Perpetually Astonishing! Reflections on Luke 6:27-38 for Epiphany 7, Year C

Today’s text is among the most amazing statements of Christian morality to be found in the New Testament, and one that is continually read as such and is just as often avoided like the plague! “Love your enemies” (Luke 6:27a, and repeated in 6:35) is certainly the most quoted and least followed command in the Bible. Matthew presents it as one of his antitheses from the Sermon on the Mount (Mt.5:43), and like Luke, he intends the command to be an attitude and an action, not merely an emotion. “Love” for them both is an active verb, a fact made plain by what Luke says in the next line: “Act well toward those who hate you” (6:27b).  

Surely, no more oxymoronic command can be imagined; love enemies indeed! Is not love reserved for those who prize love, those who themselves can offer love in return? What can it finally mean to love one’s enemies, to do good to those you detest you, to pray for your abusers, to offer coat and undergarment to any who ask? What can Jesus be thinking by uttering such nonsensical demands in his world, not to mention ours? It is plain that what Jesus is saying goes well beyond any logic of reciprocity (and thus benefaction), demanding that followers of his, and thus those who desire to dwell in the rule of God, do far more than the “tit for tat” rules that govern the lives of those Jesus terms “sinners”. There is finally no credit to those who “love those who love in return,” “who do good to those who do good in return,” who “lend to those expecting a return.” Instead lend expecting no return.” In short, be like God, who showers divine gifts on all, including those we deem evil or haters or abusers. This notion of the universality of God’s grace, that certainly includes those we call enemies, has always been one of the major obstacles for acting truly as a Christian follower of Jesus. 

Is it in the end possible to love one’s enemies? Truly? A recent movie, supposedly based on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, may help us see the problem. It must be said clearly that the movie portrays a deeply distorted understanding of the life of this complex man. The bare facts are well known. Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian, who spent considerable time in US America before World War II, but, against the advice of many of his friends, decided to return to Germany to add his voice to those who opposed Adolf Hitler. The result was that he joined an assassination plot against the dictator, was arrested, and was hanged a few days before the end of the war.  

What the movie gets completely wrong is that Bonhoeffer left his Christian morality behind in order to attempt to kill Hitler; he, in the end, and in order to attempt to kill Hitler; he at the end saw the world in simple right and wrong colors. Any reading of his own writings tell us how mistaken that view is. He wrestled mightily with his decision to join the plot right to the end. He was morally unalterably opposed to any killing, and though he finally determined that the killing of this one man could save the lives of millions of others, he felt through it all that his actions were morally indefensible. Far from becoming a “situational ethicist,” making decisions based on some supposed greater good, Bonhoeffer knew all too well that his choice had no moral defense. Human decisions can never be made on the grounds of clear right and wrong, because such clarity is far beyond any human capacity to recognize it.  

There are those in our own country now who imagine that their actions can be defended as they think Bonhoeffer’s were; know what is correct, even if it is painful to some, and do it anyway. Not so! Bonhoeffer strove throughout his life to follow the commands of Luke 6; he wanted to love his enemies, and when he sought to kill Hitler, he knew all too well that his actions were a complete failure to follow what he knew Jesus had commanded. Even that great and good man found that he could not do what he knew he should do, and recognized to the end that his actions had no moral defense.  

So, can we in reality love our enemies? Any such attempt will inevitably lead us to moral complexities that are confounding and mysterious. The call to love enemies is a very high moral bar, one rarely if ever surpassed by a human being. Yet, that is God’s call to us, to move beyond the easy relationships that we all choose, and go instead to a higher calling, to become like our God in loving all, without exception, even the Hitlers of our world. Absurd it may be, but the call of God is rarely less than absurd, when taken with the most profound seriousness.