June 23, 2002 - LESSON: Matthew 5:43-47, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: How?

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INTRODUCTION:

ILLUSTRATION

A story from William A. Wilson's The Folklore of Mormon Missionaries (Utah State University Press, 1981), which I first saw cited in Martin Marty's Context and which prompted me to read the book:

Two Mormon missionaries approached a pastor attempting to convince him of the benefits of their way of religious life. He responded in the following way:

He said, 'Gentlemen, I have here a glass of poison. If you will drink this poison and remain alive, I will join your church, not only myself but my entire congregation.'

And he said, 'If you won't drink this poison, well, then I'll conclude that you are false ministers of the Gospel, because surely your Lord won't let you perish.'

And as this put the missionaries in kind of a bind, so they went off in a corner and got their heads together, and they thought, 'What on earth are we going to do?'

So finally, after they decided, they went back over and approached the minister and said, 'Tell you what - we've got a plan.' They said, 'You drink the poison, and we'll raise you from the dead.'

  1. Confusing isn't it?
    1. Well, lets make it a little more confusion or perplexing

An adult Sunday School class was studying this very passage of scripture, Matthew 5.43-47. The teacher was doing a great job until one of the members asked a very sticky question.

In response to the teacher's statement that Jesus said, "44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven." the member asked "How?"

The teacher became somewhat flustered and answered. "It says you must love your enemies, you just do it.!"

That left a lot of perplexed people in the class who wanted to know, "How."

    1. The command is there, but how do we do it?
    2. How do we learn to love an enemy and do him or her good?
  1. We ought not to be in awe or put off by questions about "Why?" or "How?"
    1. These are good and beneficial questions that help us to enlarge our understanding of God and the way in which God desires us to learn and grow.
    2. We can begin to learn how by playing a little word game of opposites.

OPPOSITES:

Light            Up

Open            In

Wet                Black

Woman        Love

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MAIN BODY:

  1. If we are going to understand the How of loving one's enemies, we need to understand some of the basics of love?
    1. Love is a swampy word.
      1. We love inanimate objects.
      2. We love food.
    2. We do often equate love as feeling.
    3. The feelings of affection.
  2. We have no difficulty loving the lovable.
    1. Tax Collectors do that
    2. Brothers and sisters do that.
  3. How do we love the unlovable?
    1. The person called the "enemy."
      1. The person who opposes, in any way.
        1. We have lots of examples of opposition
          1. religious conflicts
          2. Social conflicts
          3. Economic conflicts.
          4. More specifically anyone who threatens violence to your person or your possessions.
        2. I have talked with those who say they have no enemies.
        3. That is not true.
      2. We have a similar situation to the man who questioned Jesus about who was his neighbor.
      3. (Luke 10:25-30 NRSV) Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
        1. {26} He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?"
        2. {27} He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."
        3. {28} And he said to him, "You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live."
        4. {29} But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
        5. {30} Jesus replied (with a story), "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.
          1. Parable of the Good Samaritan.
          2. Jews and Samaritans were bitter enemies.
          3. Does this help to provide a basis understanding?
    2. How may we come to love the enemy?
  4. There are some things that we need to understand.
    1. We need to understand the meaning of love.
      1. Love is a principle on which relationships are to be based.
        1. Love wills the other's good, friend and enemy alike, whether we like the person or not.
        2. Love is the intellectual basis for decision-making.
    2. The opposite of love is not hate, but apathy.
      1. Love creates an I--Thou relationship
      2. Hate establishes an I---Thou relationship.
      3. Apathy creates an I--It relationship.
    3. God can command us to love.
      1. A new commandment I give you that you love one another as I have loved you.
      2. Love is a matter of will for other's good whether we like the other or not.
    4. God cannot command us to like.
      1. God cannot command the affections.
      2. God cannot command us to regulate our feelings.
    5. Like is filled with emotional content.
      1. It is sensory
      2. It is satisfying.
    6. We need to understand the meaning of the opposite of love.
      1. There was a time when a person would come to me and say, "I don't care what you say, I am going to do what I want to do."
        1. I would say, "I don't care."
      2. I realized that I cared, often very deeply, so I decided to change my response to:
        1. "I don't mind."
        2. I don't mind means that you are allowed to be your person and to do what it is you want to do whether it is harmful or helpful.

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  1. We need to understand the impact that hate has on us.

I'll Pass This Time -- Another example of witness-consciousness is provided by restaurateur Lee Wood. He tells the following story:

"Once Buddha had a young man as a follower or disciple, and the young man's father hated the fact that his son was wasting his time following this guru. The more the man thought of it, the more enraged he became, until finally he went to Buddha and began to yell and scream at him, telling Buddha how terrible and wicked he was and calling him every foul thing. The man went on for a very long time, but Buddha just sat very quietly not saying anything. Finally, the man became quiet and Buddha asked him, "Have you finished?" And the man replied, "Yes." Then Buddha said, "Well then, I would like to ask you only one question." The man said okay. Then Buddha asked, "What happens to the food when you prepare a feast for someone and he doesn't come?" The man thought for a moment and replied, "Well, you wind up eating the food yourself." Then Buddha said, "You have just prepared a feast for me, and I don't intend to eat it." --Michael Ray, Creativity in Business, (New York: Dell Publishing, 1989), p. 50.

HOSTILITY AND HOSPITALITY - Bruce Larson tells about a Christian friend who was trying to learn to express hostility.

This man had never let his anger show. He knew, though, it was eating him up.

So he decided the next time he was mad he would express it.

One morning he woke up with a grim look on his face and his wife said, "What's the matter?"

The man replied, "I HATE YOU!!!" (Pause.) "Of course, I hate everybody..."

(Another pause.) "...but if I start loving anybody again, you'll be first."

  1. We need to understand the impact that love may have on our life and the lives of all other people with whom we live and associate.
    1. Love has the power to transform personal lives.
      1. If I truly love myself, I will want what is best for the self.
      2. If I truly love another person, I will want what is best for the other person.
      3. Even for my enemies.
    2. There is tremendous power can be applied to all relationships.

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  1. Also I need to be able to see that thought hate is strong, love is stronger.

From today's headlines: Is there a more appropriate carol for our time than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Christmas Bells" ("I heard the bells on Christmas Day")? He wrote it for Christmas 1863, and the poem reflects the horrors of the Civil War:

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The Carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men!"

CONCLUSION:

  1. The right can prevail
    1. Code of the People Who Do Good
      1. Live in the present; you cannot change the past only influence the future.
      2. Encourage goodness in others; show that you care by attitude, word and deed.
      3. Have the courage to improve whatever can be made better, rather than accepting things as they are.
      4. Treat all people as you would like to be treated.
      5. Always respect the other person's intelligence, but never overestimate another's information.
      6. Do what needs to be done today; finish what was not completed tomorrow.
      7. Accept responsibility.
      8. Seek an answer to every question, when there is no apparent answer learn to live with doubt until an answer may be found.
      9. Take positive action whenever required; never wait for someone else to do what needs to be done.
      10. Go the second mile to assure achievement of a goal or the completion of a project.
      11. Follow up to make sure that the task is well done.
    2. 43"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
    3. So that you may be children of your Father in heaven.
    4. Let us be true and faithful children.

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