February 23, 2025
Looking for Loopholes
Luke 6:27-38
Rev. Shannon Jordan
27 ‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you , pray for those who abuse you . 29If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30Give to everyone who begs from you ; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 ‘If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34If 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. 35But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
37 ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’
We are spending this time between stewardship and Lent in the Lectionary, the passages that are chosen for churches to use as a systemic way to make your way through the breadth of scripture. Lectionary can be a great thing as we are all likely to pick and choose the verses and passages that support our view of the world and our perspective. I probably would not have picked this passage for this week, but here we are!
Our passage today is one that is much more comfortable if you skim over it and maybe use it as a bumper sticker or motivational poster…maybe a hashtag for a post about someone who is mistreating others. I mean when I read it, I can read Love your enemies and skim the rest because I am a really nice person and I don’t have enemies. I mean there may be people who I annoy or don’t like me, but I don’t have enemies. Other people have enemies, not me. Not you. We are nice Presbyterians. And really, anyone who disagrees with us are just wrong…they aren’t enemies.
Clearly this passage must not mean to love the people we don’t like… There has to be a loophole, right? It can’t be talking to us. I mean, some people are worth hating. Their behavior, their actions, their personality, their very existence—is just so wrong that they have to be excluded for the call to love our enemies.
Let’s see if there are any loopholes that we can find in this text. My parents would say that I was great at finding loopholes to what they said growing up.
First possible loophole: did Jesus mean enemy in the same way we do?
Unfortunately for us, the meaning of the word enemy hasn’t really changed since Jesus said this. The Greek word, echthros refers to someone who is hated, hostile, odious—and the Greek dictionary says it is for active hating as well as passively finding someone odious. Hating someone or a group of someones makes them our enemy. Judging someone as wrong, finding them odious, makes them my enemy. I had never considered myself as finding people in the world passively odious until I read that phrase. I had lots of opportunities this week to choose whether or not to consider someone odious.
Related loophole, who did Jesus say were our enemies? We don’t have a record of anyone asking Jesus that. We know that Jesus was asked who are neighbors are and we heard about the Good Samaritan. And in that story, the scandal of it is that the people who were religious and political—opponents—are actually neighbors—and it was the Samaritan, not the Jewish elite, who was the hero of the story. In this story Jesus says to love our neighbors and in his explanation, makes it clear that our enemies are our neighbors…and we are to love them. Ouch. Loophole closed.
Another possible loophole is that Jesus is telling the early church to love their enemies. Jesus is speaking to his disciples—the beginning of the early church—so maybe it is OK for individuals to have enemies—just not the church. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work either, as in the Greek this passage addresses both individuals and groups. Let me read the first couple of verses again so you can see the difference:
27 ‘But I say to y’all that listen, Love y’all’s enemies, do good to those who hate y’all, 28bless those who curse y’all, pray for those who abuse y’all.
Those commands are all to the plural second person…
Then Jesus speaks to the individuals: 29If anyone strikes you—singular–on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your Singular coat do not withhold even your Singular shirt. 30Give to everyone who begs from you Singlular; and if anyone takes away your singular goods, do not ask for them again. 31Do to others as y’all would have them do to y’all.
A fascinating use of language to make the point that as a congregation, we are to love our enemies as a congregation and as individuals. I also firmly believe that we can only love our enemies in the context of community. It is our church family, it is our faith formation class, our choir mates, our koinonia group that will help us explore what it really means for us to love our enemies as a group and as individuals.
How about did the culture of the time have the idea that we are to love our enemies? Was that the norm then? Nope. Going all of the way back to 18th Century BC they had Hammurabi’s Code. This Code said things like an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The culture of that day was absolutely steeped in the idea that you could absolutely treat people the way they treat you. Jesus’s words don’t just say, don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want them to do to you…it isn’t just about avoiding actions, but it is about choosing to do actions in favor of another. Do to others, including those who hate you, as you want them to do to you. Another loophole closed.
Ok, another one…maybe there is a loophole if someone really treats you badly. We see in the passage that was read this morning on Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers who forgives them and saves the Jewish race through his radical act of forgiveness. The most horrible betrayal—and Joseph’s story is really tough, I encourage you to read it—the last 12 or so chapters of Genesis or grab a children’s Bible.
If you are going to look for a loophole in loving your enemies, our passage this morning closes each one.
We are called to love our enemies. We are called to love those we hate. Let me say that again. We called to love those we hate.
How do we do that? How do we love people whose very existence is against all we stand for? How do we learn to love people who we hate because they are evil? How do we learn to love people who have hurt us, taken from us, abused us or those we love? How do we learn to do good to those who hate us?
First, going back to Jesus speaking, he had spent the entire night before this lesson on the plain in prayer. How much time do we spend in prayer—in the presence of a God who loves us and is in control? How much time do we spend basking in the presence of a loving God who showers us with grace and mercy? How much time do we spend trying to see the world through the eyes of the Spirit? Do we spend more time reading about our enemies? Studying people who we hate?
How many thoughts out of a hundred are about our all powerful God verses growing the hate in our hearts? When I think about praying for those who persecute others, how am I praying for them? Am I asking God for wisdom in how I am to learn to love them? How I am to trust God with my anger and my hatred and my judgement? Am I asking for wisdom and peace and discernment?
After choosing his disciples Jesus begins teaching the crowds—and the new disciples—sharing a new way of doing life. A new way of looking at the poor and the hungry, grief, ridicule and abuse. A new way to look at enemies and judging and not only avoiding doing to others what you don’t want them to do to you but to actively choose to do to others what you want them to do to or for you. How much time do we spend studying how Jesus handled difficult people? How Jesus interacted with those who betrayed him? Deserted him? Crucified him? Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.
We can only love our enemies when we are so connected to God’s way of doing things, when we are so connected to living our lives the way that is demonstrated in scripture, only then can we do it. We can love our enemies when we pray and we pattern our lives after the values lifted in scripture. When we study and know how Jesus responded in similar circumstances. To love our enemies we have to develop a practice of grounding ourselves in the Spirit. We have to learn to see others as God’s beloved children and stop practicing hating others.
Mentor to Dr. King, Howard Thurman, taught that hatred corrodes the soul and is an internal poison. We can see the impact of this teaching on the practice of peaceful resistance during the Civil Rights Movement. Loving our enemies does not benefit them nearly as much as it frees us. It frees up our minds and souls so we can live into the peace and action that God has for us. If we are consumed with hatred, we will miss what God has for us to do in bringing justice and peace to our world.
This is how we can live into Micah 6:8 where we are told to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. It is in this place of loving enemies with mercy, trusting God with humility that we can do justice. It is in this space that so many civil rights leaders were able to do justice AND demonstrate love of enemies. Loving our enemies does not mean letting them wreak havoc in our world, but learning a new way of seeing them.
Today in Faith & Fellowship David is talking about movies, and I want to highlight one that will probably be discussed…Wicked. Elphaba, the green witch that we call wicked in Wizard of Oz…in this Broadway play and movie, we find out what makes Elphaba act the way she does. We find out the rest of the story and are able to find it in ourselves to see her with compassion. Glinda becomes the bad witch and Elphaba the good witch—all because of context and perspective. I am not saying evil people out there are actually good, but I am saying that we can learn to have compassion verses hatred for people with God’s help.
I think it is in this way we can begin to find a way to love, or at least start to show compassion for our enemies. When we recognize there is more to their story than we can know—even if we just feel bad for them being trapped in their habits and patterns.
We are only able to truly love those we hate when we learn to lean fully on the power of the Spirit. When we really lean into who God is and what God does and can do. When we really believe in our very souls that God is indeed in charge. When we hold onto the prayer that Jesus taught and knead the words into the depths of our being, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
When we learn to let go of the hatred and look at the person as a beloved child of God while fighting against any of the injustice or hatred that they may be spewing, that gives us the ability to respond to the injustice in the world not with anger and fear and vengeance, but a reconciling love as strengthened through the power of the Spirit. When we learn to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, stop judging one another and focus instead on discerning God’s truth, that is where we will find the peace and joy. That is how we will find God’s way of being and doing move through our world.
Like Joseph, God could use our forgiveness, our love of who could rightfully be considered an enemy, for great good. And that is how we will join in God’s work in our world-not through finding a loophole.