Love For Enemies

Luke 6: 27-36 NIV
Love for Enemies
27"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. 30Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. 34And 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. 35But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."

i've been studying this passage of scripture quite a bit over the past week of so. some of these truths have been engrained in most of our heads for quite some time...we 'know' them. but upon digging into each verse, i found so many things i was missing.

for example, in verse 29 Jesus says that if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn and allow them to do the same the other. think about that for a minute. how often have you seen a man get punched in the face, not slapped, but full-on punched...whether it be on tv, in a boxing match, a movie, a high school fight, whatever. for some reason, there is some form of pride involved in getting punched, it's like you pushed the envelope so far, that there was no other means to control you. now, cancel out the idea of getting punched, and instead, think of how often you've seen a man getting slapped in the face. quite a different emotion. i can think of very few things as humiliating that could happen to man than getting a slap in the face. how demoralizing, how defeating, how embarassing. and yet, Jesus says, if you get slapped, don't sink down, don't fight back, but instead turn to give them the other one too.

to take that even further, typically, back in the time of Jesus, a man getting slapped in the face meant that he was basically banished from the temple, the social epicenter of that entire culture. so, Jesus is saying that when you've been banished for the 'place to be'... show love, not anger. wow, talk about a humbling experience.

in the very next sentence, Jesus says that if a man takes your cloak, to give him your tunic too. now, keep in mind, this was a couple years before central air and heat, double pane windows and blown insulation attics...so, bascially, whatever the weather was outside, that's what you had to go with. and i'm guessing that most men didn't have a walk-in closet full of cloaks and tunics. odd are, their one cloak and tunic that they just gave away doubled as their blanket at night. how often are we giving all we own to our enemies?

now, that was a good lesson for me...and honestly, had i finished there, it would have been all the challenge i'd need to keep me busy for a few years. but, i read on, i dug in even more..and the lesson i came upon next might be even harder that the whole 'loving thy enemies' idea.

this brought me to John 6:31...one of the most famous passage in the entire Bible. "Do to others as you would have them do to you." now, i've probably heard that verse, that great rule, between 1,000 and 1,000,000 times over my life...and at first, it just seemed that i'd heard it for yet another time. that is, until suddenly i remembered the context of this passage...Love For Enemies. it doesn't say to treat your best friends as you'd like to be treated, but rather your enemies...still not blown away, hold on.

so basically, that passage is saying to treat our enemy as we want to be treated...big deal, right. sure, but what does that say about our friends, our fellow believers in Christ's love? i think it's saying that we have to hold them to an even higher standard. it's our responsibity to watch them, help guide them, hold them accountable, in a loving way - call them out when they have strayed, 'nag them' for Jesus, if you will. i don't know about you, but suddenly, giving a non-believer all my jackets doesn't seem that difficult. what does seem difficult is having those hard talks with a friend when they are down, veering off course, sinning against God...and also knowing that those accountability issues are there for me too...that when i've lost sight of His love, someone should get in face and call me out on it.

but i guess that's still not as hard to swallow as slap in the face...