Luke 6:35-36 (ESV)
[35] But love your enemies, and
do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great,
and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the
evil. [36] Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
This is the conclusion of a nine-verse
passage in which Jesus tells us to love our enemies, pray for those who abuse
us, and give without expecting anything in return. He continues by saying that
there is no benefit to giving if we expect it to be returned, there is no
profit in loving only those who love us, there is no reward for befriending
those who befriend us. Children of God express mercy as God does. “He is kind
to the ungrateful and the evil.”
This is a hard passage. My first
inclination is to explain why he doesn’t really mean what he says. I reason
that loving my enemies enables their bad behavior. Forgiving my abusers allows
them to get away with it and continue bad behavior. Giving to beggars keeps
them from pursuing a job. But when I really listen to Jesus’ words, my
justifications fall apart. He is not saying that we should enable bad behavior.
Nor is he saying that a spouse should stay in an abusive relationship. He is
simply calling us to live like God.
The problem is, we give lip
service to the idea that we are all sinners, and we need God’s forgiveness
while inconsistently believing that we are not all that bad. We are not like abusers,
beggars, and haters. We are really pretty good after all. If only they were
similarly good, I could love them. We fail to see the depths of our own sin and
where it would take us apart from the grace of God. He loves me even though he
knows the absolute depth of my own depravity.
There is the secret. I cannot forgive,
I cannot love my enemies, I cannot accept those who are taking advantage of me
until I first understand how I am loved by God. I cannot live like God until I first
find my identity in him rather than in my own goodness. It is when I stop
striving to be good enough, and rest in his goodness that I am then able to
offer goodness to those who do not deserve it. It is then that I can forgive even
as I am forgiven.
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