Jesus Project, Day 2

Today's Jesus quote is from Luke, Chapter 6: “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."

I've talked to people at times about this particular passage.  Some agree with it whole-heartedly.  Others, who believe that it's okay to have enemies and seek retribution tell me that what Jesus says here is utopic -- that only Jesus who is perfect can actually achieve such a point of view; that we should strive for this but we probably aren't expected to actually achieve it.

I don't blame them much, really.  Look at our culture.  What do we watch on TV?  "Reality" is the latest trend (which doesn't seem like reality to me, but hyped up craziness) where people are intentionally riled up and pitted against each other for entertainment.  As a country we seem determined to search for enemies and destroy them preemptively.  Violence on an individual, group and global level is off the charts.

It is understandable that people would want to protect themselves from harm.  The threat of terrorism (and its random nature) is very scary.  But if I trust Jesus, I trust that the way he's telling us to behave has our best interests at its center.

Would Jesus tell us to love our enemies and to treat them with love and forgiveness (rather than with retribution and violence) if it was not in our best interest?  Here's an analogy:

Say you have a young dog that does something it's not supposed to. In anger, you yell at it, hit it and throw it outside.  It does something else it's not supposed to - but this time it knows you're coming for it so when you try to grab it, it nips at you (out of fear).  You hit it and throw it outside.  The situation escalates until the dog bites a guest at your house.  You figure you need to put it down because you have a mean dog. Is it the fault of the dog, or is it responding out of self preservation and fear?

Use of anger and force against another is almost always met with anger and fear.  As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Hate begets hate; violence begets violence".  Use of violence may temporarily subdue an opponent, but it will not change their heart -- rather, it would harden their heart against their attacker.

Jesus did not tell us to turn the other cheek as simply a test of our devotion to God.  As with most of the things he taught, He gave us these directives so that we can live in love and thrive as a people.

How might our world be different now if all followers of Jesus actually followed this directive from Christ in ALL areas of their lives?

As Abraham Lincoln once said, "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"