we can love who they are. Maybe we can see within each one some small light of God and focus on that until they can see it too.
Long ago people came to listen to Jesus because they wanted to believe him. They wanted to believe that in a world filled with violence and distrust, warfare and greed, it was possible to love each other. It’s possible to live each day caring for others, treating people with respect, and seeing within each one the light of God. They created communities that lived by that hope and found possibility in their life together. In every generation there have been those who still hoped and who still lived by that light. This is our time to hold that light until others can see it. To love in spite of the world until the world remembers they are love.