Luke 6:27-38

The gospel text from Luke continues what is often called “The Sermon on the Plain.” Although the implication is much clearer in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, this sermon in Luke is Jesus’ rearticulation of the Law or Torah. Rather than recapitulating the receiving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, in Luke, Jesus seems to be bringing the invitation to the Way of God down into the plain with the common people. It is important when we think of Torah, that we do not think of it as the rules God gave Israel to meet divine approval. In the imagination of Israel, the Torah is not the way to salvation, the Torah is salvation. In other words, as the people attempted to learn and to live in the pattern of the Law, they were embodying a way of life intended to reverse the brokenness caused by sin and rebellion. If the people would live in the way of Torah, they would become a healing force in the world, and a light of hope and restoration to the nations.

It is important to read Jesus’ rearticulation of the Law in that way. The kind of life he is articulating for disciples is not a way to earn God’s approval so much as it is a way to participate in God’s healing of the world.

One way to read and interpret a scriptural text is to ask three questions of it: What is the problem? What is the solution? And how do we live in the light of that solution?

In this section of the Sermon on the Plain several problems are addressed. The forms of human sin and brokenness named by Jesus is an almost exhaustive list of the things that fragment and divide the world. Here is the list:

1. Animosity and Enmity (6:27a): There are well over 100 references in the Bible to those who are given the title “enemy.” The scripture recognizes not only that there are people whom we might name as an enemy, but it also acknowledges that there will be people who consider us to be their enemies as well.

2. Hatred and Anger (6:27b): From the second generation of Genesis on there is a recognition that humankind is often filled with feelings of loathing and malice for others we consider different, irritating, or detrimental to one’s well-being.

3. Cursing and Damaging (6:28a): In an atmosphere of enmity and anger there will be times when people will attempt to cause evil consequences upon the lives of others. The term “cursing” includes the idea that a people would believe that their enemies deserve divine judgment and that they might even hope or pray that divine destruction would come upon them.

4. Abusing and Exploiting (6:28b): Wherever there are divisions of power, abuse will be a constant temptation for those in a position of dominance. It will often be the case that those with power will misuse that power to exploit or abuse those over whom they have authority.

5. Violence and Coercion (6:29a): Principalities and persons of power will often resort to forms of violence and coercion to shame or threaten people into subservience. The primary political method for principalities and powers to coerce people into behaving or responding “appropriately” is through the threat of physical harm.

6. Litigating and Disputing (6:29b): In the ancient world if debts could not be paid back legislation could be enacted against the debtor that allowed the creditor to take away personal belongings such as a person’s coat or cloak. The first century culture of Jesus had an economy of spiraling indebtedness and obligation.

7. Economic Disparity and Inequality (6:30): The great division between the rich and the poor in the first century created several social problems. Massive poverty left many with no recourse but to beg and hope for the alms and generosity of others. The economic disparity also created a climate of crime where people were pushed into criminal activity as a mode for survival.

8. Judgmentalism and Condemnation (6:37): There is a human proclivity to judge the behavior of others without context or attempt at understanding, while rationalizing and excusing our own bad behavior.

It does not take a great social scientist to recognize these problems and their proliferation in our world. This list names the various forms of brokenness that we experience between one another. So how does the Sermon on the Plain imagine a solution? As is almost always the case, the solution is rooted in the nature and character of God.

First, God is kind. To call God kind is much more than just describing him as nice to “the ungrateful and the wicked.” Divine kindness is rooted in the Old Testament revelation of God as “full of steadfast love.” There is a patience and kindness in God’s character that keeps God from responding to anger with anger, to evil with evil, or to violence with violence. God’s kindness is not based upon the merit of others but extends especially to the undeserving and unworthy.

Secondly, God is merciful. God is not only full of steadfast love, but God is also full of mercy. God’s primary nature is love, and out of that abundant love God enacts forgiveness. Jesus not only taught that God does not give to people what they deserve, Jesus embodied the love and mercy of God on the cross; refusing to respond to human evil, violence, and destructiveness, with divine retribution and anger. Instead, Jesus ended our cycles of violence and destruction by absorbing those forces into himself, thus ending the cycles of retribution, and extending to humankind the transformative realities of divine love and mercy.

If the love and mercy of God at work in the ministry of Jesus is bringing about this new creation, how then should we as disciples respond? Those who call themselves followers of Jesus should also respond in ways that reflect the character in nature of God, so that in our lives we demonstrate that we are children of the Most High. It is interesting that in the Sermon on the Plain the teaching of Jesus assumes that the listeners are victims, not victimizers. Jesus offers no instruction on what to do after striking, stealing, hating, cursing, and abusing others. Such behavior, it is assumed, is foreign to those who live under the reign of God. However, for those who do experience these forms of anger and victimization, Jesus offers imaginative ways to make things new. As many New Testament ethicists argue, in these instructions Jesus is offering disciples creative ways to respond to the sin of others with dignity and honesty, while at the same time ending the cycles of retribution and destructiveness that plague the world.

This pattern of discipleship helps us make sense of the call of Jesus to take up the cross daily and follow him. The pattern of the cross does not simply succumb to the broken and violence in of our world, rather, it exposes it. However, the life of the disciple, filled with the spirit of steadfast love and mercy of God, creatively finds ways to bring healing to a broken world.