Luke 6:27-31
Rev. David Collins
Nov. 17, 2024
When you hear the phrase ‘love your enemies,’ what’s your gut reaction? For most of us, it sounds impossible—or maybe just naïve. Especially right now, just twelve days out from the election and eleven days until Thanksgiving. Love my enemies? The people who’ve hurt me? Made my life worse? Those people?
How are we supposed to break bread with those who have broken our hearts, with their words, and actions? Lots of voices demand that you just get over it and get back to normal.
“If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” At the dinner table, someone very dear to me just shoves a roll in their mouth every time they feel something not nice about to come out of it. That’s one option.
Some people think that “love your enemies” means to love them the way that you love your family and friends, and just ignore the bad things and focus on the good. There’s a place for that, depending on what the bad thing is. But then there’s also this quote from Dr. Jens Foell, who shares, “As we say in Germany, if there’s a Nazi at the table and ten other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with eleven Nazis.”
Some say that tolerance isn’t really tolerance because it excludes the intolerant. But that line of reasoning always sounds to me like someone complaining that a triangle isn’t round. Of course it’s not round, it’s a triangle. Of course tolerance can’t include intolerance. Nonsense doesn’t stop being nonsense just because you throw God into the mix.
So if we’re going to love like Jesus, and have it not just be an empty slogan, what are we supposed to do with people who have hurt us, and would really rather we not mention it? Is that what it means to love like Jesus?
Well, do you think Jesus loved the Pharisees? I think he did. But he loved them by pointing out where they’d gone wrong. Here’s something that Jesus said to the Pharisees out of his love for them:
Matthew 23:27-28
‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.
28 So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Do you hear the love in his voice? No? It’s there! But maybe we don’t know love when we see it because we don’t really see it that much.
We’d say “You know, maybe, if I’m being honest, you Pharisees might be able to do a little better in the whole integrity department. Just my two cents. Feel free to disregard.”
But not Jesus. Real love cares more about the truth than it does about keeping up appearances or meeting expectations. Real love holds up a mirror and says, this is what you really look like. This is what you’ve really done.
Real Love
In Luke 6, Jesus calls us to that kind of love. Not a love that avoids the hard conversations, but actively seeks the real good of others, even if it’s uncomfortable. When we’re hurt by someone, our instinct might be to avoid them or just “play nice” to keep the peace. But Jesus’ example shows us that loving our enemies can sometimes mean confronting what’s wrong, not to wound but to help bring change. Love isn’t afraid to try and cut out the infection in order to save someone’s life, and the community at large.
Love tells the truth, and the first truth we have to tell is that we have enemies. It doesn’t do us any good to pretend like we don’t. So rather than just bearing grudges and smoldering, and lobbing little cutting comments, we should come out and admit to ourselves that we have them.
We should acknowledge that we have all the feelings that go along with having enemies, too: fear, anger, disgust, hurt. And not deny them or avoid them. They are where we start from, but hopefully not where we end up.
Jesus very clearly says that we will have, just like he had, and continues to have…enemies. The word for enemies here in Luke is also translated in the Bible as hated, odious, hateful…hostile, hating, and opposing another. There’s no need to mince words, or avoid the truth.
You have enemies. And Jesus tells you to love them.
But we’ll see in the passage today that loving our enemies isn’t the same as loving our friends. The love we are called to show our enemies is for a special purpose. It isn’t about warm feelings or even reconciliation right away. It’s a love that seeks to disrupt hate and plant seeds of transformation. It’s a love that says, 'I want to see you healed, even if we never see eye to eye.'
With our friends, our love might mean building each other up, sharing life, celebrating together. But with our enemies, love looks like laying down our right to revenge, choosing not to return insult for insult, and, as Jesus says, praying for them.
Why? Because this kind of love is for God’s purpose. It is part of God’s project to heal and redeem the whole world, which is where our enemies live, too. It doesn’t mean agreeing with them or endorsing what they’ve done. It means we refuse to become like them in their hate. It means we are open to the hope that God’s love can change even the hardest heart, maybe starting with our own.
So as we dig into Luke 6 today, keep in mind that Jesus is not inviting us to feel warm and fuzzy toward those who hurt us but to break cycles of bitterness and seek the possibility of God healing not only them but us, too.
Before I go any further, a warning first. It’s important to note that loving our enemies doesn’t mean allowing them to harm us. Boundaries can be a form of love too. Jesus’ teaching was given to people who couldn’t avoid the abuse they received. If you can, you should. If you are in any kind of abusive relationship, please come talk to us. We will help you.
If that’s not you, today’s teaching might have a lot for you. Let’s get into it.
Luke 6:27-31
‘But I say to you that listen,
Love your enemies,
The word here for love is agape. In greek, there are three words that we translate as love. There’s “filio” which is reciprocal love. Like with friends. Then there’s “eros” which is with special friends, and then there’s divine, unconditional love: agape. Agape is the kind of love that is given with no expectation of return. It’s an action, not a feeling. A choice.
Then next word is “your”. Second person possessive pronoun. That’s an important detail. Jesus doesn’t say, ‘Love the enemies,’ as if we’re called to be some kind of neutral party or referee. He doesn’t say, ‘Love other people’s enemies,’ as if we’re supposed to take it upon ourselves to help everyone else get along. He says, ‘Love your enemies’—the ones who’ve hurt you, who’ve opposed you, who’ve made life hard for you. It’s personal.
Sometimes people try to play devil’s advocate or step in as the ‘peacemaker’ between others, as if they’re being impartial. They’ll say things like, ‘Well, they didn’t mean it like that,’ or, ‘Why don’t you just let it go?’ And while there can be wisdom in encouraging peace, loving your enemies isn’t about smoothing things over for other people or telling others how they should feel. It’s about you and your enemies. That’s the last word here in this little sense. We’ve already covered that word sufficiently I think.
So love, not with feelings but with actions, your, not anyone else’s, enemies.
Then Jesus tells us to
Do good to those who hate you,
28 bless those who curse you
pray for those who abuse you.
Now, what do you usually do when people hate, curse or abuse you? Maybe you do all those things back to them. But I think I know what you more often do.
Apologize.
You think, “well I must have done something to make them do that.” Maybe if I agree with them about how terrible I am, that will lead to them liking me? Saying things out loud help us hear how crazy they are, doesn’t it?
Research shows that people tend to dislike those they’ve treated poorly, not the other way around. It’s called the justification of cruelty effect. When people hate, curse and abuse, they feel the need to justify their actions. They convince themselves that the person they’ve hurt ‘deserves’ it, and their dislike deepens. By mistreating someone, they forge a stronger hatred just to feel okay about what they’ve done.
Think about that. This isn’t about us doing something wrong to make someone an enemy.
It’s usually about their own actions, their own cruelty, and their mental gymnastics they go through to justify it all.
Jesus isn’t tell you to be a martyr here. He is giving you a tactical response.
When we “do good”, when we refuse to retaliate, we deny them the ‘proof’ they’re looking for to justify their hatred. Our response can short-circuit their narrative.
But it’s got to be genuine for it to work, though. Everyone knows that saying “Bless your heart” isn’t really a blessing. But publicly contributing to someone’s GoFundMe sure is. Our blessing says, ‘I refuse to become what you expect, and I refuse to hold onto the bitterness you want me to feel.’ But you’ve got to leave the smug smile at home, or it’s not going to work.
I can’t decide if the command to pray for our enemies is the easiest one here or the hardest. It starts out easy, when it’s just me and God, because I’m always honest with God, and God knows who I think should continue to live. But then it gets harder the longer I do it. Then it moves towards asking God to change their hearts, and then I end up volunteering to help. That’s the hard part. But I don’t pray for enemies the way that I might pray for a loved one.
It’s a strategy. A tactic. By calling us to do good, bless, and pray, Jesus gives us a way to disrupt the cycle of hatred, and deny our enemies the satisfaction of justifying their cruelty.
It won’t always work, and they won’t often change. But, Jesus doesn’t ask us to love our enemies because it guarantees their transformation but because it transforms us.
And if that doesn’t work, Jesus has some other suggestions, too. Next he turns to non-violent resistance.
29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also;
Matthew gets even more specific and reports that Jesus said,
Matthew 5:38 But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also
At first, this might sound like Jesus is telling us to accept mistreatment. But that’s far from what he means. Walter Wink, a Bible scholar and activist, helps us see that this command is actually about defiance and dignity.
The Third Way. Not Fight and Not Flight.
In Jesus’ time, to slap someone’s right cheek was to give a backhand—a move reserved for putting ‘inferiors’ in their place. By offering the left cheek, the person struck would force their aggressor into a choice: either hit them with a fist, like an equal, or back down. It’s a way of saying, ‘I refuse to be humiliated. I am a human being, your equal.’
This tactic doesn’t let the oppressor justify their cruelty or trap the victim in a shame cycle. In fact, it forces the person who strikes to face their own actions without getting the response they expect.
Just as loving our enemies refuses to give them ‘proof’ to justify their hatred, turning the other cheek throws off the power dynamic altogether. Jesus is giving us a way to stand firm, to demand recognition of our dignity without stooping to retaliation.
And isn’t that what Jesus has been calling us to all along? To a love that disrupts hate without denying our own worth?
Wink points out that this act is like saying, ‘I won’t be defined by your hatred, and I won’t let you pull me into it. I am a child of God, just like you. And while I won’t respond with violence, I also won’t disappear.’
Wink calls it the third way. Not fight and not flight. Non-violent resistance is a form of love, that says, ‘I see your humanity even if you can’t see mine yet.” Or as Gandhi taught, "The first principle of nonviolent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.” We must find a new, third way that is neither cowardly submission nor violent reprisal.”
Jesus goes on,
and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.
Walter Wink helps us understand what’s really going on here, too. In ancient Jewish society, Deuteronomy 24 laid out a specific rule: a poor person’s long outer robe could be taken by a creditor as collateral for a loan, but it had to be returned each evening so that the person had something to sleep in. It was a way of providing protection even within harsh economic practices.
But Jesus takes it a step further. He says, ‘If they take your coat, give them your shirt too.’ Wink points out that if someone actually did this, they would be left standing in court stark naked! In Jewish culture, nakedness wasn’t primarily embarrassing for the person without clothes; it was a source of shame for everyone who saw it, especially the one who caused it.
Kind of like when you’re watching a movie with your parents, and suddenly there are naked people on the screen having a good time.
By giving over their shirt, which was also their underwear, the debtor would be turning the tables, exposing the creditor’s actions for what they were—a shameful system that stripped people of their dignity.
People naturally shrink from the power of that kind of shame, the shame of having to borrow just to survive, but rather than do whatever it takes to make the feeling go away, Jesus tells us to lean into it.
‘You want my coat? Take everything! Now you have all I own, except my very body. Is that what you’ll take next?’
This act of stripping away even the last layer gives the enemy an unfiltered look at the harm they’re causing, forcing them to confront their own actions. Non-violent resistance is designed to show the enemy what they have become. To change their hearts through the same shame they instill in others. It has to be provocative.
Loving your enemy through non-violent resistance not only refuses to be shamed but reflects that shame back onto the oppressor, forcing them to see the true impact of their choices. We are not called to passively accept injustice; but expose it, offering the other person a chance—maybe for the first time—to truly see the consequences of their actions and, just maybe, to repent.
Jesus is showing us how to stand firm, how to defy without violence, and how to reflect the truth of who we are: beloved, worthy, and witty, no matter how the enemy tries to strip us down or shrink our choices to down to hate or retaliation. Jesus isn’t just calling us to be ‘nice.’ He’s calling us to a kind of love that forces others to see us—and hopefully, in time, to see God—differently.
30 Give to everyone who begs from you;
It can’t ever be just about the enemy. Even here in the middle of a teaching about non-violent resistance, Jesus wants us to make sure that we remember and care for the least of these. No action is so important that it will allow us to neglect the poor.
and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.
Again, this isn’t about being a martyr or earning points for heaven. It’s about the mission here and now. It’s about refusing to let our enemies, or those who wrong us, define the terms of our response. When Jesus tells us not to demand our goods back, he’s teaching us to break the cycle of retaliation and entitlement that so often fuels conflict. We tell our enemy, “You cannot control me through what you’ve taken from me.’
This isn’t about passivity. It’s about keeping our focus on the greater mission of the kingdom of God, and showing them—and ourselves—that our hope is grounded not in material possessions but in the transformation of the world, and every person in it.
That transformation lies at the heart of Jesus’ next command:
31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
This isn’t just a feel-good rule for getting along, though it does look great cross-stiched. It’s here because it’s a continuation of Jesus’ call to resist hatred and injustice in a way that leaves room for redemption. Walter Wink puts it perfectly: ‘Jesus is not advocating nonviolence merely as a technique for outwitting the enemy, but as a just means of opposing the enemy in a way that holds open the possibility of the enemy's becoming just also.”
Jesus is showing us a way to confront our enemies that doesn’t destroy them—or us—but instead creates the opportunity for both sides to be transformed. “Both sides must win,” Wink says. It’s about living with integrity, refusing to adopt strategies we wouldn’t want used against us. Jesus invites us to engage in a way that challenges evil without becoming complicit in it, keeping the door open for healing, and ultimately, reconciliation,
“Loving confrontation can free both the oppressed from docility and the oppressor from sin.” -Walter Wink
So where does this leave us? Jesus’ call to love your enemies is not sentimental or passive—it’s a bold call to live differently.
But first, we have to ask ourselves, Who is my enemy?
Who Is My Enemy?
Jesus makes it clear that our enemies include those who hate us, with their actions as well as their words—those who hurt us, oppose us, make our lives harder, and society worse.
But if we’re honest, we also need to admit the harder truth: our enemies also include those we hate. Yes, hate. Acknowledge it, name it, bring it to God, because he already knows who you hate. And hate can trap us. And controls us. Harden us, and distances us from the very love Jesus calls us to live out.
Loving our enemies doesn’t mean pretending we don’t feel anger or pain. It means refusing to stay stuck in those feelings. It means resisting hate with courage and honesty, doing good, blessing, and praying in ways that disrupt cycles of harm—both the harm others do to us and the harm we inflict on ourselves through getting stuck. We can’t just hate. Jesus knows that hate poisons our souls, and his command to love our enemies is as much for our healing as it is for theirs.
But as far as what to do in every situation? Outside of getting backhanded or deprived of our outer cloaks, it looks like we’re going to have to figure that one out on our own, using all of the energy and imagination that God has given us. What he do have are guidelines for what we can’t do, and what we have to try to do. Jesus calls us to confront injustice and conflict in a way that preserves our dignity, reflects God’s love, and leaves space for transformation—for them and for us. This isn’t easy. But it’s the only way to be truly free—free from bitterness, free from the need to “win,” and free to live out God’s kingdom values here and now.
So, as you step into this week, take a moment to ask yourself: Who is my enemy? Be honest. Name the people you feel hate toward or feel hatred from. Then ask God to help you love them—not with warm feelings but with actions that reflect the love of Christ. Let’s choose to love like Jesus—not as a sign of weakness but as a radical act of faith that says, “I trust that love is stronger than hate, and I trust that God is already working to redeem the world, one enemy at a time.
Amen.
For further reading:
The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium by Walter Wink
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