“Reciprocity”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Saturday, October 5, 2024
Luke 6: 27-38 (Forward, p. 68) CEV p. 1064
Boy, do most of us ever have trouble with Jesus’ teachings in today’s passage! Love your enemies, be good to those who hate us, ask God’s blessings unto those who curse us, pray for those who are cruel to us. And it only gets ‘worse’. Jesus tells us that if someone slaps you on one cheek, then we are to offer the other cheek, etc. It is one thing to put up with abuse, allow for it, but to even offer ourselves, open ourselves up to further abuse, that’s stretching it quite a bit. Most of us are not at all ready to take that on. I, for one, am certainly not interested in becoming something of a doormat for such people.
And, as if this isn’t bad enough, Jesus then goes on to tell us not to judge them or be hard on them. Now, even allowing for the very distinct possibility that He is talking about our condemning them or writing them off, it is still a pretty difficult task. I’m afraid that if someone spitefully uses me or mistreats me, I find myself still passing judgment on them in my heart, if not in my words or actions.
But then, Jesus also says something, says it twice in fact, that certainly gives me pause. “Treat others just as you want to be treated”, He says in verse 31 and “The way you treat others is the way you will be treated” in verse 38. This says something about reciprocity, about tit for tat, and certainly puts a different complexion on things. It forces me to stop and think, to ponder my own words and actions, to consider whether I might on occasion say or do things that hurt other people, whether unintentionally or not. It forces me to consider whether I’d appreciate them trying to give me space and trying to understand what I’m thinking and what is going on in my life. I think that I’d like that.
Anyway, I’m not sure whether I can measure up to any of this, but nevertheless, it gives us something to consider, and possibly, with God’s help, do a bit better with.
Forward notes: “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (verse 27).
“Jesus has a method and plan for dealing with and vanquishing our enemies. It’s just not the way we’d expect or might want. Jesus’s plan is that we ‘destroy’ our enemies with love and kindness. That’s right: Jesus’s method of handling our enemies is to genuinely wish them well, genuinely want what’s best for them, and genuinely love them. I guess you could say it’s a more extreme form of ‘killing them with kindness.’
“You have enemies? Pray for them, Jesus says. Want the best for them. Wish them the best. Hope that they can live their best life. Bless them. Love them. Treat them with so much kindness that perhaps one day they no longer your enemies but, at the least, your neighbors and, at best, your friends.
“It’s as simple as that. The thing is: following Jesus is simple, but it’s not easy.”
Moving Forward: “Pray for someone you normally wouldn’t pray for today.”