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Luke 6:27-38: How have we repaid them?

I was a Legion chaplain for years. Many times I preached the miracle of reconciliation that arose from WW2: even though the world was torn apart in death and destruction, at the end of the day old foes became friends: Germany, France, and England united in Europe. Canada and the United States too – once enemies – are now each other’s closest trading partners. I have preached on the glorious reconciliation after conflicts. Our service men and women lived, died and served for us. They sacrificed much for peace. I have a question though, how have we repaid them for that peace? Have we now sacrificed that peace for which they fought, lived and died?

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall the tide of military aggression has flown freely over the earth with nothing to impede its wave of innocent and other blood. Today we have many enemies. Terrorists, ISIL, Iraq, Lybia, Egypt, Syria, Hamas, Yugoslavia, Russia, China and others have all rightfully or wrongfully been named as our enemies in recent years. Jesus tells us to love our enemies.

When Jesus told us to love our enemies his was an occupied country. Many from his adoptive father’s or legal grandfather’s generation and many in his own generation are dreaming, fighting and dying for political independence from foreign occupation. Rome conquered Judea shortly before Jesus was born and many people were looking for ways to free themselves, their countrymen, their families from all the horrors of military occupation.

The Zealots, Sicarii, were a Judean terrorist movement that would use assassination, murder, and terror as a means to extricate their country from the grasp of the enemy. One of Jesus’ closest disciples was identified as a zealot. Many of the common people wanted to rise up against their enemy and fight for the liberation of their homeland. Many of them were about to die doing just that and to these people who were longing for a violent fight for freedom from the brutalities of their enemies, Jesus says, Verse 27-31:

“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.”

This is how Jesus says we should treat our enemies and he says even more, Verses 37-38: “Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you.” And what is true corporately is even more so personally.

How do these words that Jesus, the Saviour of the World, spoke to an occupied people 2 millennia ago apply to us today?

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