Love your enemies.  Sounds simple.  Everything else that follows is a way to love your enemies: Do good, bless not curse, pray for those who mistreat you, turn the other cheek, give to those who ask, the golden rule is found in Luke 6:31 which makes a wonderful bottom line to “love your enemies.” 

            Sometimes people just want to know the rules for living.  Children and young people test the limits of what they can get away with.  They want to know the rules of the parents, the limits.  Get a new job and you need to know what is expected of you, the boundaries.  I talked to one woman who got a new job this week and she was just thrown into her new responsibilities with no training.  We need to know.  Jesus followers have gathered around him in Luke 6, and these are the rules. “Make a commitment to me” he says, “If you are going to play on my team ~ then you must love your enemies ~ and this is how you do it.” 

            Loving your enemies does not come naturally.  The prayer we’d rather pray is expressed by a well known Irish Blessing I’m pretty sure God does not want us to pray: 

May those who love us, love us;
and those who don’t love us,
may God turn their hearts;
and if He doesn’t turn their hearts,
may he turn their ankles
so we’ll know them by their limping.

(Note: this message was preached on Sept. 22, 2013, the day chosen to recognize the 100th year of SACC in the City of Sumas.  The photograph is Elder Carman, his wife Emma, and their daughter, Ethyl.  Elder (i.e. Pastor) Carman was an early preacher in the Sumas area who brought a message of the 2nd Coming of Jesus Christ.  He died in 1920.  Notice the Bible bag at the foot of the chair.  SACC now has that Bible bag on permanent display in a new cabinet in the building.  A bit of trivia: Ethyl, the child, married my grandfather in 1963 when I was three years old, after my real grandmother had died. In many ways, she is the only grandmother I ever knew.  I spent a lot of time in their home on Iron Street in Bellingham when I was growing up.  I am privileged beyond measure to preach this message on the great hope we have in Jesus Christ in the year of our Lord, 2013.  I add my voice to the same words echoed across the centuries: "Come, Lord Jesus."  My illustrations may be from the modern era, but the message is as old as time itself.)
 
When I was in high school, I saw three movies more than one time in the theater:  Jaws (2 x’s?)… Smoky and the Bandit (2 x’s)… the original Star Wars (3 x’s).  Ever watch a movie that you really enjoyed more than one time?  Like the rest of the world, watching  Jaws, whenever the shark made a sudden appearance, I jumped.  The 2nd time I saw it, kind of dopy. Smoky and the Bandit ~ no idea why I went a 2nd time. Star Wars.  The first time I saw it, captured my attention, the amazing characters, the setting, I had never seen anything quite like it.  Mesmerizing.  Fascinating.  As I watched the 2nd and 3rd time, in many ways, it was more amazing.  I knew the end of the story, so I could take a better look at the plot, the dialogue, the special effects ~ the interplay between Princess Laya and Hans Solo, R2D2, C3PO, Chewbacha, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, the personalities, intrigue, the narrow escapes.  The suspense of what happens in the end was no longer there, but what took the place of the drama of the story, was the subplots, the personalities, the details of the setting the spaceships, the other worlds, the slime in the garbage pit… 

We know what’s coming in this old world ~ CORRECTION ~ we know WHO’S Coming…. We are called to live as if we’ve already seen the movie!  How does the story end?  The Lord Jesus Christ is coming again.  

Jesus is the coach selecting, gathering and instructing his team.  He carefully chooses the twelve apostles to walk with him, learn from him, minister in his name.  Jesus is the coach.  Today’s scripture includes the first public address of Jesus to his disciples ~ not only the twelve, but a large crowd of disciples gathers.  Think of them as players on Jesus’ team.  That’s what we are too! 

The Crouse family has an inside joke.  If one of us says to another, “all you have to do is score one more point than the other team,” we are referring to the year Forest was in little league soccer.  I don’t think the team had won any games well into the season.  As the next match began, the very well meaning coach gathered the team together to encourage the players.  It cracked me up when I overheard the coach, obviously wanting to finally win a game, carefully encouraged the team by saying, “OK team, this is what we need to do to win this game.  We need to score one more point than the other team.”  “One more point” he repeated 3-4 times.  “Really?” I thought, “So that’s the secret of winning!”  

Jesus is misunderstood.  The Pharisees don’t get Jesus at all in this scripture….  Christians are misunderstood.  Ever feel like a person from a different culture?  Here’s a little story from a person named Myung Hee: When I lived in Japan and Korea, Japanese culture says when you eat noodles, you should make noise. Otherwise, that food is not tasty. But when I was in America, the first time I had noodles with an American coworker, she said, "When you eat any food in America, please don't make noise." I got so embarrassed.

This scripture is about trying to figure out Jesus, only the religious leaders, the Pharisees, seem to make a lot of assumptions and they don’t even listen.  It’s a scripture about priorities and what’s most important to Jesus.  It’s about what Jesus cares about and by extension, what we should care about ~ or rather, who we should care about.  This is a Bible story about priorities, what’s most important.  I was amused by a cartoon on Facebook: “No matter what life throws at me, at least I don’t have ugly children.”  There’s a priority…. 

Before I read today’s scripture I’d like to set the tone of how I think it should be read ~ the attitude of Joshua as he instructs the people…. you’ll understand... 

A woman describes her experiences with an online dating service.  She tells several stories of meeting men, having a nice time, and in each case waiting a frustratingly long time to hear from them again, or not at all.  This is an open letter to men that go out on dates and then do or say nothing:
     “Gentlemen, man up and get off the freakin’ fence. If you’re interested say so, if you’re not interested say so… And if you’re worried about getting slapped by an angry woman…it is perfectly acceptable to send a short email saying, “thank you but I think there’s someone better out there for both of us, best of luck in your search for love.” SEE, now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”