“And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
Luke 6:32-36
To truly love is a difficult proposition. Because it includes not only loving those who love you, but also those who do not love you. In Luke 6:32, Jesus says to His followers: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” It is easy to love in return for love, for someone to love us and for us to reciprocate love. It is somewhat of a challenge to grow in love with someone we don’t know well. Just about all of us have done this. We meet someone, get to know them, fall in love with them, and this becomes the person we marry. That is a challenge, especially when someone plays hard to get. The greater challenge is when someone is ostensibly against us, when they are an enemy who goes out of their way to be hurtful, and we still find a way to express love. This is what Jesus is talking about. To love not only when love is not returned, but to love even the one who is hurting us.
Jesus continues in Luke 6:33, “And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.” By now, we hopefully remember that the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor. We express love for our neighbor through service, through good works. If we only serve the neighbor who serves us, there is no credit there either. We are to serve the neighbor who is indifferent to us, even the neighbor who dislikes us. Yes, this sounds like radical thinking, and it was two thousand years ago, just as it is today. We express love through service, even serving those who make our life harder.
“And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.” (Luke 6:34) Most of the time, when something is loaned, there is an expectation to receive it back again, and many times, the lender receives back something additional. For instance, people lend money with the expectation of being repaid with interest. Jesus turns the concept of lending on its head when He tells His followers that there is no love in lending something you hope to receive back, or receive back with interest. Love calls on us not to lend, but to give, expecting nothing in return.
Jesus began this section of teaching by giving what is known as the Golden Rule, “As you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.” (Luke 6:31) This establishes a quid-pro-quo or a like-for-like expectation. “Do unto others as you would have done to you” is one of the more often used translations of the Golden Rule. But then Jesus goes way beyond the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is an exchange, a transaction. And Jesus teaches that love is not an exchange or a transaction. Rather, it is a sacrifice. We don’t only do to others what we hope will be done to us. We are to “love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return.” (Luke 6:35) To love means to sacrifice for our enemies, to do good even to those who hate us, and to give, expecting nothing in return. (Or in more plain terms, to loan to the one we know is not going to pay us back).
Why would we do this? Jesus reveals the answer in Luke 6:35, when He says “Your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most High.” The reward for all of this is to be called a child of God, and to be with God in the Kingdom of Heaven. And the path there is that we have to become like God, being “kind to the ungrateful and the selfish.” (Luke 6:35) We have to show mercy in the same way that God shows mercy, This theme is developed in Luke 15:4-7, where Jesus tells the Parable of the lost sheep: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Again, what Jesus is proposing probably seemed preposterous to His audience. No shepherd would leave ninety-nine sheep and go after a lost sheep, for fear that the ninety-nine might be harmed by wolves. The shepherd would cut his losses and that one sheep would literally be thrown to the wolves. Jesus is telling us another radical idea about loving something so much that one is willing to risk everything to protect what he or she loves.
Love is a choice, and sometimes love is a hard choice. Sometimes it means leaving what is comfortable and going after something that is uncomfortable. Sometimes it means extending kindness to someone who hates us, or someone who has harmed us. What Jesus makes abundantly clear is that there is no credit in loving those who love us, because that makes love an exchange or a transaction, and love is a sacrifice. Jesus set an example for us to follow when He expressed love for His enemies, forgave those who were killing Him at the moment they were killing them, when He told us to forgive even to seventy times seven, and when He died on the cross for the human race that had ostensibly rejected Him. To truly love means to love others as God loves us. And the path to God is through God-like love.
Lord, thank You for loving me even when I am not acting in a loving way towards You. Help me to love others, even when it is difficult, to love those who do not love me, to do good even for those who are unkind to me, to love not only those who love me but to love my enemies as well. (Make a list of people you are not on good terms with and offer a prayer for their well-being). Remember them, and remember me, in Your heavenly Kingdom. Amen.
Christ assures us that when we learn and choose to love as He has taught us and demonstrated for us how to love, then our eternal reward will be great, even if the temporary reward is elusive and the path of love is hard!
