A Study In Luke - Day 13

Day 13 - Luke 6:27-36
 
27 “But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. 28 Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. 30 Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. 31 Do to others as you would like them to do to you.

32 “If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! 33 And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much! 34 And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit? Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return.
35 “Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. 36 You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.

As we go deeper into Jesus’ teaching on the Plains, we are struck with the succinctness of his words and the clear command to “do to others as you would like them to do to you. . .”
These are not unfamiliar words to us, but much harder to put into practice. This admonition for us to live in such a manner that it probably wouldn’t make sense to most people is the hallmark of Christian living. Regardless of the rhetoric we hear coming from Christian pundits and preachers who are preaching a protective or exclusive gospel, what we see here is the ever-giving nature of the life that we are called to live on this earth.

Overwhelming love, that is what we are called to give and live. Going further than required is where love is really measured by the gospel. Without this, we are just the same as any other faith, any other people on the earth. If we are to claim the overwhelming and never ending love of Jesus, than perhaps we are to make sure that we have the same ethos when it comes to the love that we give to others.
 
These texts make it absolutely clear that we are to live love in a way that is so far beyond what is natural and normal for us as humans that we should actually be seen as strange and weird and even peculiar; not because of what we don’t do, but because of the way that we have chosen to give love day after day.We are to create communities where people feel loves, seen, safe, and heard. We are to grow the kingdom from the way that we love, not the things that we excise from our lives.

As I write this, I am traveling to a destination where I am pretty sure there will be lots of pushback on the kinds of communities that we are trying to create. I am preparing myself for the questions that will inevitably come around about the music, the coffee, and how we can call ourselves “Adventists” with an expression of church like we do. I weary of these conversations.
 
While I get why these questions will be asked, I am constantly chagrined by the fact that the questions we will field will not be gospel oriented, will not be around how people can love better, but around how we can protect what we perceive to be a “better Adventism”. 
Now, I may be wrong, and I hope that I am. But I think when we read these words of Jesus we can be reassured that you cannot love too much as a community of belonging.

1. What can you do today to show someone the love that you have received from Christ?
   
2. How can you protect these communities of belonging by finding ways to love more profoundly. 
3. Do you think you understand the things that Jesus was trying to preach through this sermon?