It is always important to consider three things in looking at a passage. Otherwise, we simply cherry pick verses or lift things out of context and distort their meaning. So, let’s look first at context and circumstances and then audience

Context and Circumstances: Jesus is early on in his ministry. Up until now he has been an obedient son, a delight to the teachers in Jerusalem and grown in wisdom, strength and in favor with God and man. He has resisted the temptations of the Devil and made something of a debut in his hometown synagogue where all spoke well of him and were amazed at his gracious words that came from his lips. If you were to guess at that point what his ministry would look like it would be more of the same. Popular, mainstream, gracious, and a young man bound for success. But then his next words so infuriate the people that they drove him out of town, took him to a cliff and wanted to throw him off. For the rest of his time that would be typical. He comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable.

Then, he announces that no one pours new wine into old wineskins and that is a shot across the bow of those who loved the way things were.

Worse, he and his disciples failed to obey the most sacred symbol of identity as a Jew – completely observing the Sabbath. He even encouraged the disciples to do it. It might be like our not standing for the playing of the National Anthem. Do you remember how upset people were when athletes began taking a knee? It is not just a law. It is a mark of respect and even identity as an American. You cannot show disrespect to the Sabbath or the the flag. Jesus took a knee to the Sabbath.

People should have known that things were not going to get better. This was only a lead up to what comes next.

After choosing the twelve, Jesus seats them along with a larger number of disciples and a great number of people from all over the country who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases.

Audience: But, I don’t think all of them are the audience for what we have come to call The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke. In both accounts, it seems to emphasize that the special audience to which he is speaking is the twelve. Luke writes, “Looking at his disciples” and Matthew writes, “His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them saying.” I take this to mean these words are difficult and not for everyone who came just to be healed or to see a celebrity or had nothing else to do that day. These words are the mission statement for the new Kingdom and Jesus is making clear to the twelve what they have signed up for. He is telling them what their life is going to be like and how different it will be from life in the world.  This is the new wine and they are the new wineskins.

Blessed are you who are poor,

    for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you who hunger now,

    for you will be satisfied.

Blessed are you who weep now,

    for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you,

    when they exclude you and insult you

    and reject your name as evil,

        because of the Son of Man.

He is not addressing corporate, social, economic, or government leaders. This is not a set of operating principles that will make a country successful or a company profitable. It is not a Declaration of Independence, Constitution or Bill of Rights. Instead, these are the basics of life for people who are going to be persecuted, hunted down and killed, despised, threatened and intimidated. These are the basics for how a very small community under threat of not surviving is to operate.  They are not general principles but the only way they can avoid extinction. If they operate by the rules of the world they will destroy each other. Ironically, the very rules for conduct he describes would strike all of us as self-defeating for any organization or community or country.  As he says elsewhere, those who would save their lives must lose them and those who would be greatest must be the least among you. None of this makes sense in the real world. He is preparing them to live in a way that is nonsensical and foolish to the rest of the world. In fact, the real world could never live by these standards. They are impossible and that is exactly what they are intended to be. They are not difficult. They are impossible except through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And then we come to the hard part:

“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. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

People have misused them and tried to create utopian communities and societies based on them and everyone has been a total failure because of human nature.  No matter how hard we try to make them ideals they are simply foolish and impractical. They do not make sense and only lead to chaos when we try to legislate them. What would happen to our economic and legal systems, national sovereignty and even justice systems if we tried to impose a truly Christian way of life on people? There is no expectation here for building a society on Christian principles. It won’t work.

And if this is not the definition of a Christian way of life then what is? That is why I say they are only intended for a very small number of people who are in a particular relationship with each other and facing a world confused by them. They are intended for disciples – not citizens. This foolish way of life is the new wine. This is a description of what life will be like in a body of believers – not a nation. As I’ve said before, there is no such thing as a Christian nation or Christian corporation unless everyone in it can live according to these standards because from the outset this is how Jesus defines his believers. They treat each other differently. They respond to the outside world differently. They do not have the normal expectations of self-fulfillment, respect, fairness, success and achievement. They are simply witnesses to a way of life that is coming but not yet here. They are not winners or losers.  None of this is possible without the power of the Holy Spirit and all attempts to mimic it end up the same way – tyranny or anarchy. Even then, can any of us point to even a Christian community in history that has been able to practice this small passage of Scripture with any level of success? Not really. How many of us have seriously considered changing our lives to conform to this expectation? That is why we avoid it.  I suppose that is why we continue to pray “Thy Kingdom come” because everything in the Kingdom of the World works against this. Everything in our common sense does the same.

After the events of the last several days it is ironic that the text this morning should be one calling on virtues so opposite the anger and destructiveness we have seen displayed. Both sides blame the other. Both sides justify their behavior. Both sides are deep into “whataboutism” that answers every accusation and fact with, “But what about Obama or what about Clinton or what about Bush or Jefferson or even Washington. The game is to deflect all responsibility and put it on to someone else to permit what we are feeling. We want to be justified. We want to win.

This is not an academic exercise for me.  I feel it as strongly as anyone and I cringed when I read the text assigned. I have cringed every time I have read it since.  For, like too many, I have found a particular satisfaction in the possibility that I could say, “I told you so.” That’s not a partisan pleasure. There are many on both sides who have interpreted the turmoil at the Capitol as justification for whatever resentments and grievances they have nurtured. Still, it is always going to be true that revenge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It is moral and spiritual suicide – no matter the side we are on. Paul says in 1 Corinthians that love does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrong. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” When we find ourselves delighting in the misfortunes of others – even when they are deserving – we have stepped outside the definition of being a Christian.

That is why I wanted to focus this morning not on debts or people imposing on and mistreating us. What I have struggled with for quite some time is how to love an enemy. What do I do with those who have wronged so many? What does it mean to forgive? What is justice without contempt? People say let’s just move on in the sake of peace or let’s make sure we extract every ounce of justice.

In The Problem of Pain, Lewis writes when people think about love they very often confuse it with kindness—the “desire to see others…happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy.” However, Lewis insists:

Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness… There is kindness in Love but Love and kindness are not the same, and when kindness is separated from the other elements of Love, it involves a certain fundamental indifference to its object, and even something like contempt of it.

Therefore, when restraining a wrongdoer by forcing him to stop, by deterring him from resuming, and ideally by provoking him to think again and change his aggressive ways, we work toward the promotion of the only possibility for his true growth. This belongs to his own good, even if it should cost him his very life. It is the only way to be happy.

“That is what is meant in the Bible by loving [our enemy]: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not.” Of course, love is at work in our disposition toward these hard tasks, and writing during the war with Germany, Lewis rightly insists, “Even while we kill we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves—to wish he were not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured: in fact, to wish his good.” This, too, is what we used to call love.

Now a step further. Does loving your enemy mean not punishing him? No, for loving myself does not mean that I ought not to subject myself to punishment – even to death. If you had committed a murder, the right Christian thing to do would be to give yourself up to the police and be hanged. It is, therefore, in my opinion, perfectly right for a Christian judge to sentence a man to death or a Christian soldier to kill an enemy. I always have thought so, ever since I became a Christian, and long before the war, and I still think so now that we are at peace.

I imagine somebody will say, ‘Well, if one is allowed to condemn the enemy’s acts, and punish him, and kill him, what difference is left between Christian morality and the ordinary view?’ All the difference in the world. Remember, we Christians think man lives for ever. Therefore, what really matters is those little marks or twists on the central, inside part of the soul which are going to turn it, in the long run, into a heavenly or a hellish creature. We may kill if necessary, but we must not hate and enjoy hating. We may punish if necessary, but we must not enjoy it… Even while we kill and punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves – to wish that he were not so bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured: in fact, to wish his good. This is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not.

This is the key for me. “We must not hate and enjoy hating. We may punish if necessary, but we must not enjoy it..Even while we punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves.”  Otherwise, we are condemning ourselves to a present life of bitterness, revenge, grievance and poison. At the same time, we are moving further and further away from the life of the Kingdom and into the dark void of an eternity without God.

These are our rules for survival as a Christian community. We are not to be sloppy and sentimental or hateful and vindictive. Instead, we are to live in a way that utterly confounds the world, contradicts the expectations and traditions, and, like Jesus, draws people to the reality of a God they have never imagined.