Reflection

Love, What does that word conjure up for you?

Look at the picture. This is Colin and Evelyn who have been married for nearly 66 years. Evelyn is in a care home now and Colin visits her every day and has his lunch with her. So the staff at the care home decided to arrange a special surprise lunch for them to celebrate Valentine’s day.
Isn’t that a lovely story?

I suspect that that is what we think about when we think about love.

Now Jesus told us to ‘Love your enemies’ Which seems a very strange thing to do.
Does he expect us to show the same love to our enemies as we do to our loved ones?

Surely not.

Well you’ll be relieved to know that he doesn’t.

But before we go any further, we have to understand what Jesus meant by love
The New Testament was originally written in Greek, and the first-century Greeks had three words for love.

The first was Eros, the love between couples which, at its highest level, is typified by Colin and Evelyn, but at its lowest level is purely sexual without commitment and care for each other. This is what most people think of about love but that wasn’t what Jesus meant.

The second word was Philia.

This word covered the strong bonds between parents and children and brothers and sisters, but it also covers the love between friends or companions. This is the kind of love that Joseph showed to his brothers in our first reading, but also the love shown by the staff at the care home to put on such a lovely surprise for Colin and Evelyn.

But Jesus wants his followers to go even further than Philia which brings us to the third word:

Agape, the love of God that is reflected in the love that Christians should show to each other and to all people.
A distinctively Christian love, which is not based on emotion and sexual desire, and not limited to friends and family, but is based on the teachings of Jesus and the love of God inside us.

When you love someone - be it spouse, parent, sibling, child or friend – you want the very best for them. You will go the extra mile to support them in their hour of need.
This is the type of love that Jesus is talking about here.

In his parable of the good Samaritan Jesus showed that we are called upon to show this love to everyone in need and in this passage, he re-enforces that teaching by emphasising that this love applies to everyone we meet or have dealings with.
And we show that love by action.

Let’s look again and the words that Jesus spoke:

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who ill-treat you.

These are action words Love, do good, bless, and especially pray.
I know from experience that it is hard to deal with people who have upset or harmed you in some way. And I found that the only way was to pray for that person and ask for God’s help for me to turn resentment into love.

It takes time, but it works. You cannot hate a person you genuinely pray for in Christian love.

Jesus goes on to say:

²⁹If anyone hits you on one cheek, let him hit the other one too;
if someone takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well.
³⁰Give to everyone who asks you for something, and when someone takes what is yours, do not ask for it back.
³¹Do for others just what you want them to do for you.

The key to this passage is the last sentence Treat everyone as you would wish to be treated yourself.
We pride ourselves in this church on being a family and caring for each other. But Jesus urges us to go further

³²“If you love only the people who love you, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners love those who love them! ³³And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners do that! ³⁴And if you lend only to those from whom you hope to get it back, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount! ³⁵No! Love your enemies and do good to them; lend and expect nothing back.

If the plans we have for Northgate when we get into the building come to fruition we will have plenty of opportunities to show that we are not only showing love to each other but to anyone who comes into the building.

And why should we do all this? Jesus says:

You will then have a great reward, and you will be children of the Most High God. For he is good to the ungrateful and the wicked. ³⁶Be merciful just as your Father is merciful

If we do all this we will have a great reward, not money or physical things but the joy of knowing that God loves us and cares for us and will be with us all of our lives.

³⁷“Do not judge others, and God will not judge you; do not condemn others, and God will not condemn you; forgive others, and God will forgive you.

I’m afraid we are often quick to judge others aren’t we? To see the speck in the others eye and ignore the plank in our own eye. But Jesus says that God will judge us by the same criteria as we apply to others.

When we say the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive others. William Barclay says that this word AS with just two little letters is one of the most important words in the Christian Doctrine. We cannot expect God to forgive our wrong doings if we do not forgive the people who have hurt us.

³⁸Give to others, and God will give to you. Indeed, you will receive a full measure, a generous helping, poured into your hands — all that you can hold. The measure you use for others is the one that God will use for you.”

I have probably told you this before, but when Beryl and I got married we had the usual chat with our minister Geoffrey Sirkett. And the only thing I can remember about the chat was that he said to us ‘always give away a portion of your net income. I don’t mean you have to give it all to the church you can give it to charity or whatever you want but give some away. We didn’t have much money as I was an articled clerk and Beryl worked in a bank, but we took his advice and we started giving away a percentage of our income and we never wanted for money. The nearest we came was in the early days when Beryl needed £26 to pay some bill and we didn’t have it. We were wondering what to do when the post came and in it was a cheque for £26! Beryl had been paying into a weekly charity fund raiser something like the Hospice does now and her number had come up! For the exact amount we needed!

I can’t guarantee that that will happen to you, but I can guarantee that God will see that you have what you need- you need not want- to live your life to the full.
So there you have it - the blueprint for the Christian life:

Love your enemies
Do to others what you would have them do to you
Show love to everyone
Don’t judge people
Be generous with your money and time

And above all seek God’s guidance and help through prayer to enable you to live that life.
And follow the example of Jesus, which is what we are going to sing about now