Luke 6: 27-38

I got a new watch last week. It’s a smartwatch. That is no measurement of its owner. I’ve needed a new watch for a while. My birthday was approaching, and April suggested that as a gift for me. I agreed. I like it a lot.

Numbers, to some degree, fascinate me. I studied mathematics to the extent of getting decent grades in geometry, but I wouldn’t dare go any further. The use of numbers and statistics to measure trends or successes or failures always interested me. I guess it started by watching my older brother pour over sports statistics when we were kids, particularly baseball stats. It all drew me closer to sports and my relationships with my brother and father.

Back to my new smartwatch, the thing that fascinates me about the watch is my use of it to track my pulse rate, blood pressure, body temp, blood oxygen level and my sleep pattern. In effect, I can take a snapshot generally speaking of my vital signs. These verses this morning is the checking of our vital signs as children of God.

Jesus continued to preach from a level place as he did last week and said, “I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. . . If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. . . But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6: 27, 32, 35-36)”

How are your vital signs? I went to see our favorite doctors to address something simple in me. I left after being told I need to keep a watch on my blood pressure and my weight. Keep a watch, right? This is why getting a smartwatch interested me. The watch doesn’t replace having professionals check me out, but the watch helps me keep a general awareness on how my vitals look. A general awareness is better than no awareness at all. These verses from Luke help us keep a general awareness of how we are doing in the practice of love. Simply reading these verses doesn’t fix us to loving our enemies as we should. These verses prompt us to check our vital signs in the faith.

A commentary I found on these verses expressed, “Jesus tells his disciples what they expect of God, who Jesus tells them is generous and merciful, must determine how we relate to others. Again, Jesus’ point is that if we are God’s children, we shall live as God lives in relation to us. To know God’s forgiveness and generosity means that we are ourselves God’s forgiving and generous children.” The apostle John wrote in his first letter in 1 John 4: 17: “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.” This is Jesus’ intent in what we hear him say today. We are God’s forgiving and generous children.

In Greek there are three words for love. Eros describes passionate, romantic love. Philo describes love as warm affection of the heart for friends and family. Agape is the word in Luke 6 – an active feeling of benevolence towards the other person no matter what that person does to us; we will never allow ourselves to desire anything but his or her highest good, even if she or he insults, ill-treats and injures us, we will seek nothing but that person’s highest good.

Orion Hutchenson, in the Cokesbury Basic Bible Commentary on Luke, wrote, “These verses on the nature of love (agape, the self-giving highest form of love) portray a radically new concept of love, but one which is rooted in the nature and action of God. Our model and motivation are not the tendencies of others around us or impulses within us, but the divine spirit flowing to and through us.” All the commentaries I read about these verses all expressed the same essence: We are to imitate the One who loved us first.

In these verses love is something to be initiated by us, not simply a response made by us. Jesus’ followers are to love not based on love received or expected but as those called to share love regardless of receptivity or consequence. We love not to obtain love, but simply out of priviledge and desire to love because we really know what love is if we’ve experienced God’s kind of love.

William Barclay, in his Daily Bible Study of the gospel of Luke, wrote, “This love we bear to our dear ones (in Greek, philo) is something we cannot help. We speak of falling in love (in Greek, eros); it is something which happens to us. But this love (agape) towards our enemies is not only something of the heart; it is something of the will. It is something which by the grace of Christ we may will ourselves to do.” We’re called to love intentionally, not as part of a transaction, and to love as to imitate the one who loves us.

Barclay also wrote that this passage has in it two great facts about the Christian ethic. First, the Christian ethic (the body of values for a particular group) is positive. Barclay wrote, “The very essence of Christian conduct is that it consists, not in refraining from bad things, but in activity doing good things. Second, the Christian ethic is based on the extra thing.” He goes on: “So often people claim to be just as good as their neighbors. It is not our neighbor with whom we must compare ourselves: we may well stand that comparison very adequately; it is God with whom we must compare ourselves; and in that comparison we are all in default. What is the reason for this Christian conduct? The reason is that it makes us like God. That is the way he acts. God is kind to the person who brings him joy and equally kind to the one who grieves God’s heart. God’s love embraces saint and sinner alike. It is that love we must copy. If we, too, seek even our enemy’s highest good we will in truth be the children of God.” The reality of this love we speak about and discuss this Sunday is the love that forgives and is merciful even when there is no effort made by those who refrain from asking for forgiveness or mercy.

The old preacher would tell the story of a church he knew in which two sisters were members. One would sit in the front row of the right side of the sanctuary, and the other would sit on the front row of the left side. They would sing and participate in the liturgy every Sunday with mean expressions on their faces. Once visiting as a guest preacher, the old preacher came to find out these sisters had a disagreement years before. The preacher said to the deacon who told him about the women, “It’s good thing they don’t live together.” The deacon said to the preacher, “Oh, but they do!” The old preacher spoke to the one sister. She freely shared of her Christian devotion and how willing she was to forgive her sister. But her sister never asked to be forgiven. How can you forgive someone if that someone never asks to be forgiven. He went to the other sister. He heard pretty much the same thing. “I’m willing to forgive my sister, but she’s never asked to be forgiven.” So they sit on opposite sides of the church, each willing for the other to take the initiative to create reconciliation. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus did not wait for us to come to Him to ask for forgiveness. The Bible tells us that while we were yet in our sin He came and gave Himself on the cross. We have a God who, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can teach us to imitate Him and take the initiative by creating a spirit of forgiveness, restoring broken relationships.

We live in a world where enemies appear to be ruthless, violent and vengeful. When we hear these words from Jesus we’re inclined to shrink in our seats or recall circumstances or encounters in our lives with people who were impossible to love. So often in the history of the Christian church, such circumstances have shaped our unwillingness to show love and mercy to such people. We’ve allowed the dominant culture to influence our passions and faithfulness. We become more focused on our own salvation and self-righteousness rather than to openly struggle with some of these hard sayings of Jesus which challenge our twisted ethics that justify the killing of enemies instead of the loving of the same. How are your vital signs now?

The vital sign is – how’s your love doing? The love expressed here in Luke 6 was first expressed as the crowd gathered, both Jew and Gentile, religious and non-religious, on a level place to hear Jesus teach and to be healed by him. Prior to that, this love was expressed verses earlier in Jesus’ healing of a man in synagogue on the Sabboth when no one could do any work. Prior to that, this love was shown with Jesus telling a paralytic man brought before him that his sins were forgiven and to get up and walk which he did. This self-giving highest form of love was expressed to those deserving and undeserving, those who cried out and those who kept their mouths shut. There were shown and made well by the forgiving and merciful love of God, and now Jesus taught his listeners and disciples to do the same. To do the same. How’s your love doing? Your love expressed as an imitation of God in you is your vital sign of being a child of the Most High. Love as you’ve already been loved.

(Preached at Lincoln UMC in Lincoln, AL, February 20, 2022)