Matthew 5.43-48, Luke 6.27-36.
Sometimes I joke the two commands Jesus said were most important
Some respond with a laugh. Others disagree: They struggle to love God, but people are relatively easy for them. ’Cause people are visible and God is not.
And, they figure, the neighbors are easy to love. Of course by “neighbor” they mean “people who are friendly,” kinda like in Jesus’s story of the kind Samaritan.
Since God obligated the Hebrews to love their neighbors, a lot of ’em actually figured that’s as far as they needed to go in loving people. Kinda like that guy who provoked Jesus to tell the kind Samaritan story: He wanted to justify which neighbors to love. Don’t we all? But
And Jesus didn’t pussyfoot around. He jumped right to the unlovable folks. Not icky, dirty, or smelly people, whom superficial Christians struggle to love, but can with a little effort (and especially after we wash ’em). Not sinners, whom self-righteous Christians likewise struggle to love, but sometimes can (again, after they straighten up a bit). Nope, Jesus went for the people who are just plain being hostile and hateful towards us. Persecutors. Mistreaters. Cursers.
Matthew 5.43-44 KWL - 43 “You heard this said: ‘You’ll love your neighbor.’
Lv 19.18 And you’ll hate your enemy. - 44 And I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors.”
Luke 6.27-31 KWL - 27 “But I tell you listeners: Love your enemies. Do good to your haters.
- 28 Bless your cursers. Pray for your mistreaters.
- 29 To one who hits you on the jaw, submit all the more.
- To one who takes your robe and tunic from you, don’t stop them.
- 30 Give to everyone who asks you. Don’t demand payback from those who take what’s yours.
- 31 Just as you want people doing for you, do likewise for them.”
Yeah, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus already brought up the people who might punch you in the jaw, or try to sue your clothes off.
You know, love ’em like our Father loves ’em.
Matthew 5.45 KWL - “Thus you can become your heavenly Father’s children,
- since he raises his sun over evil and good, and rains on moral and immoral.”
Theologians call this
Why do you think reciprocity merits a reward?
So you love your neighbors. Well good; you perform the bare minimum expectation for a decent human. (Loads of us don’t, y’notice.) But if you expect loving your neighbors earns you any special consideration from God, Jesus points out it really doesn’t. Any heathen can love their neighbors. Most do.
Matthew 5.46-47 KWL - 46 “When you love those who love you, why should you be rewarded?
- Don’t taxmen also do so themselves?
- 47 When you greet only your family, what did you do that was so great?
- Don’t the foreigners also do so themselves?”
Luke 6.32-34 KWL - 32 “If you love your lovers, how’s this an act of grace from you?—sinners love their lovers.
- 33 When you benefact your benefactors, how’s this grace from you?—sinners do so themselves.
- 34 When you lend from one from whom you hope to receive back, how’s this grace from you?
- Sinners lend to sinners so they can receive an equal payback.”
In
But as Jesus says three times in Luke, “How’s this [an act of] grace from you?” Or in Matthew, “Why should you be rewarded? What did you do that was so great?” Reciprocity isn’t going above and beyond. It’s going equally as far. They bought you a $15 book for Christmas; you bought them a $15 iTunes card. They bought you a $50 waffle maker for Christmas; you bought them a $50 iTunes card. They bought you a $50,000 car for Christmas; you promptly said, “No, no, I can’t possibly—it’s too much” because there’s no way you’re gonna buy a $50,000 iTunes card. (You and your iTunes cards.) Or you may not wanna spend $50 grand on them—and you sure don’t wanna feel you owe them anything.
That’s the thing about reciprocity: It’s inherently selfish. “You went this far; I will meet you only equally far.” Or “I went this far; I expect you to meet me equally far.” It’s about doing no more for others than we feel we’re obligated—or obligating others so we can get something out of them. It’s not love.
But Jesus doesn’t count it as love. And if we expect a pat on the head from the Father for our acts of reciprocity… Jesus says big deal. Taxmen do that. Foreigners do that. Pagans do that. Sinners do that. God’s kids are meant to act like he does: Grace to everybody. Even people who can’t pay you back. Even people who have no intention of paying you back.
Be perfect?
Jesus’s last sentence tends to be translated like so:
Matthew 5.48 KJV - Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
As a result, it’s
Nope, not at all what Jesus meant. But plenty of Christians still interpret it that way.
Now if you wanna teach Christians we shoudn’t sin, there’s no shortage of verses which back up the idea. God is totally anti-sin.
Its context—if you’ve been reading—is about loving your neighbors and enemies the same. Context changes the definition of
The question we oughta be asking is perfect how? There’s more than one kind of perfection. There’s sinlessness of course—but we already established Jesus isn’t speaking about sinlessness. There’s precision, like getting a perfect gymnastics score, or getting 100 percent on a test, or hitting the center of an archery target. For that matter there are forms of perfection which aren’t absolute, like “She speaks perfect Arabic,” or “The car’s in perfect condition—and only has 5,000 miles on it.”
In context, what’s Jesus expect of his followers? That we love neighbors and enemies alike. We don’t love some and not others. We don’t require people to earn our affection, compassion, sympathy, generosity, forgiveness, or grace. (Earned grace is an oxymoron anyway.) We apply
Like the Father does.
Matthew 5.48 KWL - “Therefore you will be egalitarian,
- like your heavenly Father is egalitarian.”
Luke 6.35-36 KWL - 35 “In contrast: Love your enemies. Do good. Lend, never expecting payback.
- Your reward will be great, and you’ll be the Most High’s children:
- He’s kind to the ungrateful and evil.
- 36 Be compassionate like your Father is compassionate.”
It’s why I went with the word egalitarian to translate the idea. Perfectly equal. Our Father treats the ungrateful and evil with kindness,
Nope, it’s not as pagans do. Notice what happens whenever pagans try to raise money for a cause or charity. They only make an effort for the sympathetic needy people: Hungry children with big sad eyes. A weeping family who’s holding in their emotions as they optimistically say of their tornado-strewn house, “Oh, we’ll rebuild.” A struggling homeless woman who’s been cleaned up a little so she doesn’t look that dirty, that crazy—and God forbid she snap when they’re trying to film the video. Our needy have to be worthy needy. Not just any ol’ needy.
And never self-centered, greedy, or pessimistic. Never “What’ve you got? Give me some,” and once they’ve got theirs, off they run.
But I’ve worked with charities half my life, and that’s more than half the people I encounter. Yeah, there are grateful people among them, but they’re a minority. Sometimes a very small minority. But if we ever foolishly showed donors the typical people we’re helping out—needy people who lack the common decency to be polite to the folks who’re trying to help—a lot of those donors’ knee-jerk reactions will be reciprocity. “That’s how they behave? Those people are ingrates. Look what we’re doing for them, and look how they take us for granted. To hell with them. I’m giving my money to grateful people.” And lest you think I’m only talking about pagans, I’m not. More donors are Christian than not. And more Christians act in reciprocity rather than grace.
’Cause it’s so easy to be gracious and loving to grateful, appreciative people. Not so much to jerks. Yet Jesus insists we love jerks too. Same as our heavenly Father. Like it or not, they count as our neighbors.
Like I said, the hardest of the top two commands. Gotta love ’em anyway.
