Love that Overcomes Hurt and Hate

Sermon on the Mount

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Sept. 25, 2016

Love that Overcomes Hurt and Hate

³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ³⁹ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹ And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸ You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matt. 5:38-48

Let’s be honest, these are tough verses to swallow. When someone hurts us, we want to hurt them back, don’t we? When someone hates us, it only seems fair to hate them back. But here Jesus calls us not to retaliate when someone hurts us and not to hate someone who hates us.

Does that mean we have to be a pacifist to be a Christian? Or that if we’re in an abusive situation we have to stay in it? Is it wrong to defend ourselves, our family, helpless victims, or our country? Hopefully we’ll get some answers to these questions this morning.

But first I want us to pray together. Whatever Jesus is commanding us to do here, there’s no question that it goes against the grain of our natural response so Jesus once again is calling us to a supernatural kindness and love that we can only receive from God. Rom. 5:5 says that God has poured His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Let’s pray and ask the Lord to pour His love into our hearts so that we can love our enemy and show kindness to those who hurt us.Pray

The verse that Jesus partially quotes from, Exodus 21:24, says that if someone does something that causes serious injury then, you are to take life for life, ²⁴ eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, ²⁵ burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Jesus said he didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it so we know he isn't contradicting or negating the law given in Ex. 21. So when he says "you have heard it said, 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' but I say to you…” he must mean something different than "this part of the law doesn't count anymore." Jesus isn't abolishing the law, he's correcting misguided interpretations of the law by the Pharisees and scribes.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth wasn't meant to be a prescription for personal conduct, it was

meant to guide civic law and courts as they presided over the Israelite community. So, for instance, if your neighbor accidentally or purposely killed one of your livestock, eye for an eye didn't mean you walked over to their property and killed one of his livestock. It meant that you took it to the elders (the court of their day) and they would then, according to this law, make sure the punishment fit the crime. It is actually meant to restrict the courts so that they didn't exact more from the guilty person than the crime deserved. The punishment is to fit the crime. That's a good legal principle that's a foundation to our legal system today. But the Pharisees had misapplied this to mean that it was ok to seek personal retaliation.

Jesus isn't abolishing the civic law of justice nor is he calling us to step aside and allow evil to go unchecked. When he says “don’t resist the one who is evil” he’s not telling us to let evil people do whatever they want. He saying don’t resist evil with evil. God’s word tells us we are to overcome evil with good. We fight evil, we just don’t fight it with the evil of retaliation.

Jesus lays out four examples here and none of them are life threatening or criminal acts. In that day, few things were as insulting as being slapped, but when Jesus says if someone slaps you on the right cheek, because most people are right handed it implies a back handed slap which was consider twice as insulting as a front handed slap. In fact the fine for a back handed slap was twice as much as for a front handed slap because it was twice as demeaning. A slap doesn't cause physical injury, but it does cause humiliation.

The next example is someone suing for your shirt, making a legal claim. The third example is based on Roman law that allowed a Roman soldier to compel the people of a conquered land to carry their pack for one mile - no more, no less. This was terribly humiliating for the Jewish people because it reminded them they were under Roman occupation and because that Jewish man was a slave to the Roman soldier for that mile. The fourth example seems to step out of the wronged category but probably is addressing the stingy and condescending way the Pharisees looked at the poor. They may give, but they did so begrudgingly. Jesus says we should lend without begrudging or looking at the person in need with contempt.

He doesn’t say if someone gouges out your right eye, offer them your left eye as well. These are all relatively minor offenses, causing embarrassment and inconvenience. The law would say don’t retaliate. Bring in the courts to adjudicate. Jesus says with minor offenses, go even further.

The desire to retaliate when we are hurt or humiliated is natural but it’s also a slippery slope. Jesus warns us not to seek retaliation because it saps our hearts of love (which by its nature wants the best for someone) and replaces it with hatred that wants the worst for someone.Retaliating takes our souls to a dark place which is why the Bible says in Rom. 12:19, "Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. God can

handle vengeance without it messing up His heart but it we can't.

Jesus tells us not to retaliate but to leverage the hurt and humiliation to promote love. If someone slaps you, turn your face and give them a clear shot at the other cheek. If they sue for your shirt, give them your coat as well. If they compel you to walk one mile, at the completion of the first mile - which was compelled - volunteer another mile. In each of these cases, you're not just refusing to retaliate, you're giving them more than they took from you. It's a kind of jiu jitsu of love: you're flipping hate on its head by promoting love in the situation. They took the right cheek, you’re offering the left. They took the tunic, you’re offering the cloak. They took the first mile, the second mile is your choice. You’ve taken the energy of their evil and jiu jitsued it into love.

When I used to get into heated arguments, I had this idea that if I said something hurtful enough, they'd realize how wrong they were and apologize. It never worked that way. Hurtful words beget hurtful words. Retaliation begets retaliation. How many marriages are destroyed by two hurt people trying to fix things by out-hurting the other? It's a downward cycle that just gets worse each time around. Jesus says "break the cycle". Respond to hurtful words with kind words. Respond to humiliation with humility. Bring the love of Jesus into the situation and see what God does!

We’re talking revenge and retaliation, not self-defense. The Bible allows for self-defense and encourages us to defend those who cannot defend themselves. Our laws allow for self-defense but draws the line at vengeance. And it has to be proportionate. You can’t kill someone because they stole your phone.

Personally I’m not a pacifist. I believe Christians can defend themselves, can go into law enforcement and fight for their country. If someone tries to hurt my family or someone who isn’t able to defend themselves, I will do everything I can to defend them. I believe that is different than what Jesus is talking about and flows with the idea of not resisting evil with more evil but overcoming evil with good.

“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 sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 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, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:43-48

This portion is a little trickier. The Old Testament does command us to love our neighbor but those pesky Pharisees had subtracted something and added something to that command: it took out that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, and it added that we are to hate our enemy. That's not in there! No where in the Old Testament does it say that we are to hate our enemies so Jesus isn’t contradicting the law of Moses, he’s contradicting the misstating of it by the Pharisees. On the other hand, it is kind of natural that we hate our enemies. That’s why we call them enemies. People who persecute us usually don’t get invited to our birthday parties.

But Jesus reminds us that we are sons (and daughters) of our heavenly Father and that His love isn’t stingy or limited to those who are on His good side. He allows the goodness of the sun to rise on the evil just as much as on the good. He sends rain to those who are unjust as well as those who are just. Our Father shows kindness to those who hate Him. Jesus says, “be like your Father!” And he promises that our Father will reward us if we do. There’s no reward for loving our friends or greeting people we are close to – even people who don’t know God do that. But when we imitate our heavenly Father and love our enemies and pray for them – we are displaying the family resemblance and one day God will reward us for it.

The stronger the grip that our eternal home has on our hearts, the more we long for the inheritance of the saints, the riches of Christ, the kingdom of God, the weaker the grip that vengeance and hatred will have on our hearts and the stronger the grip that the love of God for us and in us for others will become. There’s a lot of hatred and hurt in this world and we will never overcome them by adding more hatred and hurt to it. We overcome hurt and hate by receiving and giving the love of God our Father.

A lot of times our enemies are hurting people. Hurt people hurt people. As we pray for them, we find it harder to hate them, harder to call them our enemy. And sometimes, by loving and praying for them, we can move them out of the enemy category and into the friend category..

That’s what the gospel is all about. While we were enemies of God Christ died for us and now he calls us his friends. Let’s let that sink in. We are Jesus’ friends and children of God.

Pray