A Good Measure

Luke 6:27-38

February 23, 2025

 

            Many years ago, I went to see a movie with a friend of mine. There is one character in this movie that you didn’t like from the very beginning. He wasn’t so bad at first, but he soon reveals himself to be a sniveling weasel, who would do anything to save his own skin. At the end of the movie, he proves this to be true once more and betrays someone the other characters cared deeply about. Another character finally has enough and punches this character – hard. When this long-awaited punch lands, you could hear people throughout the audience say, “Yes!” At that moment, my friend leaned over to me and said, “Man, that felt good.”

            He was right. It did feel good. I wasn’t one of the ones who said, “Yes” out loud when the punch landed, but I was thinking it. That punch felt good. In fact it felt great. It was the punch that everyone had been waiting for. It felt well deserved, and long overdue. It felt like justice.

            But ever since then, I’ve found myself wondering if punching someone, even if you think they really deserve to be punched, would really feel that good. I know that punches can hurt – not just the one being punched, but the one doing the punching. I used to be a devotee of a cardio kickboxing class in Oklahoma, and I know that without gloves on, it hurt like the dickens to punch that bag with any force. But it’s not just the physical pain from punching that doesn’t feel good. I can’t help but wonder if punching another person would bring satisfaction or would it bring shame?

            Then I read these verses from Luke, essentially Part Two of the Sermon the Plain, the sermon from the level and leveling place, and I groan. I might inwardly question the gratification that would come from punching someone but that doesn’t mean I want to be reminded about forgiveness. And it definitely does not mean that I want to be told – even by Jesus – to love my enemies. I may realize that going around punching people is a bad idea, but must I go so far as to love them?

            Yet, right after Jesus delivers his blessings and woes, he says just that.

            “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.”

            Do to others as you would have them do to you; what we often call the Golden Rule. This maxim is found in other places besides these words from our Christian scripture. It is found in other religions and in secular ethical and moral treatises. Moral philosopher, Immanuel Kant, used the Golden Rule as the basis of his Categorical Imperative. In other words, this Golden Rule is found far and wide, but that doesn’t make it any easier to put into practice.

            Let’s be brutally honest here, none of this is easy to put into practice. Jesus is known for saying some pretty challenging things, but I think these words must be some of the hardest. They are hard because they are counterintuitive and countercultural. To consider someone an enemy in the first place surely means that you don’t love them. But Jesus says to all who would listen to do just that. Love your enemies. Seek the good for them. Help them if they need it. Treat them as human, even if they are opposed to you and yours. If someone hates you, your first instinct is not to do good to or for them, but Jesus proclaims that we should. If someone curses me, why in the world would I bless them? But here it is in black and white. These words of Jesus are so hard because they call us to do the exact opposite of what our instincts tell us to do, what our culture tells us to do, what our human understanding of justice requires. We want the punch that feels good, but Jesus says do the opposite. These words from Jesus hard to hear, and they are even harder to practice.

            Have you ever had to forgive someone who really hurt you, betrayed you, wounded you or caused you harm? Was it easy? It hasn’t been for me. It hasn’t happened quickly either. Forgiveness, in the scriptural sense, is not a feeling, it is an action. Just like love, it is a verb, not a warm fuzzy emotion. Often when I must forgive someone, and that includes myself, I have to do it again and again and again. I forgive and then something or someone triggers that pain and hurt, and I have to forgive all over again. Debie Thomas wrote that forgiveness is like ascending a spiral staircase. You keep going around and around trying to forgive, and it looks as though you’ll never leave the pain and hurt behind. But eventually, if you keep going up, you begin to see the top, the goal, rather than what’s behind you.

            But when it comes to forgiveness, I also want to make it clear that these words of Jesus have too often been used to keep people who are abused and violated in their place. Forgiveness does not equal relationship. Expecting someone who has been abused to stay in relationship with the abuser does not put Jesus’ words into practice. Yes, we are called to forgive but sometimes forgiveness is more about taking care of yourself then it is about absolving the other person. Because to live in a state of unforgiveness does not just affect us spiritually, it has psychological and physiological consequences as well. It causes an enormous amount of stress and keeps us in a constant state of fight or flight. That’s hard on our bodies and hard on our psyches and hard on our souls.

            You may have heard the expression that not forgiving someone or holding onto anger against someone is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die. Sometimes forgiveness is more about freeing ourselves than it is the other person. Forgiving can mean relinquishing the hold someone else has on us. Forgiving can free us from pain and bitterness even if doesn’t result in reconciliation.

            I also don’t believe that Jesus, through these words, is calling us to accept evil. We are called again and again to speak truth to power. Jesus certainly did. We are called to stand up to evil, to denounce it, and work to eradicate it. That’s what Jesus did. But that doesn’t mean that we are to respond to evil in kind. Responding to evil with evil only increases evil, and worse, the evil we denounce in another may become the evil we carry in ourselves.

            I wonder if Jesus is trying to get those who would listen to understand that to live in the realm of God’s kingdom is to live out this call from this level and leveling place. I think that if we lived out his words, if we loved our enemies and blessed those who curse us and turned the other cheek and willingly gave up not only our coats but our shirts, if we actually did to others as we would have them do to us, our world would be a different place.

            What does it mean to love more than just the people we already love? Sometimes loving the people we already love is hard enough, let’s not add enemies to the list. My kids would probably confess that they love me as their mom, but I know that they have found it hard at times to love me just because I’m their mom. Yet they still love me, and I them. Our relationship is built on love. That’s not going to change. But enemies? People who have wronged us? Are you kidding me, Jesus? We’re called to love them too? Yes.

            Think about it. If we were to actually strive to live out these words, to put them into practice daily, no matter how hard it is – and it is incredibly hard – we and the world around us could be transformed. It seems to me that these are probably the most transformative words in all of scripture. Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Give to those who take from you. Forgive as you have been forgiven. Do not judge. Do not condemn. Give and give and give some more. Give in good measure, not because you expect a reward but because that’s what we are called to do. And I realize that it seems as if Jesus is speaking in terms of reward. The measure we give is the measure we will get back. But maybe it’s not about reward as much as it about putting all this powerful love and kindness and compassion into the world and realizing that when we do that over and over again, it comes back around. The measure we give is the measure we receive.

            What would this world look like if we did this? What would our church, our community look like if we put these challenging, difficult, painfully hard words of Jesus into practice? What wounds would be healed? What pain would be lessened? What violence would be mitigated? What freedom, true freedom, would we experience? The measure we give is the measure we receive.

            I freely admit that I don’t want to hear these words from Jesus most of the time. They are just too hard, to difficult. They require more from me than I think I can give. They require more of me than I believe I can do. But I also believe that the moments when I witness forgiveness, when I see love for enemy, when I am able to recognize that a good measure is being given, that I get a glimpse of God’s kingdom here in our midst. In those moments when I see these words of Jesus enacted, when I manage to live them myself, I get a glimpse of the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed was fulfilled with his coming. It’s not as far off as I believe it to be. It’s right here. It’s right here. If only we could see it. If only we could hear it. If only we could live it.

            “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” What we put into this world is what we get back. May we put in good measure after good measure after good measure of loving enemies, blessing rather than cursing, giving rather than getting, and embodying the loving and leveling mercy of God in Jesus the Christ.

            Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.
            Amen.