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Week Twenty, Day Five

Luke 6:27-36

If love is the one true commandment of Jesus, then, here, Luke offers the specifics of how that is to be expressed. Being a disciple of Jesus would have been a whole lot easier if Jesus had simply left it at “Love!” Instead, we find Jesus telling us to love our enemies, even those who hate us. We are commanded to bless those who curse us and pray for those who abuse us. Further, he makes this the distinctive sign that we are one of his disciples. Anything less and we are acting like everyone else.

Frankly, I wish tithing was the distinguishing sign. As difficult as it may be to give away my money, it is even more difficult to give away my heart. Here Jesus is specifying that we are to give our hearts to those who broke it in the first place. It seems like spiritual masochism to me. I mean, think about the one person in your life who hurt you the most. Who is it that betrayed you? Who is it that tried to destroy you? Lied about you? Hurt the people closest to you? Who is it that still to this day would hurt you if they could? Got that person in mind? Now listen as Jesus tells you to love them, bless them, pray for them. Hear Jesus telling you that if you don’t you are no different that they are. Ouch.

As I often say, “Everyone thinks forgiveness is a good idea, until they have someone to forgive.” Many people think that the phrase “Forgive and Forget” is found in the Bible. It is not. In fact, Jesus teaches us that we have to forgive and remember. We are not called by Jesus to simply put our hurts behind us, or to put what happened out of our minds. No, we are to remember. We are to recognize that it wasn’t a misunderstanding or an honest mistake. We need to recognize that we have an enemy who wants to hurt us, maybe even destroy us. Then, we are to love that enemy, bless them and pray for them.

Jesus says, “Blessed are you when people hated you, excluded you, reviled you, defamed you.” He isn’t saying that we need to rationalize or justify their harmful attitude, words or actions. He is saying that if we are blessed people we recognize the hurt and then we have an attitude toward them that doesn’t come easily or naturally. Jesus isn’t calling us to love a faceless enemy half a world away. Jesus is telling us that those who are disciples of his picture the person who personally hurt them the most and then we love them. If you think love is an easy commandment to keep then you haven’t read Jesus’ definition of whom we are to love.

Blessings,

Michael Piazza
President, Hope for Peace & Justice

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