Scripture: Psalm 37; Luke 6: 27-38
You've heard it said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." Two new
kittens joined the Anderson-Smutny house this fall. We've named them Spartikus and
Jezebel. I love watching them develop their relationship with our cocker spaniel, Sparky,
who is still three times their size. Sparky (the dog) inches towards Spartikus (the cat);
tail wagging, body trembling with excitement as he prepares to nip a cat tail. With the
instant reflex of instinct, Spartikus swats the dog's nose. Sparky yelps and runs away.
Does the cat stop there? No. This newcomer to the household chases that dog around the
entire first floor of the house until finally Sparky takes refuge under the table.
Face-to-face, the two snarl at each other, bound to one another in an instinctive pattern
of revenge.
You have heard it said in Leviticus, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth." Two co-workers bound up in office politics keep score over the slights each
one has felt. Each tries to even the tally: a dig here, a jab there, a struggle over
power, attempts to one-up the other. Each new round sets up the next one because the tally
sheet is never even. Finally it becomes full-blown warfare.
You have heard it said on the street, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth." A child is teased mercilessly because she is smart or she is not, because he
wears glasses or he's skinny. Because he doesn't know his father. Because of the school
she attends. Because her clothes are hand-me-downs. Filled with hurt and rage, the child
comes home from school and pleads, "Please let me fight them! Please let me do
something! Why do I have to be nice when they aren't?!"
You have heard it said in your heart, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth." "But I say to you that listen, 'love your enemies, do good to those who
hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you
on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not
withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away
your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For
this is how God is.'"
When I hear Jesus' words, the contrast between what he says we should be and who we
actually are makes me look for a way to dismiss him. He is certainly naive. What world is
he living in? Obviously he is not thinking about the victim. Certainly none of his loved
ones could ever have been tortured or killed. Jesus didn't have to relate to co-workers .
. . or a boss. He has never ridden a schoolbus. He was never married. If Jesus had ever
had any of these experiences, he wouldn't be saying what he said. We know, because we live
these experiences every day.
So we discard these Bible passages, both Psalm 37 and Jesus' own words, as
pie-in-the-sky, utopian dreams disconnected from the realities of daily living. Even if we
were going to try to live that way, the turkeys with whom we work and live and drive the
freeways make it impossible. It is their fault, really, that we cannot be good disciples.
No self-respecting person with a brain between the ears would set aside the rules in
Leviticus so easily. After all, they are based on lived experience and visceral feelings
of what is necessary and right to make a community successful. Besides, look what such an
approach got Jesus: a cross on Calvary.
Then Jesus says, "Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in
return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for God is
kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as God is merciful." And as
much as we want to dismiss Jesus, we know he is right.
As our denomination prepares for another General Assembly, this one in Long Beach in
June, I remember the Assembly of 1996 in Albuquerque. My role was that of committee
assistant to the committee that would eventually bring forth an amendment to the
Presbyterian constitution intended to bar gays and lesbians from ordination in the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). I was to help the moderators in their work, to safeguard the
rights of the committee members, and to preserve, as much as possible, the integrity of
the Presbyterian process so the Holy Spirit could work more easily. No matter how much I
disagreed with the goals and was angered by the tactics of those who eventually won the
vote, my calling was to bring not spite or revenge, but integrity and faithfulness to the
table on behalf of our Lord, no matter how much evil might greet me there. To this day, I
still encounter people who tell me the compassion, integrity and faithfulness they
experienced through my work with that committee give them hope for the Presbyterian
Church, in spite of how injured and angry they were by the vote of the Assembly.
The integrity of our deeds, the compassion of our hearts and the faithfulness of our
actions are ultimately important in ways beyond our knowledge. They do make a difference
in the balance of the world, even when we lose the skirmish. As Marshall McLuhan says,
"The medium is the message."
I have seen tensions resolved, conflicts de-escalated, and relationships mended when
people refuse to let the quality and character of their actions be determined by someone
else's behavior. It does makes a difference when we take responsibility for our own
actions, no matter what the others do. We know the truth of this when we tell children
that just because someone hits them, they don't have to hit back. Just because someone is
mean to them does not require them to be mean in return. We always have a choice about how
we will respond to the other.
"Forgive," says Jesus. "Do unto others as you would have them do to
you." Do it not in the hope that they will reciprocate, not in the hope that they
will finally learn to be the better people you wish they were, not in the hope that they
will do back for you what you have done for them. Do it merely because it is good. Good
for you. Good for the relationship. Good for God. For that is how God is.
I have experienced the grace of being forgiven by others when I was not yet ready to
forgive. I know how their initially unreciprocated forgiveness set me free not only to
forgive them, but to ask their forgiveness for my hardness of heart. And I have known the
freedom and peace that comes from forgiving even when the other has neither changed nor
asked forgiveness. My forgiveness does not necessarily mean that I put myself in the same
situation again, but it does mean that I trade in my load of resentment and injury for
peace and healing instead.
In "The Art of Forgiving," Lewis Smedes writes, "I used to think of
forgiving as mercy's way to do something good to someone who had done something bad to us.
Then I discovered that the first and sometimes the only person who benefits from forgiving
is the person who does the forgiving.
"Hate is the most self-righteous of all emotions. We feel deliriously righteous
when we hate the evil creature who viciously assaulted or wronged us. No one ever feels
the pleasure of self-righteousness with such lip-smacking satisfaction as a person chewing
on his own hate. This is why we love our hate, coddle it, feed it, stroke it, and above
all justify it. But let it settle in for a while, take over the best room in our souls and
it becomes a disagreeable guest who will not leave when our party is over.
"So being the kind of pain that hate is, it must be healed before we can do anyone
else any good at all. It is as simple as that: Forgiving has to heal our pain before it
can heal anybody else's pain."
"You have heard it said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'. . . . But I
say, if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love
those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to
you? Every [Joe and Jill] can do that. Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much
again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. You will be
children of the Most High, for God who is your parent is like that."
Jesus is correct. When we follow his way, the character of our lives, our relationships
and our communities is different. Some time ago, I came across two books that give
pragmatic strategies for maintaining a faithful equilibrium in the face of selfishness,
malevolence or evil. They can even help keep us centered in the daily negotiations of
life. They are: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In and Getting
Together: Building Relationships As We Negotiate. Both were written by Roger Fisher and
his colleagues at the Harvard Negotiation Project. They have negotiated every kind of
conflict imaginable, from Soviet and U.S. missiles on the brink of disaster, to spats
between husbands and wives, from landowner-tenant grievances to labor-management
contracts. They make Jesus' words concrete, whether that was their original intention or
not. They give ordinary people the tools to put Jesus' words into practice at the dinner
table and the conference table.
Fisher restates the Golden Rule this way: Do only those things that are both good for
the relationship and good for you, whether or not the other reciprocates. They call this
an Unconditionally Constructive Strategy. There are six steps to this strategy.
1. Even if they are acting emotionally, balance your emotions with reason. You don't
reach your best decisions in the middle of a temper tantrum.
2. Even if they misunderstand you, try to understand them.
3. Even if they are not listening, consult them before deciding on matters that affect
them, and listen to what they say.
4. Even if they are trying to deceive you, neither trust them nor deceive them; be
reliable, and trustworthy yourself.
5. Even if they are trying to coerce you, neither yield to that coercion nor try to
coerce them; be open to persuasion and try to persuade them.
6. Even if they reject you and your concerns as unworthy of their consideration, accept
them as worthy of yours, care about them, and be open to learning from them. Doesn't this
last step remind you of God's relationship with us, in which we crucified Christ, yet God
still accepts and cares about us?
We are not cats and dogs, bound instinctively to a pattern of revenge. No matter what
the other person does or does not do, we always have the option of taking the high road.
We always have the option of maintaining our values, our ethics, our integrity, our
faithfulness to the One who has called us to follow him. No one can take that away unless
we give it to them.
Love your enemies, do good and lend, expecting nothing in return, for then you will be
children of the Most High. "Trust in the Lord and do good", for God is working
through you in ways you cannot even imagine.
A Roman Centurion was walking from Jerusalem to Galilee one day. Passing a Jewish man,
he gabbed him roughly by the arm. "Carry my pack," ordered the Centurion. The
Jew didn't grumble, though he heaved a heavy sigh. He shouldered the heavy pack and walked
behind the Centurion. At the end of the required mile, the Jew's duty was finished. He
could legally set the pack down now.
"Would you like me to carry it another mile for you?" he asked instead.
The Centurion was almost speechless with surprise. "Certainly. Go ahead," he
stammered, puzzled. He had never seen a Jew respond to Roman oppression this way. Finally
he stopped walking and turned around.
"Walk beside me," he said, "and tell me why you offered to carry my pack
farther than the law commands?"
"Because I follow a rabbi from Nazareth who has changed my entire perspective on
other people, including Romans." As they walked along, the Jew told the Roman about
the rabbi from Nazareth and how the rabbi's teachings had changed the man's attitude and
perspective and life. The miles slipped by as their respect for one another grew.
According to the Gospel of Mark, some months later, a Roman Centurion stood at the foot
of a cross on a Friday afternoon during the Jewish festival of Passover. As he watched
Jesus the Nazarene breathe his last, the Roman Centurion declared boldly, "Surely
this man was Son of God!" (Mark 15:39) Amen.
