Sermon- epiphany 7, yr c, 2022   Love your enemies.  We’ve heard that before…a lot.  We’ve heard it enough that many simply roll their eyes at the pithy way that it is often used.  However, we’ve had thousands of years to get used to the idea, however for those who heard it in person, the concept was revolutionary. Jesus was talking amidst Roman occupation.  Luke (presumably the author) is writing amidst a second occupation some 85 years after Jesus died.  A time after a Jewish rebellion against Rome had been brutally put down and the Second Temple…famous for it’s beauty and grandeur and so central to Jewish identity has been destroyed. Love your enemy,  a shocking and likely unpopular notion. Imagine a preaching this in the midst of the Taliban… in the destruction of Syrian cities…in the rubble of the twin towers….in the streets of downtown Ottawa. Love your enemy. Imagine preaching this amidst a people for whom you sacrificed everything  just to be with, to walk with, befriend and empathize with knowing that regardless of what you have given…in time…they would betray you, attack you and call for your brutal crucifixion. Love your enemies.  What is this love we are commanded to live out?  What does this passage really mean? This is the Sermon on the Plain.  This is the Luke version of Jesus, a Jesus who is grace filled, empathetic, a healer.  This is not the sermon on the mount where the crowds gaze up to Christ, but Christ descended to a level plain to be with us, and we…we are elevated to be with Christ. We are called to be Christ like.  To live and love as Christ lived and loved. That requires sacrifice.  For Jesus that meant among other things, crucifixion.  For us it also means sacrifice, but not always in the way you may imagine. It may mean sacrificing our desire for retribution, our desire for those people to ‘get what they deserve’.  It may mean we sacrifice our desire for revenge, our desire for others pain…our desire for others to hurt… like they’ve hurt us. It means we have to sacrifice our hate.   To be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Your Father, God, who cut out a part of the divine self and sacrificed immortality to be born a mortal and feeling human.  Knowing full well that Jesus, God’s own self, God’s own son would grow up among humans with all the hurt, betrayal, pain and suffering of human life…to ultimately be murdered brutally, in part, for the preaching we hear today. John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his own son to the end that all should not perish but have eternal life.” This is the love we are called to emulate.  Something that Rolf Jacobson has called ‘cruciform love’  The love of a crucified God. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” If we are honest with ourselves, none of us really deserve such love, such mercy, such sacrifice…but such is the grace of God, such is God’s love that we are all given forgiveness, mercy and grace.  We are loved, whether we deserve it or no. “for God makes (the) sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”  (Matthew 5:45) So, are we who are followers of Christ called to do anything less? It is easy to agree, on paper as it were, but as always the challenge is with living it our in day to day life.  How to do this? Where and when? And how do we get it right? Interpretation can work both ways, they can be used to empower great good, but just as easily they can be used to justify great wrongs.   We have seen in the new how one bible passage or another is used to justify a variety of opposing behaviours and theologies. One of the ways that injustices and abuse have been excused and justified amongst Christian people is by quoting Luke 6:27-29 “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. I have heard of these holy words used to counsel women in abusive situations both at homes and at work places.  Or even by victims as a way to survive day to day. This was never meant as a response to domestic abuse or any other similar situation.  These verses were not intended to make Christians meek, mild, nice victims.  The image of the quiet, kind, meek Christian is an error of interpretation and dare I say it… a fabrication of those in power, as a means to subjugate the disenfranchised.  Recall Jesus is preaching a powerful political sermon here…in the face of Roman occupation.  Remember it got him killed for fear of his followers rising up and fighting against Roman occupation.         Christians meek and mild, silent and victimized don’t inspire political rebellion. Rather this love of enemies, these blessings and standing firm in the face of abuse is more in the line of passive resistance.  It is the powerful kind of love for your enemies that enabled Christians and indeed Muslims to hold hands in 2011 to surround their praying brothers and sister during the riots in Cairo.  It is the powerful kind of love and mercy that empowered 18 year old Keshia Thomas a black girl, to push through an violent crowd and put her body between the crowd and man who the crowd had beaten to the ground.  The man wearing the Confederate flag, SS tattoo, and signs of white supremacy signalled to the predominantly Black crowd that he was ‘enemy’, but that young black woman saw an enemy through God’s eyes and acted with mercy and sacrifice.  God’s love is a powerful, difficult and costly love to emulate, but nonetheless we are still called to do so. These days watching the news, there are many people who we could call enemy.  Who we wish retribution on, or pain, or any other ungodly emotion. I have heard more than once, someone wishing the worst of COVID on another of God’s children because that will teach them.  It is our anger, our fear, our frustration that speaks, not our love.  Never forget that God has loved and forgiven you…and I …at our worst and most evil moments.  Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return…for God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Do good and be just… that doesn’t mean be a passive doormat, but to participate passive resistance against everything in this broken world  that is acting against God’s kingdom. We are on a level plain with Jesus, all of us and if we look at the crowds with God’s eyes, we look with the eyes of a parent on a child who has chosen a path that takes them far from home.  These eyes of God, the eyes of love, don’t call for revenge or punishment, but justice and forgiveness.  Reconciliation and love. Be merciful, as your Father is merciful. Forgive and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you.  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.”             It may be that we have heard these words a thousand times before, it may be that we’ve heard them enough to ignore them.  But I don’t think that repetition has made them any easier to obey.  This world we live in is still broken.  The world is still under occupation.  Perhaps not by Rome, but still by forces committed to power, subjugation and self gain.  The goal of Rome was to make the Roman Empire supreme and in this world of ours you can substitute many other words for that of Rome.  But the goal of the Christian has always been to make Christ’s kingdom supreme and that kingdom is built not on self gain, but self sacrifice…Christ’s kingdom is built on love.             Love for all of those in Christ’s kingdom, all of God’s children, all of us.  Regardless of how we interpret our personal relationships or the way we view those in the news.    “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  This is an active love, a life changing love, a powerful and transforming love, and as next week is the Day of Transfiguration…I guess you’ll have to wait till next week to hear more about that.                                 Amen.