Good Morning!

My name is Nick Cunningham, and I serve as the high school pastor at Ginghamsburg Church. I’m so excited to be with you this morning. Somehow I got stuck talking to you about loving your enemies and revenge- should be a lot of fun. When I say the word revenge or I say love your enemies, I guarantee that everyone in this room has somebody who comes to mind. We all have an enemy. When I mention revenge, I’m sure there is some kind of life experience, something that has happened to you, or something that you have done that comes to the front of your mind. So what I want to do before we get started is to take a second and pray. I would love for God to bring these people and these life experiences to the front of our mind, so that he can heal the areas of our lives that need to be healed. So let’s just take a moment, open yourself up to prayer and then we will get started.

Jesus, I thank You so much that there is no such thing as just showing up to church. Lord, every time we step foot into Your sanctuary there is potential for change. Lord, I thank You so much for reaching out to us. I thank You for loving us even when we were still sinners. Lord, I pray that right now You begin to bring these people and these memories, Lord, to the front of our minds, so that You can heal the areas of our lives that need to be healed. Lord, I pray that after this morning we will be able to love the people that are really hard to love. We love You so much; we give You our praise and glory, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Late one summer evening a truck driver pulled his big rig into one of those 24-hour diners. He was really tired and he was really hungry, so he ordered some food. Just as the waitress was bringing his order to the table three members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang walked into the diner. They decided to give this guy a hard time. They started with verbal abuse. Then one of the guys walked over and picked up his hamburger, another guy grabbed a handful of French fries, and the  third guy started to drink his cup of coffee. Time out! Here is where I would have had some problems. I’m an only child. The one area of my life you can totally tell I’m an only child is with my food. Don’t you touch my food. Now the way this guy responded was pretty remarkable. He calmly stood up, picked up his bill, walked over to the cash register and put his money down, and then he walked out. Well the waitress walked over to the cash register, put the money in the drawer and watched as this man drove off into the night. One of the gang members asked, “Well he’s not much of a man, is he?” To which the waitress responded, “Well I don’t know about that, but he is definitely not much of a truck driver. He just ran over three motorcycles on his way out of the parking lot.” That’s a great story. I love that story. There is just something about it. I don’t know if you are like me but it just brings satisfaction deep down, to my insides. We love stories about revenge though, don’t we? I mean we love it. Think about the shows we watch, the movies we watch. Nothing makes a story more intriguing then revenge.  I have my 10 year high school reunion coming up next summer…. don’t think I haven’t already started planning for this thing. I mean in high school I was everybody’s friend. You know all the girls are like,  “yeah he’s a great guy, he’s a good friend.” BARF. I mean there’s this part of me that wants to lose a bunch of weight, you know, show up to that thing super ripped with my hot wife on my arm and walk around like the one that got away. Don’t tell me you haven’t been there. We love revenge. We love the idea of it. That’s what makes Jesus’ words in Mathew 5:38-42 so painful.  “You have heard that it was said eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, but I tell you; do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” Now I don’t know if you are like me, but these words don’t really line up with my reality. This isn’t the world I live in. These kinds of things don’t happen. Let me get this straight Jesus. Someone hits me, and I’m supposed to let them hit me again. Yeah right. If someone takes takes from me, I’m not supposed to resist, I’m supposed to actually give them more than they want. Who does that? If someone forces me to do something I don’t want to do, I’m supposed to do it and then some. Get out of here. Who lives like that? I mean these words from Jesus don’t really line up with my reality. This doesn’t seem to be the way the world works. We are taught from an early age, eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth. Whatever you do to me, I’m going to do back to you. If you push me, I’m going to push you because it’s fair. And life is all about being fair, right? This whole turn the other cheek business sure sounds great. Imagine telling an African American living in the south during the 1950’s to turn the other cheek. Imagine telling a Jewish person living in Germany during the 1930’s to turn the other cheek. Imagine liberals and conservatives reading these words of Jesus today in America. This does not line up with my reality. This does not seem to be how the world works. This idea of revenge, retaliation, it’s so ingrained into our minds, it’s like a knee jerk reaction. I mean just the other day Pastor Dave was telling me that a man walked into Bible study at Fort McKinley with a big bandage on his hand and Dave asked him what happened to his hand. The guy said “I got into a fight,” and Dave said “Well come on, what’s worth getting in a fight over?” The guy looked at Dave like he was crazy and he was like what would you do if someone put their hands on you? This is how we think. This idea of revenge, retaliation, eye for an eye, it’s so ingrained into the way we think and how we live, and it’s really just a knee jerk reaction.

When we read these words of Jesus it seems like he’s got it all wrong. It seems like he is a little crazy. This doesn’t seem to be how the world really works. It looks like Jesus is taking the way of the world, and how things really are, and flipping it upside down or maybe not.  There is another alternative. What if Jesus is onto something here? Maybe he is right and we are wrong. You see if we dig a little bit deeper, I think we will find that Jesus is not taking the way of the world, how things really are and flipping it upside down. But Jesus is taking a broken and confused world and turning it right side up. First we have to understand in Mathew 5 that Jesus is offering us a way out of this cycle of revenge. You see eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth is actually the oldest law on record, dating all the way back to 2200 BC. So this thing has been around for a while and at the time that it was put into practice, this law was revolutionary. You see revenge had cycled out of control. It had escalated to a ridiculous degree. A dispute between two people became a war between two nations, and whole groups of people would be wiped out. This is what revenge does though. Revenge is cyclical, and it escalates. I work with students so I see this all the time. Parents you know exactly what I’m talking about. He called me stupid, so I made fun of his mom. He called me dumb, so I pushed him. He kicked me and that’s why I cracked him upside the head with a chair. That makes sense. See revenge escalates.

I heard a story about a guy who used to drive around with golf balls in his glove compartment and if someone would cut him off, he would pull around and toss the golf balls out of his sun roof. That is not a good idea. This is what revenge does though; revenge is cyclical, it leads to more revenge and it escalates. What starts off as an argument between two people ends up being a riff between close friends, families, co-workers and even church congregations, because revenge escalates. Revenge is also sneaky. It’s really deceptive. Revenge whispers in our ears and it says hey, once you get revenge, everything is going to be better. You are going to be satisfied, life’s going to improve. The truth is that revenge is never sweet.

Growing up, I was a very oddly shaped kid. I looked funny. When I was 11, I was five foot three, I weighed 185 pounds, and I wore a size 13 shoe. I looked like a meatball with feet. That is about right. Needless to say, I got picked on a lot. Until one day -- I suddenly realized that I was a lot bigger than everyone else. I mean a lot bigger than everyone else. So I decided to go on a bullying spree. It only lasted one afternoon. I picked the guy that bullied me the most and I was going to take care of him first. So I walked up behind him where all of his friends were around, I know this is really creative and I put a lot of thought into this, and I picked him up in the air and dropped him. He hit the ground so hard that all of the air left his body. Now I remember thinking to myself how good it was going to feel when I got my revenge. But all I can remember was how much shame I felt as I stood there looking at the bully on the ground  and all the people staring at me. Revenge is never sweet.

I don’t know if you are like me, but I tend to file things away. If someone is critical of me, or if I notice something about you, I remember it or store it away and then the moment you give me an opportunity I’m going right for the jugular. It’s like the other day, I was talking to our Administrative Assistant, Kim Brubaker, who is phenomenal by the way, and we couldn’t do anything without her. But I’m a bit quirky, so I do a lot of weird things. One of the things I do is like this nervous thing; I don’t even realize I’m doing it. I could be talking to you and all of a sudden I just start shaking my hips. It’s weird I know. And the weird thing is that I do it all the time! Someone told me I look like the gopher in Caddyshack. But I don’t even realize I’m doing it. And I do it a lot. So I’m talking to Kim and I’m doing my gopher dance and she is looking at me like what is wrong with you. She says, “Now I think it’s really weird that you do that.” Fair… but I shot back without even thinking; “Well I think it’s really weird that you dress your dog up in outfits.” OOPS. It’s one of those moments, the words just crawled out of your mouth and you want to grab them and pull them back in. You know what I’m talking about, right? It seems like a great idea before it happens, but then afterwards you just feel like an idiot. Revenge is never sweet. Revenge typically leads to more revenge, and we just end up feeling ashamed. What Jesus is doing in Mathew 5 is offering us a way out. He is offering us freedom from the cycle of revenge. He mentions three specific examples that involved very vindictive behavior. The first one is when someone strikes you on the cheek; this is when somebody insults you. The Greek word for strike means to slap you with the back of the hand. This was the most grave insult in the ancient world. It was said that slaves would rather had been ripped across the back than backhanded across the face. This is the kind of insult that put you above someone else. It’s about power. It’s about control.

The second example is when someone sues you for your tunic. This is when somebody holds a debt over your head. You know what I’m talking about. Like if something happened a long time ago, maybe they forgave you for something, supposedly, maybe they did something nice for you but there is this debt and they want to hold it over your head. They want to hold you hostage to it and continually remind you about it. It’s about power. It’s about control.

The third example comes from a law at that time. Whenever a Roman soldier wanted to, he could legally grab you, and make you carry his stuff, his military equipment for up to one mile, and there was nothing you could do about it. You could be on the way to your wedding, you could be on the way to your mother’s funeral and if he grabs you and stops you, you had to carry his stuff for up to one mile. This is about power. This is about control. See Jesus is saying to us, respond to these people in a way that takes this power and control away. He’s saying to respond to them in a way that says, “Look, you think that you have insulted me, but you have not. Here’s my other cheek. You think you can hold this over my head. Do you think you can control me with this debt? You can’t. Don’t just take my tunic; here is my cloak as well. Do you think you are making me do something I don’t want to do; you’re not making me do anything. In fact I will go even further with you.” This is about freedom. This is about a release, a way out from the cycle of revenge. When we refuse to take revenge, and when we deliberately rid ourselves of the desire for it, then we are refusing to allow our future lives to be controlled by the evil that someone else does to us. And we are opening the door for God to work. It’s bad enough they did what they did to you in the first place. Why should you allow it to control the way you live? This is about freedom. Jesus is saying don’t get sucked up into the cycle of revenge. When somebody insults you, don’t insult them back. You will just get caught up in the whole thing, which will lead to even more revenge. Instead, bless them. When someone takes from you, don’t take back, don’t get sucked up into that, give them even more. When someone makes you do something you don’t want to do, don’t resist, don’t get caught up in that. Instead do even more than they expect from you. This is about freedom. I’m not talking about victimization here. That’s a whole other topic. This is not an excuse for you continually to allow yourself to be someone’s victim over and over and over again. Jesus does not want us to be anybody’s doormat. This is about freedom. This is about making the conscious decision not to allow the evil that someone else has done to us to determine who we are and how we live. This is about accepting a way out of the cycle of revenge. Not only is Jesus offering us a way out, but he is also offering us a way up, a higher calling. Jesus is actually inviting us to a powerful way of life. I want to go back to Mathew 5:43-48.  Jesus says, “You are familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ it’s unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies.  Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you are hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then, you’re working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives the best--the sun to warm and the rain to nourish--to everyone regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. Did you simply say hello to those that greet you, do you expect a medal? Anyone run-of-the-mill sinner does that. In a word, what I’m saying is grow up. You’re Kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out of your God-created identity, live generously and graciously towards others the way God lives toward you. “

Did you catch it? When we love our enemies, when we do good to those that hurt us, we live out of our true selves, our God-created selves, who we were always meant to be. Now here is a huge aha moment if we pay attention. We have to understand the primacy of our relationships. You see we are really good at tricking ourselves into thinking that the relationships that we have or the relationships we don’t have, are just a matter of how personable we are. They are so much more. You see, we have been made in the image of a relational God. God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I don’t understand that completely. I never will. My brain is on overload just thinking about how can three be one. What it means though is that God isn’t just in a relationship -  he is relationship, connection, relationship. It’s a part of what makes God, God. We have been made in the image of this relational God, which makes us relational creatures. You see, being in healthy and connected relationships with other human beings isn’t just something we do, like a hobby. It’s not optional. It’s a vital part of even what it means to be a human being. That is why when you think back to one of your favorite memories, memories when you felt the most alive, you had the most fun, I guarantee you that they are connected to your favorite people. That is also why some of our most painful memories are connected to relational conflict. You see we have been made in the image of a relational God, therefore our relationships, being connected to other human beings, isn’t just something we do, it’s a vital part of what it means to be human being.

Anything that doesn’t lend itself to healthy connected relationships between human beings, isn’t from God,  and it’s not who you are. It’s not how life was meant to be. Anything that lends itself to hate, revenge and retaliation is not from God and is not how the world really works. We think it’s about eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. We think it’s about revenge and retaliation, but it’s not. Jesus is saying, “You think it’s about loving your neighbor, everyone who is like you, everyone who agrees with you, everyone who is nice to you and about hating your enemies, the people who are mean to you, the people that disagree with you, people who have hurt you, but you have got it all wrong. I’m telling you to love your enemies and to do good to those that hurt you, and in the process you will reconnect with who you really are. You will experience life the way it was always mean to be.” Not only is Jesus offering us a way up, a higher way of living,  but he is reconnecting us with who we really are. If we were made in the image of God, then I guess it makes sense that we should reflect what God is like. We should live to resemble the kind of God that we serve. This whole loving the enemy thing shouldn’t come to us as that big of a shock. This is exactly what God has done for us, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Listen to what Colossians says, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body.” This whole loving your enemy thing; it’s the very nature of God. It’s how God interacts with us. This is why we see Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, dying under the weight of the world’s sin and still praying for the forgiveness of the people crucifying him. When we accept Jesus’ invitation of a way up, when we love our enemies, not only do we reconnect with who we really are, not only do we experience life the way it was meant to be, but we tap into the most powerful force the universe has ever seen. We tap into the character and nature of God himself. It’s the same power that defeated sin, the same power that defeated death, that resurrected Jesus Christ the Lord and reconnected human kind with his creator. It is the same power that enables us to love our enemies. That is real power. Power does not come from hatred, revenge or retaliation. Real power comes from selfless love. The kind of love that knows no enemies. That is the kind of love that can not only change our relationships, but can change the world around us.

Think back to the most influential leaders who have ever lived, the ones that brought about real change. The kind of change that lasted. The kind of change that actually made the world a better place. Tolstoy, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, what do they all have in common. They had this ability to forgive their enemies, to love people that were not like them. This kind of power has the ability to change the world. For instance, in 1956 Martin Luther King was a young 20 something Baptist preacher in Montgomery, Alabama. He found himself as the head of bus boycott movement that started with Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat.  Whereas this movement began to grow steam and get bigger and bigger, King started to hear all these rumors that the white authorities in Montgomery wanted to get rid of him. Well all of these rumors culminated on the night of January 27^th. King was asleep in his small home, with his young wife and two-month old daughter, when he got a phone call. The caller basically told King that he had three days to get out of town. If he didn’t, he would be dead and his house would be bombed. King hung up the phone and was so disturbed by this that he couldn’t go back to sleep, so he poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at his kitchen table. To use his words, he was paralyzed by fear. All he could do was think of his wife in the bedroom next door and his two-month old little girl. All he could think of was how am I going to get out of this? How am I going to save my family? How am I going to get out of Alabama? He had never been so afraid in his life. And then something happened--something that would change the course of King’s life and the case can be made that would change the course of American history. King said he heard a voice. It’s wasn’t an audible voice, but a deep inner voice. This is what it said to him. “Stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth and I will be with you even to the end of the world.” The voice promised to never ever leave him. It was there at his kitchen table, over a cup of coffee that Martin Luther King had this encounter with the living presence of God, and he knew then that he could stand up without fear. Well four days later, after his coffee cup conversion, Martin Luther King had his new vision of the world challenged. He was speaking at a bus boycott rally when around 9 p.m. a young man ran into the service and announced that King’s home had just been bombed. King ran out of the service and ran down the street. When he got to his house it was still on fire. The police were there, the fire department was there, and an angry mob of citizens with guns and bats were there. They were ready to riot because of this attack on their leader’s home. After King found that his wife and daughter were okay, he got up on the porch of his burning house, his house that had just been bombed, where he had almost lost his wife and daughter and he preached a sermon to this angry mob that was ready to riot. Listen to what he said, and remember he is standing on the porch of his house that is on fire. These are the words of Martin Luther King. “I want you to love your enemies, be good to them. Love them and let them know that you love them. What we are doing is right, what we are doing is just and God is with us. Go home with this glowing faith, with this radiant assurance, with love in your hearts and with faith and with God in front, we cannot lose.”

And this angry mob of citizens put down their guns, they put down their bats and they spontaneously broke into Amazing Grace. They sang, they cried, they hugged and they went home. One lady in the crowd later remarked that it could have been the darkest night in Montgomery’s history. But it wasn’t because the Holy Spirit was in their hearts. A white police officer later recalled that we all would have  been dead if it had not been for that black preacher. We all know how the story goes. That movement continued on and it actually changed a nation. Talk about power. The kind of power that can not only change our relationships, but change the world we live in. It’s not found in hate. It’s not found in revenge. It’s not found in retaliation. It’s found in the Christ-like ability to love our enemies.

 I don’t know about you, but I want to see the world different. I want to see the world change, but that is why we gather here. That is why there is even a Ginghamsburg Church because we want to see the world different. We want to see people change. I want my life to be about seeing the world change. You know how that happens. It’s not through hate. It’s not through revenge. It’s not through retaliation. It’s through love, selfless love. The kind of love that knows no enemy. This is Jesus Christ offering us a way up. He is inviting us to a powerful way of life, a life that reconnects us with who we really are, how life was always meant to be, a life that can actually change the world. Now in order for us to accept this offer for a way up, we have to be willing to lay down our rights for the sake of our responsibility. You see the words of Jesus Christ were never meant to be casually enjoyed. The words of Jesus Christ weren’t meant to inspire a bunch of cute email chain letters. Jesus came preaching the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Sermon on the Mount is his inaugural address. He says over and over again, you have heard it said you think the world is like this, you think this is how things work but they are not. I’m here to show you how the world really works. I’m here to establish the Kingdom of Heaven and if you want to be a part of it, you need to organize your life by its standards. You see if we want to be a part of this kingdom, then we need to take our responsibilities as kingdom subjects very seriously. Paul uses words to describe us as Christ’s ambassadors, ministers of reconciliation. Frankly the world and the people who live in this world don’t have time for people who claim to follow Jesus Christ and claim to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven while just sitting back like a bunch of spectators and living their lives according to the ways of the world. Listen to what Paul says in Romans 13. “Do this, understand the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now then when we first believed. The night is nearly over. The day is almost here, so let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” This passage is at the heart of what is known as Paul’s ethic. You want to sound really smart next time at cell group, drop this one on them. Paul’s ethic is basically his main idea, his big point that he makes throughout the majority of his writings. The present age, or the old world, is still alive and kicking, it is still rumbling on and most people live their lives according to its standards. But the new world is already broken in. The new age has already begun with the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the responsibility of the people that claim to follow him, who are a part of his kingdom, to organize their lives, to live their lives in the present age according to the ways of the age to come.

Hate, revenge, retaliation--they have no place in God’s new world. We have to be willing to lay down our rights for the sake of our responsibility. It might have been the right of Martin Luther King and that angry mob to retaliate, to riot, to seek revenge. But they didn’t. They laid down their rights for the sake of their responsibility, and the world is a better place for it. The world may tell you that it’s your right when somebody insults you to retaliate, to seek revenge. But it’s your responsibility to bless them. The world may tell you that it’s your right when someone tries to take from you, to resist, taking back, but it’s your responsibility to give them even more. The world may tell you that it’s your right to love your neighbor, and hate your enemy, but it’s your responsibility to embody the very character of God, to love your enemies, and to do good to those who hurt you. Just imagine what the world would look like if we lived like this. Think about a society that actually put the words of Jesus Christ into practice. There would be no more violence. There would be no more hate. There would be no more revenge. There would be no more separation, no more classes, and no more division. Material possessions wouldn’t be as important as making sure your neighbor was okay.  Imagine if even a handful of us got this right.  If we actually lived this way and loved our enemies, if we did good to those that hurt us, if we stopped giving in to this cycle of revenge, if we actually took Jesus seriously, what would happen, what would change? I guarantee you that your relationships would change. Your families would change. Your work places would change. Our political arenas would change. The world would change. In the end, hate, revenge, retaliation don’t get us anywhere. They just leave us worn out, broken and bitter people. This world can change. It will change, but the only hope we have is Jesus Christ. The only hope we have is in this selfless love, the kind of love that has no enemies. You need to take Jesus’ offer of a way out. May you not get caught up in this cycle of revenge? May you lay down your rights for the sake of your responsibility? May you discover this powerful way of living and reconnect with who you really are. Let’s pray.

Jesus, I thank You so much for loving us the way that we are. Lord, I thank You for loving us enough not to  leave us that way. Lord, I pray that You will renew our hope that this world can change. You didn’t come just to give us some fancy ideas, a bunch of pipe dreams. Lord, You came to make Your kingdom a reality. So, Lord, give us the courage to be a part of that. Give us the power to lay down our rights for the sake of our responsibility. We need You, Jesus. We love You so much. We give You our praise and glory in Jesus’ name, Amen.