A Fresh Perspective

My sermon title is the question that this text raises. The passage begins with a direct command from Jesus, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” What follows from that initial command are several specific examples of how this can play out in the culture of that day and time. Luke first offers some examples along the line of what we might think of as nonviolent protest. Standing back up and offering the other cheek after being slapped in humiliating fashion by someone in power would have been an act of nonviolent protest. The same can be said about taking off ones shirt, after someone in power has taken one’s coat. But then Luke talks about giving to those who beg. Perhaps the reason they are begging is because they have been stripped of necessities by those in power. At any rate, I want to focus today on the initial command: Love your enemies, do good to them, bless them, and pray for them. I don’t know of an...

Let’s all come clean and not pretend that we like what Jesus says in this passage. I don’t know of anyone who actually considers poverty a good thing. If God’s blessing is on the poor and God’s woe upon the rich, then most of us would rather have God’s woe than God’s blessing right? We are after all in worship, so let’s a least be honest with God and ourselves. I certainly don’t believe God wants anyone to live in poverty – to be economically deprived and materially impoverished. Do you think that is what God wants for God’s creation, for God’s daughters and sons? Do you think God wants us to be in want – to barely have enough to survive, let alone thrive? I don’t believe that for one minute. So what for heaven’s sake is Jesus saying here? First off, if we take our scriptures with any seriousness at all we have to acknowledge how much God cares for the poor. How does one get to be poor? Well, in ancient Israel a couple of years of really bad harvests could do it. One might ha...

The story I read earlier from Luke 5, which is today’s sermon text, is Luke’s account of the call of Peter to be a disciple of Jesus. It’s different than the other two versions in the Gospels. In Mark’s account, which is followed by Matthew, Peter and his brother, Andrew, are by the seaside, apparently attending to their nets, when Jesus calls them to follow him. They immediately leave their nets and follow Jesus. That’s one version of the call of Simon Peter given by Mark and Matthew. In John’s account, Jesus calls Andrew first, who was not at the seaside fishing or attending nets at all, but with John the Baptist at the time. In John’s version Andrew is a follower of John the Baptist. He heeds the call, then goes out and finds his brother, Peter, and brings him to Jesus. Now, the reason I call attention to this is to remind you that we are not reading historical reports. There are echoes of memories in these stories, but these stories function more like parables crafted for the purpo...

The Gospel story today picks up right where last week’s left off. Jesus entered the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth and read from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” After he concluded the reading, with all eyes in the synagogue fixed on him, he said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” As I said last week Jesus is telling them that this is what he is primarily about. This is his calling. This is his mission. This is his agenda. Now, all of this is fine and good, as long as Jesus focuses on the right kind of people. That’s why we read in v. 22 that the people of Nazareth “spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came out of his mouth.” They thought Jesus was talking about their kind of people. But aft...