“You have heard the law that says, ‘Love
your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! 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. If you love only those who love
you, what reward is there for that? Even
corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your
friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even
as your Father in heaven is perfect. Matthew 5:43-48 (NLT)
Jesus’ words are something of a
stinging reminder of what we’re not…most of the time. Indeed, the bar is set pretty high; who wants
to return good for evil? Yet, that’s
just what Christ did, and commands how His disciples must live. John Wesley called it being perfected in love. Not perfect, as without flaw, but acting in the love of God.
Not easy! But the life which impacts other lives for
good is never an easy ride. It’s much
easier to take pleasure in seeing the bad guy “get his”.
I watched a movie once where two
characters were debating the act of retribution. One said to the other: I’m Old Testament; there’s nothing wrong
with ‘an eye for an eye’. Well,
of course that’s right; God is the author quoted there. Jesus, however, pointed out that only
God is able to do that; we are not so equipped as to judge justly.
And so, if retribution and retaliation
are not our purview, how now shall we live?
To what do we give ourselves?
Down through the centuries Christ’s Sermon
on the Mount has pointed us to the higher road of opposites. We are not to live as slave to our natural
impulses to anger, retaliation, confusion, unbelief, despair and sad darkness;
our lives are to reflect the light which comes from above. We are to be, as Matthew the Tax Collector
recorded Jesus’ words, true children of our Father in heaven.
That demands a life of polar
opposites.
For You, Today…
I leave you, child of the Father in
heaven, to chew on the magnificent prayer of the peacemaker; the prayer of one
who would live in polar opposition to the low call:
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where
there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt,
faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to
understand; to be loved as to love. For
it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.[1]
No comments:
Post a Comment