Introduction

Morning all. It’s Paul here, great to share with you this morning. It feels that this virus affected way of living is really dragging on now and none of us can claim to not be affected. I have to take this opportunity to say thanks to Jason and all those who have been contributing to these virtual sessions and keeping us sane. It’s been so consoling to see the familiar faces of our fellowship rising to the challenge. I certainly yearn for the day we are all back together. I think special thanks to the Napper family for combining so much creativity with the behind the scenes technical wizardry to make much of this happen. And I have to say, I think the genre of socially distant game shows in garage compounds is a whole new format that could really take off!
So today it’s my turn for the talky bit and it’s my privilege to share with you this passage from the Gospel of Matthew. We’re in a familiar passage from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. If you want to look it up it’s Matthew 5 v 43-48. Jesus has just talked about offering the other cheek, your shirt, giving your time and resources and now comes out with this...

43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbour’[a] and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies![b] Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. 46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. 47 If you are kind only to your friends,[c] how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. 48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

This passage is well known.
I imagine Audrey will have coached Eunice in these verses ready for her scripture exams.
Claudette will have been to a Woman's Own session at least one Wednesday afternoon on this passage.
And I’d be surprised if Joy’s home group have never come across this passage in one of their fabulous studies!

So if you’ve been a Christian for any length of time the chances are you will have come across this and the immediately preceding passage. The general gist is this:Don’t hate your enemies, but show love. Those that have it in for you, don’t retaliate but be Godly.

It’s great advice and sits well with us as we consider good Christian principles. I remember as a keen young teenage convert having the opportunity to put this into practical action. Well the paragraph just before this actually, but you’ll see. I went to the CYFA youth group that met at St. Stephen’s church. This was back in the day when foolishly the youth were allowed to organise all sorts of things themselves. It was bonfire night and we’d organised a fire and fireworks party in the car park of St. Stephen’s. This was before the vicarage was built on the car park, so a bit more space was available. Across from the other side of the car park some trouble arose with a few of the kids from ‘the estate’. Of course being a bit larger than most of my mates I went over to sort it out. I quickly engaged in a robust conversation with one particular yob who wanted to cause a bit of havoc with our fire. Intervening proved to turn a bit physical and the chap slapped me with a fair wallop across my face. The act brought me to my senses and the realisation that now was the time to put my faith into practice. I remembered the sermon on the mount - all that stuff about not pulverising your enemies but turning the other cheek, offering your shirt or hot dog or whatever it was it said. So I went for it. With the courage and vision of Stephen the first martyr I offered the young rouge my other cheek. After a few moments of befuddled confusion in the eyes of my aggressor, he realised I was serious and struck by the profound spiritual implications of the moment, dropped to the floor in repentance and went away praising the Lord. No.

There was the moment of befuddled confusion, no doubt taking on board the offer of the cheek. But of course what he decided was indeed to take up my offer and walloped me good and proper to even up my bruise before going off laughing into the billowing smoke!There is of course no great spiritual point to that story, apart from maybe a warning of taking some passages too literally, but even now my naivety still makes me chuckle!Anyway - if the passage is new to you too, then please do look for opportunities to show that love.

But in the intervening years since my youth I have come back to the Sermon on the Mount several times and each time I’m struck that this passage is somewhat more involved and radical than I may have thought. Here’s some of my questions….Does loving your enemies mean sitting back and letting them persecute you? Its fair to say that it’s always bothered me a bit that many think of Christians as being somewhat pathetic and, well, wet.
What about those wars I’ve read about, with both sides claiming God on their side - how does that work out? How does God choose?And who are your enemies anyway? I’m not really at war with anyone, so does this even apply to me?And when you look a bit deeper it says ‘that you may be children of your Father in heaven’. Does that mean that if I fail then I’m not good enough for heaven?‘Sun on evil and good’ Why is life not fair? Does God really bless all, surely some don’t deserve it.

There was the moment of befuddled confusion, no doubt taking on board the offer of the cheek. But of course what he decided was indeed to take up my offer and wallopped me good and proper to even up my bruise before going off laughing into the billowing smoke!

There is of course no great spiritual point to that story, apart from maybe a warning of taking some passages too literally, but even now my naivety still makes me chuckle!Anyway - if the passage is new to you too, then please do look for opportunities to show that love.

But in the intervening years since my youth I have come back to the Sermon on the Mount several times and each time I’m struck that this passage is somewhat more involved and radical than I may have thought. Here’s some of my questions….Does loving your enemies mean sitting back and letting them persecute you? Its fair to say that it’s always bothered me a bit that many think of Christians as being somewhat pathetic and, well, wet.

So let’s have a closer look. What’s going on here?
Firstly this whole passage is about Christian living. Let's remember the basics. You are a Christian because you accept Jesus as Lord - that is salvation. This is then about how we show that we’ve been saved. So. If you fail in loving your enemies - that doesn’t mean you’re out! Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord? Then job done, by God’s grace we are saved. There is nothing you can then do to either confirm your salvation, to upgrade, or prove your worth of salvation. Salvation is a gift of God.

And oh how much I’d prefer it if I could try a bit harder and it would make a difference! Fill up the bank account for when I really needed it or allow myself that little bit of one upmanship when I wanted to show my worth. But no. Reality is that God has given us salvation, there is no earning it. You’re either a friend of Jesus or not.

So I repeat, this passage is not about getting saved, but how we go about living as a result of being saved. And although when you read it, you may think that Jesus is bringing in a new idea or standard here, no he’s not! Jesus says ‘You have heard it said, ‘love your neighbour and hate your enemy’. If you have one of those fancy bibles or a clever app, you may well find that this has one of those funny little squiggles next to it, referencing a passage that Jesus is quoting. I quite rightly guessed it was a Leviticus kind of quote - Leviticus 19 in fact. But what I overlooked is that the quote isn’t the entire phrase. I assumed that these old rules tell us to love our neighbours and hate our enemies. But no, the quote is just the love your neighbour bit. You see what had happened here was that since Leviticus was written, time had moved on, new challenges had arisen that weren’t neatly catered for. It’s a bit like trying to look in the bible for the verse that says how much screen time is acceptable in lockdown, it just ain’t there! So what had happened since those early days is that those who knew best interpreted what was written. The tradition known as the oral law had grown up over time, administered by the likes of the Pharisees. A bit like case law in our modern day. This was the interpretation of the law. Man’s take on what God really meant. And funnily enough, doing that tends to give it something of a worldly twist. The balance between love and justice tends toward the ‘protect my interests’ side of the coin. And so it was here. The command to love your neighbour, had been balanced by the fair and proper thought to hate your enemies. But Jesus shows us that there is another way, the Godly way. If your perspective is one that looks at the world as God does, then actually you will love your enemies.

It may not surprise you that I’m not as Godly as God, or even many other people I know to be fair! That means that even when I try I don’t love as God does all the time. Pride or jealousy or one upmanship shows itself at some point. And it’s then that we need to come back to God in repentance. So I’m saved, but need to come back to God regularly.
However, that doesn’t mean that I do just what I want either. If we do accept Jesus as Lord, then we will want to do His will - act like God. As Jesus says, act, put your faith into action so that you may be known as God’s children.

So how do we go about this being children of God? Well as all children that I’ve encountered seem to know so well, we need to ask and spend time.
And I guess it follows… to do things in a Godly way, we need to at least have some understanding of where God is coming from. We need to take the view point of God. Best way of doing that? Let God get inside your head. Get to know Him, spend time with Him. Use all the resources we have to teach our heart (Rom 12 verse 2) urges us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. That means spend time, set it aside to be with God, to soak Him in.

So we may start to see the world through God’s eyes - His perspective when I look at my enemies. But hang on, who are my enemies and how do I love them? Is it my neighbour who has been playing music loudly since even before lockdown? Or is it that terrorist group that clearly does wrong or even that country that doesn’t acknowledge God?

It may be that you’re very clear who your enemies are. If you’ve been bullied, for instance, then there may be quite a legacy, even if it's supposedly finished / over with.
However, for others of us, it may be quite hard to work out an exact enemy. We’re not at war and even if we were, what if both sides sincerely think that God is on their side?
Well I do think it comes back to who God is and how He so well balances love and justice.
Our passage reads: ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’. Taking the second half of that verse, those who oppress or bring hardship require action. Prayer helps us to keep God’s perspective even in some of the most horrendous situations. I’m sure at some point all of us will suffer the unexplainable grief that comes from loved ones dying too early or as many are unfortunately encountering now, without the chance to say goodbye. It may well feel as harsh as persecution. Prayer helps our faith by drawing us near to God, listening to His beating heart as He hugs us, drawing us close, enveloping us. Prayer ensures we act right. But prayer is only the second half of Jesus’s command. The first is to love. Love requires action. You can not love someone who is suffering and still do nothing. You have to act.

What clues do we have as to God’s love and action. Well it reads, ‘He causes his sun to rise on the evil and good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous’. Do not love just those that love you, that is far too easy, but love all. As God does. That is the perfection we are asked to achieve. So love our enemies is really everyone. It’s for us to want God’s best for everyone, every single person. That’s no ambivalent, roll over and accept it type of faith. That, I believe takes guts and self denial.

And of course it’s hard to have faith in God to that kind of level. We like to surround ourselves with stuff that reminds us of our own self worth. We find security in things. It’s no surprise that in a time of trial when we can’t have such easy access to stuff, we get a bit tetchy. We live in a world that is obsessed by extending life, making the most of our lot. That is why for many the prospect of a virus that unfairly robs us of all this is a thought of absolute horror. Yes, we should take appropriate measures, but we should also take God’s perspective and worry about having God’s stamp on our lives just as much.

And so as we think about this approach it strikes me that this is anything other than passive. It is no wet weekend to stand up for the best that God would have. That may mean having some tough conversations. That may mean going out of our comfort zones. That may mean changing some of our priorities. That may mean not clinging to some of our possessions. I wonder how many wars where ‘God is on my side’ would be different if it was actually God those in power were thinking of and not their own self interest, egos, possession and power?

Rather we should act justly, root out the log of evil, as Jason said last week, in our lives before worrying about the twig in others. Pray for others, pray for the best that God could bring. And even if you have been wronged, then rather than seeking revenge through retaliation, becoming more and more self obsessed and trapped in hate. Rather pray, forgive. For forgiveness brings freedom to both the wrong doer and the victim.

So in these time when you may very quickly be identifying enemies who don’t treat the toothpaste, toilet seat, song selection the same as us, may we pray for them, forgive, pray God’s best for them.

For we were all once enemies of God (Romans 5 ) 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.

In that new relationship we have the power of love. If you get the chance read through 1 John. Its a small book nearly at the back cover of your bible. In it John explains how love redeems, transforms and brings us closer to the image of God that we were created to be.

Lets pray.