Luke 6:27-38: Love your enemies

I was reading an excerpt from the book Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril by Sallie McFrague. In it she tells her own religious autobiography. A short section of it made me smile.

One day when the teacher asked the class, “What name will you write more than any other in your life?” Being an eager student, I immediately raised my hand to answer. Fortunately, the teacher did not call on me; had she done so, I would have been red with embarrassment. The correct answer was, of course, one’s own name, but I was going to answer, “God:’

I laughed at this because I do indeed write God’s name far more often than I write my own. As a matter of fact, in the written copy of this sermon it appears 20 times. I honestly and whole-heartedly believe God’s name should be more prolific in our vocabulary than our own. Because this life is not about me, it’s about God. I am just the vessel, God is my captain.

When you look in the mirror, who do you see?

I have reached this point in my life where if I step out of the shower and glance at the mirror. I am momentarily horror-stricken and confused as to why my mother is standing in my bathroom staring back at me. There is no doubt I am my mother’s child, at least in physical appearance anyway. While we can’t do a whole lot our external reflections, there is a whole lot we can do about who and what our soul is reflecting back at people when they look at us.

While my genetics have chosen to make my appearance reflect my mother, it is me who chooses who my soul reflects.

It will never cease to amaze me how you can take two human beings, place them in similar environments, similar circumstances and they will respond in completely different ways. This is because we choose our responses. And, we have a choice, we can choose our responses consciously or we can let our unconscious choose for us. To not make a choice is still making a choice.

Our unconscious is an accumulation of our past experiences, knowledge skills, and acquired abilities. While there is a limit to the number of responses we have to choose from, we still get to choose from those options which one we want to respond with. We choose our response which will influence how we grow and what responses we have available to us in the future. It is up to us, if we don’t like the options available to us to pursue the accumulation of different options for the future.

For instance, if I find myself in a dangerous situation where I feel physically threatened, theoretically my options are fight, flight, or freeze. Option 1: Run away. If I have not chosen to pursue this option prior to requiring it, I am unlikely to be physically fit enough to be successful at it. I am going to run out of breath in about 30 feet. On the other hand, if I jog or run on a regular basis and spend time keeping myself physically fit, this option now has a lot more appeal to it.

Option 2: Fight. Like swimming, all creatures can fight. But, if you haven’t trained or practice, also might not be the most valid option. Do you know any forms of self-defense or hand to hand combat? Are you carrying a weapon of some kind? Do you know how to use that weapon to the point where muscle memory is going to allow you to operate it properly or are you just going to panic, fumble, drop it and further endanger yourself?

Option 3: Freeze. Go limp. Black out. Fall on the ground. A highly appealing and the most likely option for those who are not prepared. For those who have not chose to practice ahead of time and condition a possibly better option.

While I hope I never find myself in a dangerous situation requiring skills, the truth of the matter is, I have. And so, I made the choice to learn how to defend myself in the event I ever found myself in such a situation again so that the next time I had to make a choice, I had better options than relying on a wild swing, my short stubby legs, or playing dead like a opossum.

We have the ability to choose which choices will be available to us in the future. We choose our responses options. We choose how we spend our leisure time and what skills we amass that we may never need. Anyone in here have a seemingly useless skill? I can roll my tongue. I have no idea how that is ever going to benefit me in life but I know it’s there as an option.

The problem with not being aware that amassing options is a decision we have to make is we are otherwise left to the whims of the world. While most of us thankfully are unlikely to find ourselves in a position where we have to physically defend ourselves, all of us will on a regular basis find ourselves in a position where we have to spiritually defend ourselves. What options have you acquired?

When your faith is challenged, what knowledge skills, and abilities have you practiced so that they are readily available to you in times of crisis? As a therapist we call these coping skills. As a pastor I’m telling you they are spiritual skills.

Do you pray often enough, seriously enough, and are you committed enough that praying relieves anxiety, stress and worry for you or do you only try it when you are already anxious, stressed out, and worried? If you don’t practice it, I have bad news for you, it is not a skill that is readily available in your arsenal to be effective. It’s like being attacked on the street and suddenly expecting to know karate. Not gonna happen. You are going to get hurt.

Do you read your Bible often enough, study it hard enough, that related passages make sense to you and leap into your mind throughout the day as events occur?  Do you rely on it for comfort, safety, and hope but also find within its pages happiness and reassurance that God is walking with you in all times, in all places, and in all things? Or do you just assume that when you need it the right verse or story is just going to pop into your head like a dandelion through a sidewalk crack?

Do you rely on God so much that you think and write God’s name more than your own? Do you instantly think “How am I going to deal with this?” or do you pause, take a deep breath, and say “God’s got this.” What is in my control that I need to do here and everything else is God’s.

When your soul is affronted by another person, when someone questions you, challenges you, insults you, what are your practiced responses? Do you just reflect back to them whatever they are doing to you? Oh, the unconscious is a simple thing. If you haven’t chosen to acquire useful skills, mimicking is one of our default responses. You yell at me. I yell at you. You insult me. I insult you. The moment you are threatened do you become someone else’s reflection or have you practiced and acquired the skills so that no matter what life looks like on the outside God reflects through you from the inside?

Do you love your enemies and do good to those who hate you? Do you bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you? When someone strikes at you, do you stand proud and tall and just let them? Do you instinctively give when asked of you and hold no grudge when someone takes from you? Do you do to others are you would have them do or do you do to them what they do to you? Do you allow others to judge you without judging them back? Do you forgive first or wait to be forgiven?

Do you practice this regularly so it is actually in your arsenal of responses or do you sit and wait and expect to just know what to do? What credit is it of you if all you can do is reflect the world back?

On the outside, as Christians, we look like the rest of the world. Very human. Very much a sum of our genetics. But on the inside, we can choose to be a reflection of something very very unhuman. We can choose to be a reflection of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. We can choose to be a reflection of God in this world. We cannot be God’s but we sure can be a reflection of God.

But, in order to be a reflection of God, we have to keep writing God all over ourselves. Our beliefs, our theology, our values, our God’s name must be written over every inch of our bodies inside and out. It must be written repeatedly as the path that leaves us and as the trail we leave behind. God’s name must supersede our own in all that we are, all that we say and all that we do. Only then can our soul be a shining, clear reflection of what we want it to be. But it takes practice, a lifetime and beyond.

I love this line “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 do you want to get back? How do you want to respond? Don’t wait to make the choice. Choose now. Prepare now. Practice now. Love now. Be a reflection of God now. We know not when the day of judgment will come only that we had best be ready.