“Low Expectations?” Colchester Federated Church, February 23, 2025, Seventh Sunday after Epiphany (Luke 6:27-38)

As we continue hearing Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Plain, there are some challenging teachings before us.  Jesus shared the Golden Rule: “treat people in the same way that you want them to treat you.”  We also heard Jesus say: “Give to everyone who asks and don’t demand your things back from those who take them.”  “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.”  “Be compassionate just as [God] is compassionate.”  “Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”[1] 

Now there could easily be a sermon series on this section of the Sermon on the Plain.  The Golden Rule.  Loving your enemies.  Being compassionate.  Not judging.  Forgiveness.  These are complex teachings.

Because it’s easy to talk about loving your enemies until your enemy terrorizes you every day.  And it’s easy to talk about being compassionate until a loved one is hurt.  And it’s easy to talk about forgiveness until something happens that seems unforgivable.  It’s why we sometimes debate whether Jesus meant for these teachings to apply solely to his audience (the crowd he was seeing that day on the level ground) or if Jesus intended these words to apply to those who would one day follow in his footsteps.

These teachings can change our lives.  Though they do need interpreted.  Did Jesus have expectations that his followers would live up to these teachings fully?  Maybe his expectations should have been lowered a bit considering how often we mess up and get things wrong and cannot always be who God calls us to be.

For instance, Jesus says, “If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other one as well.”[2]  Now do we believe that Jesus intended for people to allow themselves to be abused?  Letting someone continue to harm us also harms the person perpetuating violence.  Because violence takes a toll on everyone.  Jesus was brilliantly challenging the notion of an eye for an eye which was a common form of justice.  Some still believe that an eye for an eye is justified.  And here’s Jesus demanding love and forbidding retaliation in order to have a community structured on kingdom of God values.

Violence met with violence often leads to more violence.  We see this all the time.  Of course, self-defense is a different matter.  But we’ve seen how violence can spin out of control.  Violent words can lead to violent actions.  It’s important to remember Jesus preaching love of enemies.  It’s not something that is easy to hear, let alone live out.  It would be great if Jesus’ didn’t have such seemingly high expectations of us.  We also keep in mind Jesus’ most important command to love God, love our neighbors, and love ourselves in the midst of the Sermon on the Plain.

Jesus further talks about not judging and you will not be judged, not condemning and you will not be condemned.  These words remind us that only God can ultimately judge human beings.  When we find ourselves feeling pretty high and mighty and judging other people, Jesus reminds us to leave the judging to God. 

These teachings have a way of disarming everyone.  That is part of the point as we are in this together here on the level ground before Jesus.  This part of the Sermon on the Plain also includes Jesus’ teaching to “be compassionate just as [God] is compassionate.”[3]  Mercy and compassion are complex.  In the book Speaking Christian New Testament scholar Marcus Borg argues over the usage of the words mercy vs. compassion.  Borg thought that mercy implies that we should forgive people who have offended us just as God forgives us.  But for many, mercy is too narrow a concept.  To get to the heart of what we mean in our Christian faith, we are called to be compassionate as God is compassionate.  Borg writes, “Mercy is a reactive virtue; we are called to be merciful on those occasions when we have been wronged.  Compassion covers a much larger area of life, indeed, all of life; we are to be compassionate.”[4] 

Jesus came that we may have life, and have life abundantly.  Living lives mired in anger and revenge is not fully living because it’s not embracing God’s compassion.  It’s not living into God’s hopeful expectations.  These teachings are meant to give us new life and a new way to be in the world as God’s beloved children.  Some of the words of the Peace Prayer (often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi) come to mind:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.[5]

The invitation of Jesus as he continued preaching the Sermon on the Plain is the way of love.  The radical way of love, not some cheesy rom-com version way of love.  The call to be instruments of God’s peace.  The call to sow love in the face of hatred.  Loving your enemies?  That’s incredibly difficult.  Not responding to violence with more violence?  Choosing love makes us strong.  Treating people the same way that we want them to treat us?  But what if we don’t like them?  Yet, there will be people who don’t like us.  I mean, what’s their problem?  But still—we would still hope to be treated with respect.  These lessons Jesus taught are meant to transform us because they fundamentally change the way human beings are prone to react.  Jesus was giving us another way of being in the world, helping to raise our expectations of ourselves as his disciples.

As hard as it is to live out these teachings, remember that we aren’t in this alone.  We remember this on the day of our congregation’s Annual Meeting.  We remember as we reflect on the good that we have done and will do together.  In the end, Retired Bishop of the Episcopal Church Michael Curry reflected, “If God is love, and love is an action, you’ve only got to get out there and do it.  You’ve got to get out there and receive it.  And the easiest way to do that is to become part of a community of people who want to give and receive love, to liberate themselves from the tyranny of self to look outward.  From a small gesture to a large sacrifice, every day provides an opportunity to do love, so long as you’re not living a life in isolation.  And if you’ve got a loving community, you can rest in God’s hands anytime you need to.”[6]  What a gift.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Luke 6:31, 30, 27, 36, and 37, CEB.
[2] Luke 6:29.
[3] Luke 6:36.
[4] Marcus Borg, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power and How They Can Be Restored, 130.
[5] Peace Prayer, https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/prayer/traditional-catholic-prayers/saints-prayers/peace-prayer-of-saint-francis/
[6] Michael B. Curry, Love is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times.

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