In the last
post we saw that when faced with persecution
disciples who follow Jesus are called to:
They heard the
first part right, but got into trouble by assuming that its opposite must also
be true. There is no command to “hate your enemy” in the Law. This addition was
the Pharisaic equivalent to the many non-biblical factoids that contemporary
Christians like to quote as if they were biblical. A “factoid” is a false
report; based on fake or unreliable data that has been repeated often enough (and
seen in print) that it is believed to be true. There are plenty of website that
are happy to list some of these sayings. Here are some non-biblical Christian factoids
which are commonly quoted:
One comment about
how to pray, is that we are to “pray for” them. This doesn’t mean to “pray against”
them. A few years ago there was a humorous country song entitled, Praying for You, that took the command
to “pray for” in terms of praying an imprecation (praying God’s judgment down upon
the perpetrator) on the “enemy”. While the song is all too true to human nature
and to our culture, Jesus called us to pray more mercifully than that.
Perfect is where
following Jesus leads. It is the goal towards which we journey together. But we
followers of Jesus can’t journey together without love and mercy to share. And
frankly no one from outside would want to go with us either. Mercy remembers
that Jesus set us free from the guilt of our past. We all have a past, and
having been delivered from that ugly history by the mercy of God in Jesus Christ
(1 Cor. 6:9-11) we are called to share it with others (2 Cor. 5:14-21).
- Respond to others better than they deserve.
- Give them
more
than they try to take.
- Go further
and work harder than they can
demand.
- Care more relationally than they actually expect.
Jesus
did all four of these things for us… And he did them out of His love for us.
This is a thought that we need to keep in mind as we wrestle with applying
Jesus words here in Matthew 5:43-48 on love, greeting, and common grace.
What They had heard… (v. 43)
You have heard that it was
said,
‘You shall love
your neighbor
and hate your enemy.’
o
“God helps
those who help themselves.” [Greek mythology…attributed to Aesop]
o
“Cleanliness is next to godliness.” [A Persian/Hebrew saying]
o
“Hate the sin, love the sinner.” [Augustine 426, Gandhi 1929]
o
“Money is the root of all evil.” [a misquote of 1 Timothy 6:10]
o
“The lion shall lay down with the lamb.” [Isaiah
11:6 actually the wolf and lamb…]
o
“God just wants me to be happy.” [Not on the list, happiness is dependent
upon circumstances…God wants something better and more counter-intuitive than
that, even though many interpret the beatitudes as “Happy are…” instead of “Blessed
are…”]
o “God
won’t give you more than you can handle.” [It
seems that almost everything in more than we can handle…on our own! We were not
made to be independent of God and family.]
o
“Bad
things happen to good people.” [Well…bad things do happen, but no one is “good”]
What They Should
Have Heard…
There is ample testimony on this
subject of loving neighbors as well as a righteous response to one’s enemies in
the Old Testament which the Pharisees and the people should have heard and not
forgotten. These verses reveal something of the mercy of God that had either been
forgotten or ignored by the leaders of his day.
"Do
not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your
neighbor as yourself. I am the
Lord." (Leviticus 19:18)
“If
you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it
back to him. 5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under
its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help him with it.” (Exodus
23:4-5)
“If
your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to
drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord
will reward you.” (Proverbs 25:21-22; quoted in Rom. 12:20)
“When
an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living
with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for
you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus
19:33-34)
What Should We Do? (v. 44-45)
But I say to you,
Love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you,
so
that you may be sons
of your Father who is in heaven.
As we follow
Jesus in kingdom discipleship then our loving and merciful actions and
attitudes will begin to show a family resemblance! D.A. Carson comments, "To
be persecuted because of righteousness is to align oneself with the prophets
(5:12); but to bless and pray for those who persecute us is to align oneself
with the character of God."
What kind of
love does Jesus ask us to show to our enemies? R. Kent Hughes comments that,
There are people
for whom we have a spontaneous, natural, instinctive love. We do not have to
make any effort to love them—we just do. Jesus is not asking us to have a
romantic love or a buddy love or a family love or an emotional love for our
enemies. What he commands is an agape love—that is, a deliberate, intelligent,
determined love—an invincible goodwill toward them.[1]
But if we
determine to love them and then act on that love in prayer and merciful deeds,
God just might surprise us and change our heart as well as theirs.
I find it very
helpful to keep in mind the timing of God’s love for me and for his followers wherever
they may be. It is when I think that God can only love me when I am perfect
before him that I act out of my own fear and insecurity to judge and disdain
others (in an effort to make myself look better).
When does God love us? (Romans 5:6-11)
This passage in
Romans 5 makes a very clear and progressively profound statement about God’s
love for us. Look for the repeated phrase, “while
we were”,
For while we
were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For
one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person
one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in
that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since,
therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved
by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies
we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are
reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that,
we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now
received reconciliation.
The answer is
clear. God chose to love us and manifested that love in redemptive action—while we were… still weak (6), still sinners (8), and his enemies (10). Wow! So what does that
say about the love and mercy we should show to others?
Homework assignment: Pray for your
“enemy” daily for 30 days. At least weekly, take a few moments to record:
- how you pray,
- how they change, and
- how you change.
Common Grace and Uncommon Love (v.46-48).
For he makes his sun rise on the evil and
on
the good,
and sends rain on the just
and on the unjust.
For if
you love those who love you,
what reward do you have?
Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet only your brothers,
what more are you doing than others?
Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
You
therefore must be perfect,
as your heavenly Father is perfect.
It is his sun… he
gives light to all regardless of their moral character. God also sends the rain,
it doesn’t happen by chance, and it comes to just and unjust alike. Sun and
rain, essentials for life all the more appropriate metaphors for God’s loving
provision for the agrarian society listening to Jesus’ words. God’s love was
wider than they thought.
So, how wide is
our love? Do we speak encouragingly to strangers or just to those in our
circle? Do we deem some as not worthy of our greeting? I often wonder how many
people I see during the day actually have anyone actually talk to them beyond
taking their coffee order. Jesus says that his kind of love reaches beyond our
cultural circles to touch those in the margins. So how
different are we from those who don’t know the gospel of the kingdom? If the
answer is, “Not very,” have we really listened to and obeyed the message Jesus
spoke?
Jesus tells us
that we must be perfect (Greek = teleios)
but what does that mean? R.T. France writes that the meaning of “teleios is wider than moral perfection:
it indicates completeness, wholeness, a life totally integrated to the will of
God and thus reflecting his character.”[2]
It is instructive to see that the only other use of teleios in Matthew is in 19:20-21 where Jesus is pointing out the compartmentalized
heart of a rich young man who was holding back from full commitment to
following Christ. Is there anything in our lives that might keep us from
following Jesus into the merciful love of his missional kingdom?
Perfect means brought to completion, full-grown,
lacking nothing. Jesus is saying to the people of that day, as well as to us
now, that they and we should not be satisfied with half-way obedience to the
law of love, as were the scribes and Pharisees, who never penetrated the heart
of the law.[3]
Perfect is where
following Jesus leads. It is the goal towards which we journey together. But we
followers of Jesus can’t journey together without love and mercy to share. And
frankly no one from outside would want to go with us either. Mercy remembers
that Jesus set us free from the guilt of our past. We all have a past, and
having been delivered from that ugly history by the mercy of God in Jesus Christ
(1 Cor. 6:9-11) we are called to share it with others (2 Cor. 5:14-21).
Greg, I really liked the factoids at the beginning of your post... I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard one of these sentiments in ministry! (as I am sure you do too).
ReplyDeleteI find that the biggest hurdle to my showing mercy is holding on to the "while we were still" point that you make. While Christ did not wait for me to respond to grace before extending mercy, I often want to withhold mercy until I at least see some glimmer of repentance. I am leery of extending "cheap grace" as Bonhoffer referenced so famously. As parents, we at least want our children (or spouse?) to feel bad about how they wronged us... right? Extending mercy without the other having some appreciation for how they wronged us will just reinforce bad behavior. At least, these are the thoughts I wrestle with.
Jesus' words are radical and hard to put into practice. They are and would continue to be counter-cultural. They would cost us something as a people to put mercy into practice. It is unlikely that Paul would have even had to give the Corinthian church directions about not taking a brother to court if they were truly practicing mercy. I wonder where the mercy was in the striking down of Anaias and Sapphira in Acts 5?
As you can see... I am still wrestling with these concepts of mercy and justice. But, thank you for provoking further thought!
Thanks Chris! I too wrestle with these things. You comment about the Acts 5 pericope about Ananias & Sapphira intrigues me. After re-reading that passage I was struck with the question, "Why haven't we all fallen down and breathed our last?" Their sin was that they said they gave all but in fact kept something back. What about us in the church today who say we have given our lives to Christ and yet keep much back for ourselves? This causes me to marvel at his merciful patience even more... a desire to stop compartmentalizing my heart.
DeleteChristians’ actions do show a family resemblance to their Father. If only those actions showed mercy to the unlovely. Loving the unlovely is difficult indeed. Praying for enemies may seem backward, but that’s just because we’ve been going the other direction for so long. Mercy would show effort, and would say, “I feel that you are worth the effort.” I think it would take a change of heart. One time I prayed for months for blessings upon blessings for a group of men who belittled me and took money every time we met. In the end God restored the money, and I was glad I prayed for the men. I do hope they found joy and blessings – that is what I wanted for them. I later found that in supporting them even though they were against me, I had a huge impact on their supervisor. In the process I felt like I was doing what the Christian God wanted me to do, and I felt good about doing it. cohort jp
ReplyDeleteThanks JP. I agree that we need to love the unlovely and that it is indeed harder than we can muster in our own affections.
DeleteOne follow up to your comment. After the loving the unlovely part you seem to say something very different in that mercy sees "worth" as its motivation. What if you don't think the person is "worth the effort"? Did Jesus show mercy to us because we were "worth it?" Help me to understand your point...perhaps I missed an ironic shift!
Greg because you are a pastor I just have to comment on the concept of mercy by bringing some balance into it. It seems that today there are too many who are quoting "grace, grace, grace" to give them permission to continue in sin unhindered or unrestrained. I know God did not intend that our graciousness in forgiving others before him in heaven be the same as forgiving those who on earth who have harmed us intentionally and never repented. Though Jesus forgave us on the cross despite our sins and lack of asking for forgiveness, when it comes time to receive Christ's gift of salvation, none of us can enter into his kingdom without first repenting. We cannot offer reconciliation without repentance. Jesus wouldn't and we can't. So that is my just adding the other half of this equation to your great blog on mercy. We must have balance when we are dealing with our neighbors and our enemies so that we are not walked on nor is Jesus. It is difficult to know which to do when sometimes, I admit. When are we to respond like Martin Luther King, jr. and when are we to put our foot down and say, "NO more!" This is why I believe Jesus asks us to pray for those who are our enemies! We need to in order to know which response is the most loving!
ReplyDeleteSo Jody, now I finally realized my problem...being a pastor has made me unbalanced ;-) thanks for publicizing it!
DeleteIt is a very different thing for someone to demand grace to justify their own sin than it is for another to show radical mercy to one who doesn't deserve it. I am pretty sure that our extending forgiveness to others is less about their salvation than about evidence of our own (6:12, 14-15).
Thanks for engaging with my wobbly post! :-)
Awesome, Greg!!!! Factoids... I love it. I am not sure where it fits, but there are other things that get repeated that have no Biblical basis... "You need to forgive yourself," "You have to learn to love yourself," and "Do not judge," (this last one told out of context and used primarily to defend unrighteous behavior). It is like George Orwell's 1984 — if a lie is repeated long enough, no matter how absurd, it is accepted as truth. But we are led into something entirely different — to grace and truth — and we are being conformed to His image so that these things emanate from Him through us.
ReplyDeleteYour comments on “factoids” were spot on. We are all too ‘good’ at coming up with supposedly logical but completely unbiblical conclusions, conclusions that might seem to make sense but are contrary to what the Word says or ever means to say. Whenever we start with a verse but end with a supposition or conclusion that is not in the verse, we have added to the Scripture, which is always a bad idea.
ReplyDeleteYears ago I heard a great poem from someone; unfortunately I cannot recall much of the poem nor his name, but I do generally remember one part:
The sun is in the sky, lightening the earth.
But I am more than the sun;
I am a cloud.
The point being that when we try to say more than God intended to say, we inevitably end up getting in the way of His light, His truth.