Mercy, love forgiveness for everyone

These last few weeks our church and many others have been reading through the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5. These teachings of Jesus are probably some of the most familiar and most challenging: “Blessed are the merciful.” “You are the light of the world.”

“Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.”

Don’t recognize any of those — how about these ones?

“Go the extra mile.” “Turn the other cheek,” “You are the salt of the earth.”

And I don’t think there’s ever been a time when these words have been easy to hear. Jesus is inviting us into a different way of life. And not one where we passively allow others to bully us, but one where we creatively resist evil without resorting to violence. He is inviting us to give up revenge and retaliation and walk a path of forgiveness. He is inviting us to find God’s blessing not where there seems to be strength and power, but weakness, mercy and poverty.

In a world where we often divide people into categories — friends or enemies, winners or losers, rich or poor, us or them, left or right — Jesus refuses to let us keep things so simple. If you love those who love you, says Jesus, what credit is that to you? It’s when love reaches past the boundaries, the walls, the stereotypes that we’ve set up and that we are so comfortable with, that we glimpse what God’s love is really all about.

Revenge. Hatred. Fear. Lust. Greed. These are the things that make the world go around and around it seems. And we all bear the scars of them. Jesus thankfully reminds us that those things are not actually what we are created for. In the creation story, God fashions human beings and says that we are made in God’s image. Not just me. Not just you. All of us bear the image of God. Isn't there a difference when I realize the person I’m angry with is also made in God’s image? Isn’t there a difference when I realize the newcomer who doesn’t share my culture or faith is also made in God’s image? Isn’t there a difference when I realize that the person who doesn’t share my political views is also made in God’s image? I think there is.

The way of the Sermon on the Mount is never going to be easy or popular: Jesus ended up on a cross, after all. But we can see an alternate vision, and a God who practices what he preaches. And we can see in Jesus what we humans were really created for — to live out those same things that God shows to us: Mercy, forgiveness and love, even for our enemies.

Rev. Jeff Decelle is pastor at Unity Lutheran Church.