Giving Up: Enemies with Pastor Ryan Braley

Amen, let us pray.

God, we give you thanks this morning for your presence here and thank you for this, yeah, for your word to us, this word of encouragement and revelation.

Pray, you bless us this morning as we unpack it a little bit.

And, god, I pray that you grant us the power to love our enemies.

God, this seemingly impossible feat, I pray that you would empower us, enable us, by your spirit, to do just such a thing, god, that we could be people who reveal what the kingdom of God actually looks like.

And, lord, I pray that you would help us also to see who our enemies are, god, the people that we maybe harbor animosity or hate or resentment, bitterness against.

May you, yeah, show us spirit, come and reveal those things to us and help us have new eyes this morning to see.

I pray you bless us in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit.

Amen, amen, you can be seated.

Good morning everyone.

Well, we are in the middle of our Lenten series and, again I'll say it, one of my favorite quotes about Christianity or spirituality is that all great spirituality is about letting go.

And so Augustine said that God wants to give us so many good and perfect gifts, but our hands are too full of things, and so I wanna just practice this idea of letting go.

It's actually good practice to have, of letting things go, giving things up, dropping things that don't bring life in order to make room for things that do bring life, and oftentimes it's not that God has drawn away from us at all.

It's whether we have all this stuff that's sort of cluttering our vision or our view or our hands.

And so this morning I wanna talk about giving up enemies.

Now, last week I opened by saying hey, what I'm gonna tell you is actually contradictory to what the world will tell you is about giving up superiority and becoming a humble servant or taking on humility.

And I'm gonna say the same thing the world does not talk a lot about giving up enemies.

In fact, the world talks and preaches a lot about how to conquer your enemies, and so this is another tough teaching from Jesus that I wanna encourage us to dig into and acknowledge in the front end.

This is very, very difficult.

It's not easy to give up enemies, and some of you might already be like I'm not giving up my enemies, fair enough.

But if that's you, I wanna just encourage you this morning just to be open, maybe just a tiny bit, to thinking about why Jesus tells us to love our enemies.

Are you with me?

So far, great.

I did do an email earlier this week and I had to share.

This is a funny story.

I put this graphic in the email.

I don't know if you can read that, but it says be kind to everyone.

This is Jesus teaching.

And then on the top right it says wait, even Gary.

And then someone yells out yeah, gary's the worst.

And Jesus says look, guys, we've been over this.

Yes, be kind to Gary as well.

And then Gary says this might be a little bit, maybe offensive, suck at losers.

And then Jesus like hey, not now Gary, okay, and here's why this is funny.

It's funny by itself, but also I had a number of folks email me back or like, grab me in the hall and like, dude, I totally know a Gary.

Like I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've all got a Gary in our lives, don't we?

We all have in that friend group, in our community, a Gary.

And, by the way, if you're like I don't have a Gary in my life, that means you're the Gary, just so you know they're out there.

So I had to, also because it's loving our enemies.

We're trying to learn how to love our enemies, what that means.

I just wanted to give you an idea of what an enemy might look like for many of us.

I know I took second in the consultation.

I should be proud of those guys, so good job.

Okay, let's jump in then.

I love this portion of scripture.

This teaching about loving your enemies comes out of the Sermon on the Mount, which is cleverly named because it's a sermon given on a mountain, so we call it the Sermon on the Mount, and in it Jesus gives us his manifesto, his teaching for how to be a fully alive and flourishing human being, and so this is a whole bunch of teachings in this section, and in this is where Jesus comes out and says you know, love your enemies.

Now here's the crazy part he does.

On a number of occasions he sets up these juxtapositions or these contrastive compares.

On a number of times he says hey, you've heard this, but I tell you this.

By the way, thanks to the doostrumans for doing our slides this morning, you can give them some love.

Yeah, pete and Kelsey.

Oh, pete, just ducked behind the desk there, but they're pretty new, so give them some grace.

I've done an outstanding job already.

But.

But Jesus sort of introduces a number of teachings and he does it like this he says, hey, you guys have heard this.

And I imagine the crowd is like, yeah.

When they hear him say that, hey, you guys have heard this, love your enemy, or love your neighbor and hate your enemy, and they're like, yeah, we know that rule, you know.

And then he contrasts it on a number of occasions by then saying but I also tell you this, and he contradicts what he just said.

So I imagine this crowd, when they first hear Jesus say, hey, you've heard it said love your neighbor and hate your enemy, and I imagine that crowd be like, yeah, right, because they know this, they know this.

This is actually an old Jewish law.

So in Leviticus it says this the law of God, go ahead for me, kelsey, I think.

There it says do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.

I'm the Lord.

So Jesus is quoting this Old Testament, levitical law, and they know this to be true.

It's like love your neighbor.

Like, yeah, we know that's good, it's this old traditional law.

And then he says and hate your enemy, which they're like yeah, hate your enemy.

Yeah, great, we love to hate our enemies.

But oddly enough, that part hate your enemies not in the scriptures.

It's not an old law like the first part is which is weird.

Like where does it come from?

Well, many commentators and scholars.

Over the course of years and generations it began to be absorbed by the Jewish people as kind of a traditional law or an oral law, because they began to embody God's own hatred for evil, so that, well, if God hates evil, then we also should hate evil, right, which is fair enough.

But then it became well, then also we'll kind of hate or despise evil doers.

Therefore we're gonna hate our enemies.

So over the course of time, this sort of this idea of being coming righteous by hating evil became this idea of hating your own enemies.

In fact, in the Dead Sea community they wrote down in the Kumeran Scrolls you'll find this scripture in the first Kumeran Scroll any eternal but concealed hatred for the men of the pit.

So this Dead Sea community had already adopted this as kind of a quasi law Hate your enemy.

It's not actually in scripture, but here's the point.

Jesus says hey, you've heard it said love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

Now, I imagine that got them riled up.

Yeah, because Israel had lots of enemies.

They even oppressed, abused violently.

They'd been controlled.

They were occupied currently by the Romans, this violent, malicious band of really an empire of people that were suppressing the Jewish people.

And so they were like yeah, we love, yes, love our neighbor, hate our enemy.

Of course we love that.

But then Jesus says but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

And I imagine the crowd is like boo, boo, no way, are you kidding me?

Love our enemies.

The Romans.

Are we for this?

The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, all these people for generations who have oppressed us and beaten us down?

There's no way.

In fact, I would argue, even today we view this as weakness.

I'm not going to love my enemies.

It's a weak thing to do.

It's a passive weakness.

And in fact, the Jewish people would say aren't our enemies, in fact, god's enemies?

Why would I love my enemies and love God's enemies?

These are our enemies.

I'm not going to love them.

They deserve to be conquered and destroyed, taken out by the sword.

This, after all, is a sign of weakness.

Then go ahead for me, kelsey, but then, just prior to this, jesus gives them this teaching.

He's like hey, you've heard it said an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

But I tell you so you've heard it said yeah, eye for an eye, vengeance, yeah.

But he's like but I tell you, don't resist an evil person, boo.

If someone hits you on the cheek, turn the other cheek.

That's weakness, isn't it?

Or if someone takes you to court and sues you for your shirt, give them your coat too, boo.

No way, that's weak.

I'm not doing that.

Let them take more advantage of me, hey.

Also, if someone makes you go a mile and carry their stuff, go with them two miles.

Well, jesus has clearly lost his mind.

No way, I'm not doing this.

This is actual weakness.

Well, it is.

At first glance, it is.

To us today it doesn't make any sense, but we know that true weakness, or real weakness, is a weakness that has nothing else to it.

True weakness has no depth or intention or no greater purpose.

But what Jesus is offering is not that Jesus has intentionality.

His vulnerability comes with a purpose.

This is actually weakness.

That's actually strength.

His is a weakness that is actually very, very strong and also, conversely, there's strength in the world that we view as strength, it's actually weakness.

For example, maybe you know a parent who just yells all the time at the house Don't point fingers if you're a kid in here and they fill that whole space with just this anguish, rage and yelling and their mood dictates and manipulates the entire house and their behavior, as they dole out petty punishments, creates insecurity and fear with the kids.

It's chaos and they use their strength.

But it's actually not a strength, it's actually a weakness.

It reveals how broken and insecure and confused they are.

You might know bosses like this or managers like this or teachers who do this.

They use their power, their strength, to oppress and manipulate and sort of you know, just create these awful places of tension and discomfort.

Maybe pastors also do this and they use it to bully and manipulate other people.

Their authorities rooted only in their rank or their position.

They appear strong because they're using their strength, but it's actually quite weak.

See contrasts with people who appear weak on the outside.

At first glance they appear weak, but they're actually quite strong.

So turn the other cheek.

For example, most people when they would punch you, they would punch you with only the same hand and most oftentimes, if you were going to encounter someone who was viewed as lesser than you or like a subordinate, like a child or a slave or a servant, you would only backhand them.

That was the only way to treat a subservient person you would use your backhand.

So now Jesus knows if these people are being punched, if they retaliate, they'll probably get killed.

So you can either die or is there another way to resist evil and violence without succumbing to death or escalating the whole thing?

He said, yeah, turn the other cheek.

In doing so, it's actually quite a strong thing.

It forces that person to use, now, their forehand, which is how you slap and equal.

So if you want to hit me, go ahead, but the next time you hit me, you're going to treat me and admit that I'm your equal.

I'm not your servant, I'm not lesser than you.

We're equals in this.

So go ahead and try.

It's a different way forward, you see.

And then also this one give me your coat too.

Well, if you get sued, you got a court and Jesus hey, and they sue you for your shirt.

Give me your coat too.

Most people in the ancient world, they only wore two layers of clothing or garment.

They didn't have like a ton of things.

You know layers like we do in Minnesota.

They had two things, so the shirt's gone.

You gave them the shirt, and Jesus is now giving you your coat.

Well, what's under there?

They didn't wear a lot of underwear in the ancient world.

So now, there you are in court totally naked.

And who wins now?

By the way, nudity in the ancient world was a sign of shame.

It would be shameful to view someone else's nudity.

So if you took off all your clothes and they're looking at you naked, shame on them.

Right, somehow you've won.

It's actually strength.

Yeah, give me your coat too, and show them what's up.

The last one going extra mile.

Well, it was Roman law that Romans could commandeer any person on the street that was a subservient person, a slave or a servant or a lesser than kind of person, and make them carry their gear for a mile.

Fine, the law, though, prohibited you from going any further than that.

So Jews like fine.

Jesus is like hey, make them go an extra mile, make them break their own law.

And also, imagine you got this Roman soldier who's like I'm going to show you what's up.

You peasant Jew carrying my stuff for a whole mile.

At the end of the mile that Jews is whistling along.

Yeah, let's go a second mile.

What's up now?

Like that kid who, when you punish him, they're like doesn't even bother them.

Like doesn't bother me.

You're like darn it, that's a parent.

You know, it's this creative, incredibly intuitive new way forward.

It's actually a strength to do these things.

It takes strength and fortitude to manage and control your own anger.

People lose their anger and their temper all the time.

It's actually a strength to control your temper and control manager anger.

It's a strength to not one up somebody else when they give you a nasty comment and sling one right back at them.

It takes fortitude to not do those kind of things.

It takes strength, internal strength, to hold your tongue, because we're grownups now and those kinds of things have got to be behind us.

I remember reading an article in a magazine it was called Men's Health, I think, and it was like hey, how this is for men, like grown men.

It was like how to win a bar fight.

It was like rule number one you're too old to be fighting in bars, so just stop, knock it off.

You know, like yeah, like come on, I'm 44, don't even be fighting in bars anymore, because it takes.

Anybody can do that.

It takes strength to withhold, to bite your tongue, to hold back your anger.

It takes spying to turn the other cheek.

It takes four to two to love your enemy it really does.

And it takes resolve to pray for those who persecute you.

This isn't weakness, this is actually deep internal strength.

And, by the way, it creates a creative new justice in the world.

It's a healing and restorative justice that brings about a new way forward.

So the old justice an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth was designed to keep revenge from running rampant.

But before that, mosaic law.

So Moses comes along and Moses has the law.

It says an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

That was a mosaic law.

That's why Jesus says you've heard it said Prior to that if you took someone's eye, well, they would come after you and take your eye and your other eye, maybe an arm, maybe a leg or two as well.

It kept escalating.

So Moses was like, hey, no more of that, just an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

So like that's way better than what they used to have.

But then Jesus won up some again.

Hey, we're not doing that anymore, we're going to make a brand new way forward that won't leave us all blind and toothless.

So I want you to, instead, to love your enemies because, friends, we don't need more of the same old, same old.

Look around.

We've been killing each other for centuries, generations conquering our enemies, and they come back and get us and we go back and get them.

There's nothing for but destruction, death and violence.

We need a brand new way, a creative, restorative kind of justice.

We need to be free and Jesus offers us that.

Love your enemies, and he's reflecting the astonishing and patient love of God himself.

Now here's the deal.

At first glance, this does sound really, really hard to do, and you're probably like, okay, I got to just try harder to love my enemy.

Then, because it's really hard to do this, so you might leave here and be like, yeah, try harder.

This is just more law, more things to do, got to manage my behavior.

Just figure it out.

White-knock on my way, buy one more controlling your anger book, go to one more seminar, one more class.

It sounds impossible.

That's because I think it really almost is.

I mean, who here has really had an easy time loving their enemy?

No, you don't.

That's probably your enemy.

It's hard to love them.

So I don't think this is just more good advice from Jesus.

Jesus has great advice, fair enough, but I don't think it's just good advice.

I think it's an announcement about the way the world really works.

It's a revelation of the kingdom of God, the economy of God and the sort of the political structure and how things work in the kingdom of God that's come here right here, right now.

There is another way to be a human.

We don't have to just be involved in this endless merry-go-round of violence, retribution, death and destruction.

We can get off this madness and this chaotic Ferris wheel.

We don't have to do it.

We can find a new way forward.

So it's an invitation to see how the kingdom of God works and to live in it now, here and now.

You've been invited by Jesus to live in this Now.

A year ago, there was a group of us that were in Israel and Israel was like I don't know, like a 12-hour time difference, and so I began, about like a week before, to go to bed a little bit earlier every night, a little bit earlier.

A little bit earlier.

A little bit earlier, because I knew and it didn't work super well, but I tried my best and I got a couple hours earlier every or as when we left, because I wanted to start preparing myself to be on the time zone in Israel when we landed there, which makes that jet lag a little bit easier.

You know what I'm saying?

In the same way, jesus is inviting us.

Hey, the kingdom of God is over here and it looks like this there's freedom.

There are no enemies in the kingdom of God.

We're all gathered around the table because of the invitation from God himself.

There are no enemies.

The lion lies down with the lamb.

The people who used weapons will beat those weapons into plowshares and tools for gardening.

You won't need weapons anymore.

There's all these beautiful images and there's plenty of food and drink for everybody.

That's the kingdom of God.

So why not live like that now and prepare for it now?

Start doing the things that exist in the kingdom of God now, so that when you get there, you're ready Like, oh, I know what this is all about.

There are things in the kingdom of God that, when we think about it and describe it, we can start living those ways and living in those kinds of rhythms now.

I mean, like who wouldn't want to do that?

Who wouldn't want to live in that way.

By the way, there is one huge elephant in the room when we talk about national enemies.

How does one love their national enemies?

I was asked by our seniors on Wednesday, or some of our retired folks and that we're hanging around on Wednesday what does it look like for us to love our national enemies?

And I told them I'll be honest, I don't know.

I'm glad I'm not president I really would not be a good one, but we have to at least ask the question.

What does it look like to love and pray for those who persecute us, even on a national scale?

What does it look like to be a person who's involved in the military and the armed forces and also to love their neighbor?

At least ask the question are you with me?

Here's why we love our enemies and here's why I think Jesus invites us to do so Because in loving our enemies it sets us free.

You always think, oh, if I forgive someone it'll set them free.

But forgiveness and loving my enemies actually sets me free.

I no longer have to hold on to that grudge, that resentment, that bitterness.

I can let it all go.

They don't occupy my mind space, my heart space.

I can be free.

Also, sometimes we learn that the enemy is actually our own selves, that many times when we hate others, it's actually because somehow, for some reason, we hate ourselves and we're full of self-loathing and self-resentment and unforgiveness for ourselves.

And so in loving our enemies, we actually can turn and love ourselves as well.

I also think we should love our enemies because God loves them.

God loves our enemies.

All right, I guess.

If God loves them, there must be something kind of good in them.

I can try to love them too.

Or how about this one?

We should love our enemies because God loved us.

Scripture teaches that when we succumb to this way of sin and destruction in our own lives, we become enemies of God, not God's enemies, it's not on his side.

On our side, though, we have this posture of being enemies of God, that we view God as our enemy.

That's what sin does to us, but even in that, god loves us.

Still.

I love the sin.

On the cross.

They're actively murdering Jesus.

There's an enemy, if there ever was one.

Someone was murdering him and he says Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

That changes the world.

That's strength, that's fortitude.

The Roman centurion sees it and he's like, oh my gosh, surely this was the Son of God, because it reveals the kingdom of God.

If God didn't love his enemies, he wouldn't have had any friends.

Here's the question that might come up, and then I'll close with a story.

But who's my enemy?

Well, the enemy is the person that you really have a hard time praying for.

Jesus has prayed for your enemies, those who persecute you.

If you have a hard time praying for somebody, that's a good sign or indication that that person is probably your enemy, someone that you have a hard heart towards and you don't want the best for me.

You don't want to bid them well, and actually prayer is a great place to start, because maybe you can't buy them a bouquet of flowers, maybe you don't want to go and hug them.

Fine, maybe step one is can you at least pray for them for three seconds, because prayer has an incredible way of softening our own hearts, and prayer allows that person into our hearts and our minds and as we bid them well, it softens us in every way.

Trust me, I've tried it.

Prayer is like this great elixir that sort of softens every part of our heart edges and we begin to recognize them as the beloved, lost and broken and confused, insecure sons and daughters of God that they are.

It's the one way to love them.

It's pretty simple and straightforward.

It's not easy, but it's simple Because they need love, like you and I do.

There's this little girl who has this teddy bear collection and she's showing her uncle and her uncle's like hey, show me your favorite one.

She's got hundreds of teddy bears and she pulls out this old, ratty, ripped eyeball, falling out the ears, coming off dirty teddy bear with stains all over it.

She's like this is my favorite one.

He's like why do you love that one so much?

Why would you?

Why is that your favorite?

It's gross and dirty and ratty.

Why do you love it?

He goes I love it the most because it needs the love the most.

Many times our enemies need God's love the most because of their own broken insecurities.

And when you pray for them, it's impossible to lift up your enemies to God and at the same time hate them.

You can't do both.

So as you pray for them, you hold them up into God's light and as you do this, it's really impossible to keep hating them or viewing them as an enemy if you do that.

So I'm gonna skip that quote, but here's what I wanna read to you.

You can go to the Ezekiel passage from Kelsey Somehow.

What this does is it gives us a new heart.

Ezekiel says this I love this.

I, your God, will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

Cause, again, this is not just good or good advice, it's not just telling you try harder, be a better person, love your enemies.

Just try harder.

Now we don't need a softer heart.

We actually need a new heart.

We need the kingdom of God to be born in our lives.

So I will give you a new heart.

Where your heart of stone was, I'll give you a heart of flesh.

Here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna pray and sing a song and we're gonna give an offering.

All of our offerings go to our sort of operating stuff as a church, and so thanks for your generosity.

And we're gonna baptize two Levan girls.

And as we do, I want you to think in your mind.

You don't have to say it out loud, you don't have to write it down, but do you have an enemy that you don't wanna pray for?

Someone who's your heart is hard towards them?

You can't fathom hugging them or buying them a bouquet of flowers or even being kind to them.

Do you have someone in mind as we sing and pray together and watch this baptism?

I do encourage you to pray for them.

It can be as simple as Lord.

Bless them.

I'm serious, right, that might mean all you can muster.

Okay, try it.

And then I wanna encourage you this For the next several days, maybe even from now until Easter.

It's only a couple more weeks.

Do that every day and just watch what happens and then let me know.

Sound good.

All right, let's sing amen.