C, Epiphany 7 - Luke 6:27–38 "On Being Merciful, Perfect, & Holy"
There are a lot of commands laid out here by Jesus in the Gospel reading before us. Love your enemies, do good, bless, pray for those who abuse you. Offer the cheek to those who strike you, do not withhold your tunic. Give, do not demand back. Love, do good, lend, and expect nothing. Be merciful even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, condemn not, forgive, and give. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Jesus makes seventeen demands in this text.
He goes on to say, “For
no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes,
nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.
The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and
the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the
abundance of the heart his mouth speaks”.
(Luke 6:43–45 ESV)
Sitting down to write this sermon proved interesting as
there was commotion going on in the manse yard.
Our dog was excited by all the noise as chaps from the church assisted a
fellow removing trees from the gardens.
And there I sat trying to write a sermon on mercy, while outside no
mercy was being shown to the pencil pine that had to go because it had outgrown
its position and was lifting the paths and fence around it. And out back trees were being removed so
fruit trees can be planted with the hope of getting a sweet crop.
A member who will remain unnamed, but use to be an
accountant, asked me if the activity around the manse was inspiring me with my
sermon writing. I told him it’s hard to
write a sermon on mercy when trees were mercilessly being chopped down. To which, with a cheeky grin, he replied,
“it’s for the greater good of the pastor.”
This made me ponder why Jesus has given us these seventeen
rules! Has he done so for the “greater
good” or is there another point being made?
What fruit is being produced by doing these seventeen demands? If it is for some greater good, what is this
greater good?
Thinking about trees, now chopped down and cleared away, I
know I didn’t hate those trees. In fact,
they looked quite good. But I know the
pine out the front was going to cause ongoing problems that the parish would
not love addressing. And as for the
trees on the back fence having to go, I love the pleasure of growing and
picking one’s own produce more.
Jesus’ first command is to love your enemies. But what if they bear bad fruit as the text
says? Am I to somehow love them, for the
greater good? Anyway, what is the
greater good, the summum bonum, the
ultimate of all goodness? What would my
motives be for doing so, and what measure would I use to determine how to love
them.
It’s here I realise loving my enemy is difficult, to say
the least. I am unsettled by the fact
that perfectly good trees are cut down for reasons that might be based more on
my desire being deemed “the greater good’ or the desire of the parish to not
have the “greater evil” by getting rid of the pencil pine now. And these are non-issues, compared to my
desire to have little to nothing to do with one that might be considered as an
enemy.
If my thought process is so fickle, and I can deem my enemy as a bad tree, what is
to stop them from considering me the same?
Perhaps I’m a tree that’s lost its purpose and needs to be chopped down
in the scheme of someone else’s greater good!
Whose greater good is more important?
World Wars have started over thinking like this!
Our motives are exposed like raw nerves by Jesus in this
text. He shows us we are constantly
investing ourselves, our time, and our possessions in schemes that will benefit
ourselves. It may be for financial gain,
acceptance of others, a selfish desire to smooth things over, creating a
pseudo-peace, because we don’t want to give the time or effort to open and heal
wounds in need of healing. Our motives
seem to follow the path of least resistance to pleasure within.
This being the case, then, how do I love my enemies? How do we as a community under Christ, love
our enemies?
Jesus says, “Be
merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36 ESV)
In Matthew’s account Jesus says, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
(Matthew 5:48 ESV)
Jesus here points us to the Law. Jesus’ call, to be merciful and perfect, is
the same as God’s call to be holy.
Jesus is reflecting what God said through Moses to the
people of Israel. “For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy,
for I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44 ESV)
Jesus calls us to cleanse ourselves of anything that
defiles his holiness.
Why does God the Father and Jesus demand holiness? The short answer is because he loves us and
wants to preserve life? This is the life
he has given to us in love, and he wills us to have for each other.
This love is not love for myself or my motives. But it’s a love that brings a community
together in God’s presence, where there is perfect peace, where God gives,
where we receive together with joy, and where we worship him with fervent love for
loving us.
Jesus reinforces God’s call to be holy, through being
perfect and merciful, to reveal the lies of our love, no matter how great we
think our good is, or how bad our evil actually is. There are no lies in God’s love and
holiness. All is brought out into the
light by Jesus.
As much as we, who are in Christ, have been given the holy
will to be merciful, perfect, and holy to please the Father, we cannot be this
by our own effort. Jesus was incarnate
in our human flesh, he lived a perfect and merciful life, and died in all
holiness, because through our love, we cannot do it.
So, should we give up striving? Well, yes and no! Yes! Because
we will condemn ourselves if we believe we can be holy by our own efforts? And no!
Because when we give up, we demonstrate faithlessness in he who is
working salvation within us?
God’s holy plan for us is to show us we are as far away
from perfection as ice is from steam, as white is from black, as sour is from
sweet.
But God bridges the divide between holiness and evil;
God’s good and our good intentions; his perfection and mercy and our
motivations; his love, and our love.
Jesus is the good tree bearing good fruit, but he bore it
on the terrible tree of the cross. He
takes that terrible tree, your terrible tree and makes it his.
Jesus’ love for you is a perfect and merciful love. His love is compassionate towards all who
call upon his name, for the forgiveness of sin.
Jesus’ love for you is so great he sends the Holy Spirit
to do the work of germinating and growing faith and love within you. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to mature us into
healthy trees producing good fruit, the fruit of faith and love.
This fruit of love for God, is confession of sin, allowing
God to prune us of the dead wood within.
The fruit of love is faith, allowing the daily death of self, the
carrying of our crosses, and the bearing of our neighbours’ crosses in prayer
and works that spur them onto salvation.
This fruit of love leads us to see the cross as the place showing
us our blessed helplessness. But it also
shows us Jesus is our blessed help at that very same cross. The cross is the good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running
over, and put into your lap.
On
the cross, Jesus was measured, and shown to be the only one, who has the only
good and holy motives, the only perfect love, and the most merciful compassion.
He
is the Son of the Most High, higher than the highest good. He is the Holy One of God, sending the Holy
Spirit to help us in his Holy Word.
We
are being made holy because he is holy, we are being made perfect because his
love is perfect, and we can give and forgive because of his mercy. Amen.
