Sermon Cloud

            Sometimes I wonder if r Jesus said some of the things he said, just to get me fired.  Jesus said so many things that completely contradict the “common sense” of our culture.  Did he not know the repercussions of what he said?  Did he not know how difficult, down-right impossible it would be to live out his teachings? I’m guessing he probably did. 

            I heard a great line this week, “the North American church is great at making believers in Jesus but we haven’t done that great of a job making disciples.”  A lot of people who believe Jesus to be God’s Son, died on a cross and came back to life simply ignore what he taught.   Ghandi was once asked whether he was a Christian.  He responded by saying, “I love Jesus.  I just wish Christians took him more seriously.”

            While we’re far from perfect here at TFC, we’re committed to taking Jesus seriously.  With that in mind, let’s look at today’s passage.  Matthew 5:43-48

            Anyone ever heard the expression, “he must be living right”?  It’s said when something supposedly lucky happens.  You win the lottery, narrowly avoid a car crash, “you must be living right.”  Jesus thoroughly deconstructs that belief in verse 44b. Some of the most evil people benefit from fortunate circumstances.  Some of the best people in the world have to go through horrendous circumstances.  That’s a nice way of saying, “crap happens.”

            We can’t judge the maturity of our walk with Jesus by whether or not crap is happening to us.  We judge our maturity level by how we respond to that crap.  A guaranteed piece of crap that exists in our world (how many times can I say “crap”) is that we’ll have enemies.  Whether as individuals, as families, as groups, as countries, we’ll have enemies.  Most of us have a list of people who wouldn’t be too heartbroken to learn of our demise.  A few of us may have those who actively seek out our demise.  It’s usually not because they’re all bad and we’re all good. It would be a lot easier were it that way, but we see the same situation differently.  Our competing perspectives and interests cause us to enter into conflict. 

            Our world has a very simple answer to the problem of competing interests.  It’s violence. If someone seeks our destruction, we seek theirs first.  If they hate us, we hate them.  This is a commonly accepted practice in our world.  This is just what people do. 

            So we commit violence against each other, honestly believing this will solve our problems.  Christian thinkers call it the “myth of redemptive violence.”  This myth says that we can rid the world of violence by using violence.  That violence brings about good.  For this reason, I attack you.  Whether it’s verbally, emotionally, physically – I tear you down until you can no longer oppose me.  I win.  After I beat you into submission, you stop opposing me.  Clearly, violence worked.  So we perpetuate violence and we perpetuate that myth.

            But Jesus says something different.  “As my followers, you will not return violence with violence.  You will love, serve, pray for those who actively oppose you.”  

            Let me share with you why Jesus makes this declaration.  We have to go back to the very beginning.  Part of the creation account in the first chapter of the Bible.  Genesis 1:26-27

            Creation is a work of art and God is the grand artist.  Of all the beauty in creation, God chose to put his signature on human beings.  Aspects of God’s character, abilities, personality have been put into us.  Human beings were made in the image of their Creator.  Every single one of us are image bearers of God.  The Creator has signed us.

            Who has been to the Nelsen Atkins museum?  It’s a beautiful experience.  They have a collection of Impressionist paintings.  One is the famous Water Lillies painting by Claud Manet.  What would happen to you if you dumped gasoline on that painting and then lit the thing on fire?  You’d be locked up for life.  You’d also be destroying a priceless creation from a revolutionary artist. 

            You’d also be destroying something inside of you.  As people who bear the image of a creative God, It’s impossible to destroy a piece of art without also killing a part of your soul.

            That’s what violence does.  Violence destroys the image of God in another person and twists the image of God within us as well.  Violence destroys both victim and perpetrator.  We can find good in violent conflicts, but comes about despite the violence, not because of it. 

            Songwriter Derek Webb wrote, Trying to bring about peace through violence is like trying to bring about purity through fornication. 

            I spent the summer comparing the Kingdom of the World with the Kingdom of Jesus.  We live in a different domain than the rest of the world, followers of Jesus live by a different value system.  One of my favorite authors and preachers, Greg Boyd calls it the Kingdom of the Sword or the Kingdom of the Cross.  Citizens in the Kingdom of the World pick up the sword, citizens in the Kingdom of the Jesus pick up the Cross. 

            We see this in the arrest of Jesus.  Matthew 26:47-54  “If you use the sword, you die by the sword.”  1 of two things happens.  1) Your enemies outsmart or overpower you and you’re killed by their sword.  2) While using your sword to kill your enemies, your own soul dies.  Either way, the sword kills.

            In his book, Jesus for President, Shane Claiborne wrote these words, Violence kills, The image of God dies in us.  It’s a cry of desperation.  A weak and cowardly cry of a person suffocated by hopelessness.  Violence goes against everything we are created for; to love and be loved.  So it inevitably ends in misery and suicide.  Either literal or metaphorical. 

            The sword kills.  But church, the Cross brings life!  repeat

            This goes against common sense.  You’d think that to hurt another person to save yourself brings life.  It actually brings death.  But the act of giving up your life to save another person is what actually brings life.  The Kingdom of Jesus goes against the common sense of the Kingdom of the World. 

            Now let me be honest, loving your enemies does not work by the world’s standards.  Loving your enemies means you probably won’t get what you want.  It certainly means you won’t be able to exert power over your enemies.  You won’t be able to bend them to your will.  It may even cost you your life.  But loving your enemies is what Jesus tells us to do, no ifs/ ands/ or buts about it. 

            Listen to this quote by Stanley Hauerwas, a religion professor at Duke, The basis for the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount is not what works, but rather the way God is.  [Loving your enemies] is not advocated as what works (it usually does not), but advocated because this is the way God is – God is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.  This is not a stratagem for getting what we want but the only manner of life available, now that, in Jesus, we have seen what God wants.  We seek reconciliation with the neighbor, not because we feel so much better afterward, but because reconciliation is what God is doing in the world through Christ. 

            The reason we love our enemies is because God loved us while we were still His enemies.  While we were flipping God the bird declaring, “I don’t need you, I’m going to do my own thing,” God was sending his Son to die on the cross to show us he still loves us, he forgive us and he welcomes us back.  Colossians 1:19-22

            The Bible also tells us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Think about that…  We were directly opposing our Creator.  But rather than chopping us off, Jesus laid down his life for us. 

            It’s the love of Jesus that prompts us to do the same for our enemies.  They want to kill us, we chose to serve them.  They want to harm us, we pray for them.  We return their hate with the love of Jesus. 

            And we can lay down our lives for other people, because we know that Christ is Risen!  Repeat  Physical death is not the end of the story for Jesus’ followers.  The tomb is empty. 

            The sword kills but the cross brings life.  Repeat

            Simone Pierre is a pastor in the African nation of Rwanda.  He was pastoring in 1994, when civil war broke out in Rwanda.  The result of this war was the genocide of the Hutus over the Tutsis.  In a period of about 100 days, 1 million Tutsis were slaughtered.  ONE MILLION!  If you had enough money, you could buy an execution by gunpoint.  But most of the Tutsis were hacked up by machetes, many living in agony for a few final days.  UN peacekeeping troops moved out.  Most of the world ignored the genocide. 

            Pastor Pierre’s wife was one of those being hunted.  Simone says he paid every bribe he could to save her life, but eventually he ran out of money. 

            A friend tried to smuggle her out of the country in the bed of a pickup truck, but the truck was stopped.  In fact, they stopped right in front of a bed of freshly dug graves.  An armed man told Mrs. Pierre that she needed to kill her son right then.  If she didn’t, they would both be forced to die a slow death by machete.  She obliviously refused, but before she was killed the driver of the truck convinced the armed man to accept the bribe and release this mom and her son.  Fortunately, he accepted the bribe.

            The Hutus eventually lost power, which lead to a time of revenge from Tutsis.  That’s the way of the world.  The Pierre family refused to join in the revenge.  When this man was brought before their family, they refused to turn him into the authorities, because they knew it would result in his death. 

            3 months later, they heard he was suffering from AIDS in a hospital.  Not only did they come to the hospital, but they brought him a meal.  When the Pierre family entered, the man immediately recognized the wife.  He couldn’t believe she was there, “why are you here, I was so evil to you?” 

            She looked right at this man who spared she and her son’s lives only because of a bribe and answered, “because Jesus loves you.  I’m here to help you.” 
            When he was released from the hospital, he turned himself into the authorities.  While giving his testimony, he announced that because he’d been forgiven by Mrs. Pierre, he wanted to ask forgiveness of the entire community.

            Pastor Pierre said the man has yet to give his life to Jesus.  But if he does (and they’re praying for him) it will be because their family was willing to offer Christ-like love and forgiveness. 

            What Simone Pierre’s wife did is not natural.  Most people would’ve seized their opportunity for vengeance.  For most people, it’s almost impossible to forgive.  But I’m willing to bet that for Mrs. Pierre, it would’ve been almost impossible not to forgive.  Why?  Because she’s a follower of Jesus.

            She’s given her life to the Jesus who when hanging on a cross cried out, “Father, forgive them for they don’t understand what they are doing.”  The forgiveness that came out of Jesus’ lips was already in his heart.  The same is true of the Pierre family.  And the same could be true of us. 

            Here’s what we do, we pursue love.  Here’s what I mean.  1 Corinthians 13 is known as the Love Chapter.  Listen to an excerpt, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13.  Jesus expects this of his followers.  But it’s not natural.  So what do we do?  We pursue love 14:1, Let love be your highest goal!  Another translation reads, Pursue love! 

            We seek after love.  Who is our model of love – Jesus.  As we spend time with Jesus, letting him point out sin, allowing him to shape us, we are actually changed!  No longer are hatred and revenge our default responses, but love and forgiveness become our default.  This change of heart will not just happen.  It’s not natural, it’s supernatural.  If we’re pursuing Jesus, we’re pursuing love.  As we pursue love, love and forgiveness become our natural response. 

            We have a very simple strategy for pursuing Jesus, SOAP. 

            We’re going to respond to Jesus’ teaching with a time of prayer and a time of worship.  We’ll worship the Jesus who laid down his life for us.  There are also prayer teams on either side of the auditorium who are here to help you seek God’s power to love and forgive. 

            Who is your enemy?  Maybe it’s a terrorist in Afghanistan.  Maybe it’s that coworker that is trying to get ahead at your expense.  Maybe it’s that man who abused you when you were a kid.  Maybe it’s the men who are using you now.  Maybe it’s the spouse who is verbally abusing you.  Maybe it’s that person whose political views you know to be misguided.  Maybe it’s the person who keeps spreading rumors or questioning your motives. 

            Whatever enemies you face, won’t you take the first steps of allowing Jesus to transform your default reaction from vengeance to love and forgiveness.