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Scripture: Lectionary # 366. II Cor. 8:1-9. Psalm 146:2.5-6.7.8-9. Matthew
5:43-48.

"Love your enemies, pray for your persecutors!" This most difficult
command of Jesus forces us to really weigh the cost of our discipleship.
We are in a time of war almost in every part of the world and there is very
little love for those who are at war with us. Jesus is not speaking of an
impossible ideal here, but is calling us to weigh the cost of following
him. There are many who have embraced the call to be peacemakers and have
given us some timely examples of how to live out that command of love, yet,
we know well that we sort of store this in our memories and give it "lip
service" rather than lived out service. We have trouble even loving those
with whom we live in family, community, or in our country. Yet, Jesus
keeps telling us "Love one another."

This part of the Sermon on the Mount goes beyond what we have heard from
other holy persons in different religious dispensations. Jesus stands
alone in the field as he speaks these words about all inclusive, universal,
and agape love. The last verse today only makes the commandment all the
more powerful and demanding: "You must be perfected even as your heavenly
Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48).

The Dead Sea Scroll community at Qumran tried to be perfect in the halakhic
laws they found in the Torah. They even made their Rule of the Community to
develop this attitude, but they were not able to be reconciled with their
fellow Israelites in the Temple worship and their observances. Separation
and isolation was their solution. This is just the opposite of what the
Christian call to discipleship demands of its followers in loving those who
do not follow our laws, in reaching out to others whom we do not know well,
in trying always to be at peace with those who think only of war as a
solution to our problems. Jesus demands of us to go beyond our private way
of living (don't bother me!") and opens the doors of agape love to all
persons no matter who they are or what they believe in. Agape love springs
from the love Jesus has for the Father and the Father for Jesus--it is real
and not an idealistic love. We celebrated it on Pentecost Sunday and it
continues through the action of the Holy Spirit who purifies, sanctifies,
and makes it possible to hear what Jesus is saying and to do something
about it. Words are not enough when it comes to agape love which is
selfless, open, and universal. Be perfect as your God is perfect in this
love.

Agape love --the love of a merciful and compassionate God--allows it to be
seen on "the good and the bad" just as the sun shines upon them. This love
is totally other than what we feel even as we listen to Jesus' strong
words. We tend to rationalize it out of our own presuppositions and to
"water it down" so that it speaks to us in a common sense manner. It is
far from common sense! To many it is sheer nonsense or a mystic idealism.
Our interpreters can easily whittle away the true meaning of this kind of
love. And sadly we have seen two Christian tribes hate each other so much
they were willing to exterminate their brothers and sisters in Rwanda. It
was worse than a civil war; it was diabolical in what happened to two
Christian peoples.

This most difficult of topics is really the only way we can come to world
peace. We need to begin at home, in our communities, and churches, and in
the innermost part of our hearts to accept the call of Jesus to such love.
Paul touched upon the answer in one of the greatest chapters ever written
in the Bible, chapter 8: "Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Trial, or distress, or persecution, or hunger or nakedness, or danger, or
the sword? As Scriptue says, 'For your sake we are being slain all day
long; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.' Yet in all this we
are more than conquerors because of him who loved us. For I am certain that
neither death nor life, neither the present nor the future, neither angels
nor principalities, nor powers, neither height nor depth nor any other
creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God that comes to us
in Christ Jesus, our Lord." Amen.