The Kingdom Way

Lately my pastors have been preaching through the Gospel of Luke. They've just got through the "sermon on the plain" in chapter 6. Here's where Jesus says things like:

• love your enemies
• do good to those who hate you
• bless those who curse you
• to one who strikes you on the cheek, invite him to strike the other also
• and when someone wants to take some of your stuff, offer him even more stuff.

Oh yes, and

• give to anyone who begs from you
• don't demand back what someone has borrowed

And finally,

• treat other people (all of them) the way you would want them to treat you.

Now here are some rules to live by that virtually no modern self-improvement books will repeat (if there is a section in the bookstore for self-forgetful books, it might be in there). When I first heard this passage preached in my early days as a Christian, the preacher simply said (in essence), no, Jesus didn't really mean you should live this way, because of course you can't live this way, it's a ridiculous suggestion. All Jesus wanted to do was to drive you to your knees in repentance by showing you what a self-focused person you are and always will be.

That was bad exegesis, and consequently bad preaching, but not uncommon. I cut my teeth in a church tradition that was incessantly wary of what they called "works righteousness," and they saw every portion of Scripture in light of that wariness. They mistrusted any talk of good-deed-doing as inevitably leading to, you guessed it, salvation-earning works righteousness. Consequently, all discussion of passages like the Sermon on the Mount (and the Sermon on the Plain) were essentially acts of concentrated avoidance of the obvious.

Anyway, there remains the obvious, right where it has always been. Jesus' ministry starts with an announcement of the kingdom of God (see Luke 4:18-21, for example, and also 4:43), and the appropriate reaction to that is a celebration. The bridegroom has come! (see Luke 5:34) 

Probably all of Jesus' imperatives should be predicated on this thought: the kingdom has come! That seems to be the order of things in the Gospels. Jesus comes announcing the kingdom, and then he gets down to teaching what that's going to mean for people who follow in the Jesus way. It's going to look like, well, loving your enemies. Oh yes, and then he lives it out, even to the bitter end.

As I see it, this is Big Truth. The whole rest of the NT, from The Acts of the Apostles to The Revelation, is the ongoing working out of this Big Truth in all its implications. We will have to keep reading in order to understand all this better. What is more, we will need the Helper in all this. There is no blueprint for how to love your enemy, only the moment of truth when you have to decide whether you're going to love them or not love them. And in that moment, just like the Apostles in Luke's sequel, you're going to need the help of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 1:4,5). 

It would be Paul who would one day write, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Then he said, "If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit." I don't think we can even begin to think about leading the life that Jesus prescribes in Luke 6 until we have begun to see that it is also the Spirit-led life that Paul is telling the Galatians about (Gal. 5:22).

Have hope, for the King has come, overthrown all your enemies, and he's given you his Spirit to guide you in the Kingdom Way.