This summer we have been traveling the Roman Road Of Salvation with Paul. We began by hearing that there is nothing we can do to earn God’s grace. We will never merit the love God has for us. No matter how good we are, or how bad we can be, God still loves us.
Our wrong doings separates us from God, but has provided a way back home to God through his son, Jesus. This way - God’s grace - is open to everyone from every walk of life, no matter what.
For Paul, this meant for Jew and Gentile alike. For us, it means for every woman and every man, every adult and every child, every person of every nationality and every economic status...for every person no matter what criminal or moral wrong doing he or she may have committed.
Such information, such a gift of grace, is like a glass of water in the middle of the Mohavi Desert. Our frustration can end. Our worries are over. Our search has ended. We now have hope, we now have love, and we now have life, no matter who or what we are.
But then Paul goes on. In these last 5 chapters of this letter, Paul goes on to describe what it means to lead a life under such a promise and such hope. God’s grace encompasses every inch of us and is all consuming. It is a gift in extreme.
Paul invites us to be living sacrifices to Christ. We are called to live a life constantly pursuing the best we have to offer in every area of our life, in the name of Christ. Paul calls us to live a life of an outward sign of the grace within us, a life representing the grace we have received, and a conveyer of that grace to others as well.
Now that’s a tall order to follow. Such a life is a life of commitment, and such a life doesn’t allow us much resting on that commitment.
But now, Paul continues, and Paul gives us instruction that may be a bit hard for us to swallow as we live out a life of salvation which we have received.
“Bless those who persecute you...”
We are to love our enemies.
Something within us hollars, “Now wait just a minute!”
It seems this Christianity thing has gone too far, crossed a line somewhere, asked us to bite off more that we can chew.
Craig Barnes has a book called, When God Interrupts. He talks about times in our life when things don’t go the way we planned, the way we want them to go. He’s not talking about life’s small disappointments. He’s talking about catastrophic illness, divorce, death of a loved one. Craig is talking about life’s big disappointments.
In his discussion, Craig talks about the danger of loving Jesus. He says the thing is, Jesus has a tendency to lead us away from places we’d rather be and to places we’d rather not go.
Craig uses the story of Jonah as a great illustration of this point. God called Jonah to go to a town called Nineveh.
Craig describes Nineveh this way:
“Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, the enemy of God’s people. It was a strong city that had grown sick and decadent and needed to turn toward the grace of God. Nineveh illustrates what is wrong with the world, and what is oppressive to the church. Nineveh doesn’t care about our Savior. Nineveh hurts us all the time.”
When God called Jonah, he had a choice to make. He couldn’t stay where he was. He either had to follow where God led, or he had to turn and go the other way.
And we, as Christians, are faced with the same decision when we hear the Good News of God’s love - respond or turn away.
God called to Jonah, and told him to go to Nineveh and tell the people there about God.
But Jonah had had a different idea in mind. Jonah didn’t like the idea of going to Nineveh. There were evil people there who didn’t care for God. Remember how Craig Barnes described Nineveh - it hurts us all the time.
Jonah began to think he’d rather go to the city of Tarshish. Craig describes Tarshish this way:
“Tarshish was a far-off idealized port city, a kind of ancient Shangri-La. Solomon’s fleet went there to get gold, silver, ivory and peacocks.”
It was a great city, an enjoyable place. It was a good neighborhood with a low crime rate. Most everybody got along. Most everybody tried to be good citizens. Most everybody was fairly well off and had very little needs. It was kind of like a paradise. Jonah could be happy in Tarshish. Jonah really had Tarshish more in mind when God called him to Nineveh.
Problem is, Craig Barnes notes, most of us, when we respond to God’s call on our life, really kind of have the “Shangri-la Christianity” in mind. Often, we become Christian And we want to ask God, ‘Do you really want me to go to Nineveh, because I had Tarshish more in mind. They need good Christians in Tarshish. Can’t I go to Tarshish instead?’
“No,” God responds to us, I want you to go to Nineveh.”
“But God, the people there - they don’t believe in you. And they don’t follow you. God, the people of Nineveh are mean and hateful. We don’t get along. Who could get along with the people of Nineveh? What am I suppose to do? They don’t like me and I don’t like them. How am I suppose to cope with these people?”
“First,” God says, “I want you to pray for them. I want you to pray for my blessing for them. I want you to care for them. I want you to celebrate what they have to be happy about. I want you be concerned about their troubles. And I want you to do everything you can to live in peace with them.”
“Pray for them! But God, you know their needs. You can go ahead and just bless them anyway. You can make their life better anyway. You don’t need me to pray for them. Why do you want me to pray for them when you already know what they need?”
“I want you to pray for them for your sake, not for mine.”
You see, its hard to keep at a distance and be at odds with someone we are genuinely praying for. God does know their needs. In our Bible lesson, Paul tells us to ask for God’s blessing on our enemy when we’d rather curse them. Because when we truly pray for someone’s well-being, when we care about their needs, when we celebrate their joys, they really can’t keep being our enemies. They may not become our friend, but they can’t stay our enemy.
Paul Apple is a pastor in Maryland. He has a couple of key points in how to love our enemies. One point he makes is that we should not think ourselves better than our enemy. We’re not any closer to God than they are. We are all God’s children, all equal under God. Earlier in this letter to the Romans, Paul has already reminded us of this fact. “There is none righteous, not even one,” Paul wrote.
And this idea of caring for our enemy isn’t Paul’s original idea. He got it from Jesus. In Jesus’ sermon where he preached on the life of one who would be his follower, Jesus shared these words: (We have them recorded for us in the 5th chapter of Matthew’s record of Jesus’ life.)
"You have heard that it was said, ’You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 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 and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
So Paul echoes Jesus’ words to love our enemies.
But who is our enemy? Its an interesting question that could create quite a stir among us, if we let it. It reminds me of another question once asked of Jesus.
A young man - a lawyer - asks Jesus what does he have to do to get into heaven. (Already, we’ve learned this summer, he’s starting from the wrong place, isn’t he. Paul has told us - there is nothing we can do to earn God’s grace. It is a gift freely given.)
Jesus responds and tells the young man to love God with all of his heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love his neighbor as himself.
Now the first part of that instruction is no problem. The lawyer has that licked. But its the second part of the equation that trips him up. He wants to know - who is his neighbor? He wants the term ‘neighbor’ defined for him - and the interesting thing is, Jesus’ answer places the term ‘enemy’ in perspective for us, as well.
Jesus tells him a story. He tells him about a man who was traveling and was attached and beaten by some robbers, and left in a ditch on the side of the road for dead.
This man was someone very much like us, someone we could have related to. Why, it could have been us laying there in the ditch.
This poor man, is laying there in the road, bleeding, beaten, and dying, and 3 people come across him laying there.
The first is someone else just like you and I. He too, could have traded places with the poor beaten traveler. Only difference is, he’s not all bloody and dirty. He’s clean, he’s got his act together. He’s got things to do, places to be.
These two gentlemen certainly wouldn’t have considered the other one to be their enemy. In fact, under different circumstances they would have gotten along very well. But the injured man down on his luck makes the second gentleman uncomfortable, and so he passes him by and leaves him in the road.
The second person who passes by is someone else just like us. Its a very religious person. Someone with integrity, someone we could respect. He sees the beaten traveler laying in the road. He had things to do and places to be also. Perhaps in his religious integrity, he felt the poor traveler must have gotten what he deserved. Maybe he thought the traveler shouldn’t have gotten himself into the situation in the first place. Maybe he thought the traveler got himself into the situation, he ought to get himself out. In any case, he passes him on by.
But then guess who comes by? It was someone very different from the traveler. They have very different views on life. They didn’t agree on anything. They didn’t get along at all. In fact, they were sworn enemies of one another. But he saw the injured traveler in the road - and he stopped.
He treated and bandaged his wounds. He put him on his donkey and took him to a hotel. He stayed with him through the night and took care of him. And the next day, when he left the injured traveler, he left money with the hotel clerk to pay for him room and to pay for his care.
“Who was his neighbor,” Jesus asked.
Our answer can only be, “The one who should have been his enemy.”
I know I’ve talked about this story before, but I just can’t help thinking of the story Les Miserable by Victor Hugo.
Here was a thief - Jean Valjean. A priest who tried to be a neighbor to Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean had gotten out of prison and the priest gave him a meal and a place to sleep in for the night.
In the middle of the night, Jean Valjean gets up and robs the priest of his silverware. In the morning, Jean Valjean is arrested and brought back to the priest for identification.
He should have recognized him as his sworn enemy, but he doesn’t do that.
He gives Jean Valjean silver candlesticks as well, and encourages Jean Valjean - begs Jean Valjean - to live a different life from his past. And he has provided him the example in how to live, in the way in which he has responded to Jean Valjean.
I told you that Paul Apple had a couple of key points in how we were to love our enemy. The first was not to think we were any better than our enemy.
This is the case with the priest.
Its the same with the 3rd gentleman who discovered the injured traveler in Jesus’ story.
But they have also followed Paul Apple’s second key point. They haven’t let the actions of others determine their response. They could have both behaved very differently with people they understood to be their enemies.
These stories give us some food for thought. They cause us to stop and think about the people we come into contact with daily we understand to be our enemies.
I’m not just talking about those incidental acquaintances we come across infrequently, although we have to consider our actions there as well.
I’m not just talking about those who live in far off countries we never personally come in contact with, although these stories give us some food for thought with them, as well.
No, I’m thinking there are times we are called to love our enemies much closer to home and on a long extended basis. I’m thinking of the neighbor next door we don’t get along with. I’m thinking of the co-worker who seems to have it in for us. I’m thinking of the family member who seems to be bent on destroying our family relationships and making every family reunion a nightmare. These stories of loving our neighbor give us some food for thought about how to go about engaging in our relationships with these people.
I have one more story, and then I’m through. But its an important story, because its about one of you, and an excellent example I think for us all to follow.
One of you recently within the last few years became a Christian for the very first time. When you did, you worked in a place that was very hard to work at. It was hard to work there because of all the back stabbing and emotional under-handedness going on.
When you became a Christian, you decided not to do anything overt, but to let your new found Christianity make a difference in you and how you related to other people. You decided on to be a part of all the mess that was going on at work anymore.
Instead of listening to the gossip about other people during your break, you started going to your vehicle to read your Bible on your break to give you strength.
You didn’t tell anybody that’s what you were doing, you just did it.
You let it be known that going to church was priority to you. So other opportunities that would interfere with your church attendance, you said no to.
You began treating your fellow employees with respect, whether they treated you with respect or not. It wasn’t easy. You put passages of scripture to remind you on the door of your locker. And when you were told you couldn’t post your beliefs on the outside of your locker because your Christian faith might be offensive to others, you moved your little notes to the inside of your locker.
Little by little, over time, you found ways to love and care for people who have been very difficult for you to love.
And little by little, small changes have been made in your relationships with the people you work with.
They have obviously and purposefully began to watch their language in front of you, and they have apologized when they have forgotten to do so.
They have occasionally shared some of their personal concerns with you when doing so with anyone else the two of you work with would have had them crucified by gossip and jest in the break room. But somehow they have come to see you are someone who cares.
And once in a great while, when the discussion turns toward religion or the Bible, they ask you your opinion, because they believe you have an answer they don’t have.
Everything’s not perfect. They haven’t changed who they are. It’s still a difficult place to work sometimes. But the changes you have made in you have planted seeds in other people, and maybe someday they will remember and see, and strive to have for themselves what you have discovered.
You have learned how to begin to love your enemies. I know this is true, because you have told all of this to me.
Let us pray.
Oh Lord,
We first became Christians for ourselves.
We came to love you because your first loved us.
But now we see that part of being a Christian is loving people who are very different from us and very difficult to love.
Just like it had to be for you, when you loved us even though we didn’t know how to love you back.
Jesus, it’s hard to love people we don’t get along with, to love people who are different from us.
We ask for your help. We ask you to remind us next time we come in contact with them. We ask you to put in our minds how to behave, in our mouths what to say, and in our hearts your love for them.
In Jesus name, Amen.
