We’re all just doing the best we can, day by day, though that’s not all that Christians are doing.  We’re doing that, too, but we’re also learning to do something more: we are learning, being taught, how to live in order to live.  Contact with the power of God is for relationship with God.  Our Savior is teaching us how to live to reflect God.  Every life reflects, brightly or dimly, the light by which that life lives.

In these times, the light by which people live seems to be political, which is a pity.  Talk about blacklight.  Politics likes to parade itself as ethics.  It’s wealth, power, and the insatiable hunger for more.  In these times, that political light by which people live has been fear, panic: how dark, that light!  Yet the true light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not, cannot overcome it.  Jesus announces that he is the light of the world.  Oh, that arrogance!  But if he’s right, if it’s true, then it is no arrogance.  Can he be right?  Could he be?

How are we to walk in the light of the Lord?  “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (6:27-28).  To you who are listening.  Jesus knows that there are those listening, as well as those who are not.  How strange, to be in the presence of Jesus, but not listen!  But is it strange?  Isn’t it, actually, quite natural?  Listening—Devon will quickly and happily affirm that I’m not.  I suspect she isn’t the only wife out there who would say so.

Jesus seems to set the bar rather high: it sounds as if we’re practically to bend over backwards to be kind to those who don’t have the least appreciation for any kindness we may show them.  Absolute ingratitude.  It sounds as if Jesus is calling us to act without regard for how our words of kindness and acts of compassion are received, as if we are to have something else in view than whether the other person thanks us or not.  Jesus seems to be calling us to live to give, not to conduct ourselves in order to receive but live with others for the sake of the giving.  God is love.  Love gives.

Those who hate you, who curse you, who mistreat you?  That’s a tall order.  Jesus knows it, and he must also know, if he’s truly expecting anyone else to live this way, that such living is within our power, through him.  Power for relationship.  Talk about godly living!  In all that Jesus teaches about how we are to live with one another, he is also teaching about how God chooses to live with us, within us, and among us.  There are those who ignore God, or give lip service; there are those who reject and revile Him—some are even intentional about it!  What does God do?  How does God choose to respond?  Is God a pushover, a weakling?  The patience of God!  May His patience and His forbearance never cease to amaze us!  In awe-filled wonder over this blessed patience, can we not, for our part, exercise just a bit more patience, a little more forbearance, too?  If we are provoked, pause and consider the provocations with which God contends, every hour!  Oh, that holy pause, that sacred breath God calls you to take!

Jesus puts this insistence upon patience and forbearance in terms we can feel: “If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also.  If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them” (6:29).  Don’t easily take offense; be slow to anger, just like someone you and I claim to know, in Jesus Christ.  Have you perceived the anger out and about in our society over these past few years?  “Anger?  What anger?”  If the news is accurate—a big if, I know!—people are riled up!  Well, politics thrives on that, too.  Lord help us, there are going to be elections later this year.  These elections really showcase the best in us all, eh?

One thing I can say for sure—anger is a fire in the magazine.  Anger stokes anger, quickly.  How can we, how will we learn to step back, take a breath, and not allow ourselves to get pulled in?  Anger is not always sinful, but how quickly we can make it so!  When anger comes your way, from without or within, turn to the generous hand of the Spirit: drink those cool spiritual waters, bite your tongue, listen, wait, and pray!  Oh how we want to tell them a thing or two!  Oh, how we want to have the last word!  Let God have the last word, beloved.  He will, whether you will or no.  Let’s live our way into reality.

Generosity and charity.  We hear this word charity and may think of giving to worthy causes.  That is a good association, and the word itself goes further, begins deeper: in the heart, with the heart.  Charity is a disposition of the heart, which means it is an attitude of the spirit.  Maybe the one thing people hate above all is to feel like a fool, or to let others get away with regarding us as foolish.  Consider, though—God gives.  He gives and gives.  He is always giving.  How foolish, to give to those who show no gratitude!  No one takes from God, beloved.  God is generous, though we know, and He knows, how ungenerous so many are towards Him.  When people are ungenerous towards their fellow men, they are ungenerous with God.  John, and so, too, James, were very clear about this: our love for God is enacted and exhibited in our love for our fellow men.

It may be that human wisdom could have arrived at the Golden Rule apart from divine revelation, divine teaching.  Maybe.  I’m not so sure.  From a strictly human, a strictly worldly, secular, fleshly vantage, surely the clear, cardinal rule must be do to others what they do to you—but do it first!  To those who are kind to you, be kind.  Be angry with those who direct their anger against you.  Be considerate of those who are considerate of you.  Revile those who revile you.  Do to others what they do to you.  But this is not the teaching of Jesus.  “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (6:31).  Young disciples, tell us, treat others the way . . .  How do you want to be treated?  Treat others that way, first.  How do you want to be spoken to?  Speak that way to others, first.  This is divine teaching because it is God’s own way with everyone, not just with those who are His own!

Not reactive living but proactive living.  Live your example.  Live your principles.  Live your integrity.  Live Christ—live your faith.  Live in order to have Life.  Not easy, but oh, so necessary!  Live your example: who is your example?  Politicians?  Celebrities?  The wealthy?  The brilliant?  The connected?  That may be a way to riches and power here on earth—it’s sold that way, certainly!  Consider the divine way: God never acts contrary to His principles.  God always acts with complete integrity.  Well, He’s God, so it’s easy for Him: it’s His nature—and by grace, it is becoming our nature, too, in Jesus Christ!  To be in Christ means that we are being educated in divine nature, the divine way.  The Holy Spirit is with us and within us to cause a change in our own spirits, so that we become more and more—though never completely, perfectly, here below—more and more like unto our Father in heaven.  God delights in family resemblance.

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners do that.  And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you?  Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full” (6:32-34).  How does Jesus know me so well?  It’s as if he speaks and my heart just flops wide open for him and me both to see all that’s there, plain, in the light.  Scary!

It’s not about reciprocity!  Give as much as you get, and never give more than what you’re given?  No.  If anything, as Jesus reminds us, and as he demonstrates so devastatingly, what this life in him is about is sacrificial giving.  Such living does not come naturally!  But consider—in Christ, what you and I give to anyone else, to any of our fellow human beings or even God’s creatures, is given to God.  In a sacred, a mystical sense, the only one you and I in Christ are giving to, ever and always, is God.  Why would we ever want to give less than our best to God?  Why would we ever not want to give, sacrificially, for God?  Can He not give, in return?  Can He not give more?

What is the limit of our giving?  For each of us, there is a point past which we will not go: we feel it; we just can’t go beyond that point.  Before we knew Jesus Christ, that point was one place.  Now that we know Jesus Christ, now that he has claimed us and is making us perfectly, completely his own, he is the limit of our giving.  Did you hear what he said to his disciples?  Did you consider who was saying it?  “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back” (6:35).  Lend to your enemies?  Do good to your enemies?  Love your enemies?  Really?  We hear of Jesus healing many.  We do hear that some, afterwards, wanted only to devote themselves to him, completely.  But we don’t hear this about all or even many of those whom Jesus healed, whom he blessed.  It seems most got what they wanted out of him and then went about their lives without troubling themselves further about Jesus.  They had contact with the power and were so glad and then declined the relationship.

When Jesus spoke of enemies, whom do you suppose he meant?  The powerful?  The powers of this world?  The religious snobs?  Anyone who acts like they know better than you?  Anyone who suggests you might not be going a right way?  Enemies?  We may know our enemies, if we have any!  (How sad, to have enemies!)  But who are the enemies of Jesus?  And isn’t that the same as asking who are the enemies of God?  It isn’t only those who actively persecute us Christians.  God’s enemies.  All those still chained by the world, still serving sin, still flailing around in darkness and calling it light; still devoting their lives to uncleanness while calling it good, right, true, and beautiful.  You and I can tell them the truth, but we won’t be thanked for it, not at first, anyway.

All the lost.  Love them, do good to them, have charity for them and be patient with them.  God is, and with you, too!  And what is to be the result of this divine, this heavenly behavior, these godly choices we make in the Spirit of Christ?  “Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (6:35).  I can’t imagine a reward greater than being a child of the Most High, truly being a child of God, yet there will be an even greater reward!  O, to live to know that reward!

We’re all familiar with the teaching of Jesus about judging.  We’re very fond of it, and I’m more and more convinced that we haven’t understood it; I’m becoming more and more convinced that people too often use these words of Jesus to protect themselves from Jesus.  Cheap grace versus costly grace.  Now, Jesus says something just before the do not judge teaching.  Do you remember what he says, just before that?  “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (6:36).  That’s its own verse, verse thirty-six.  A very short verse.  Worth memorizing, especially for when some part of the following verse gets quoted at us in order to shut us up, shut us down.  When Jesus instructs his disciples not to judge, not to condemn, he is giving us his expectation that his followers will be merciful.  Not blind.  Not approving of whatever another human being pursues as avidly as you and I pursue God.  Not suspending the values and teaching we have in the Word of God.  Not setting aside Scripture for the feelings of fallen, broken people, but merciful.

Mercy, in this case, means being fully aware of our own imperfections and even our own inconsistencies, not to condone them, but to remember grace—getting what we don’t deserve—and using this keen awareness of grace given to us as a holy impetus to offer this same grace to others.  Not smug condemnation, nor willed, selective blindness, but grace.  Let God’s Word awaken the sinner, the wayward, the wandering, the straying, the lost.  Let the Spirit move the awakened sinner to seek, to desire, the reconciliation held out to everyone, generously, abundantly, perpetually, graciously, in Jesus Christ.  This is the aim of the forgiveness Christ tells us to offer to others: forgive in order to be reconciled.  Forgive in order to live the reconciliation we have in Jesus Christ.  Forgive to help the forgiven see that a path has been opened to them, a smooth way.  “Give, and it will be given to you” (6:38).

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.