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Scrubbing the Tongue

LENTEN SCRUBBING

The Tongue

March 2, 2008

Text: Luke 6:27-36

Luke 6:27-36

27 "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

32 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

NRSV

A retired Lutheran minister in Arizona was an avid golfer. A neighbor who

played golf regularly with him marveled at his composure. The minister never swore, regardless of how bad a game he was having. The neighbor complimented him on his ability to keep his emotions under control, and asked if he ever cursed.

“No,” the pastor replied. “But sometimes when I spit, the grass won’t grow!”

Golf courses, by definition, are places that challenge your character. When you’re having a great round, and you try to hit a shot over a tree using a pitching wedge, and the ball hits the tree, and rebounds back to your feet, as if saying, “Try it again.” You do, and this time it hits the tree, and kicks right, into the water. You look at the ripples in the lake that your ball made, and you don’t exactly feel like singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy…”

But for all the frustration, and for all the challenge to self-control, that a golf course can bring you, there is one place that can be even more frustrating and challenging:

It’s wherever you’re dealing with people.

Someone you thought was your friend gossips about you behind your back.

A co-worker spreads a rumor about you in order to get the promotion you want.

Your teenager says, “I hate you!” Your parent says, “Is this the thanks I get!”

You call up customer service, voice a complaint, and the voice on the other end of the line says, “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

Someone is offended by something you said or did, and lets you have an earful.

Someone is angry with you, writes you a brutal e-mail, and ends it with—“I’m gone for a month, so don’t reply to this e-mail.”

Sometimes you get a letter in the mail, someone really letting you have it, and they don’t sign it. I received one of them once. Someone wrote a letter that was harsh and cruel. They didn’t sign it, and they even put a fake return address on it. Now I don’t mind constructive criticism, but when someone unexpectedly blasts you and doesn’t even give you an opportunity to respond…Well, it kind of irks you, you know what I mean?

The natural human reaction when someone acts like a jerk is to set things straight, defend yourself, defend your honor, let justice be served. It’s ingrained in our human nature.

And now, this morning, Jesus has the nerve, to spoil our fun.

What does he say?

BLESS THOSE WHO CURSE YOU.

Yeah, right.

“Bless” those who send letters like this? Those who gossip, or lie, or insult? Or bless those who spew hate and prejudice?

This is so counter to our concept of justice, there must be a mis-translation of the original Greek, the language that the New Testament was written in. Certainly the Greek word translated “bless” should have been translated, “let them have it, in a nice way.”

So, I did some research.

The Greek word translated “bless” is this:

Eulogia

Look familiar? It’s the word from which we get:

Eulogy

When you eulogize someone, you “speak well of, bless, praise” that person.

That’s what you do at funerals. Have you ever been to a funeral where the person who gave the eulogy for the deceased stood up and said, “Well, Bob was certainly a jerk!” No, of course not. Even if Bob was a jerk, you don’t say it. Rather, you say, “Bob was good to his dog.”

You don’t say something bad about someone when they’re dead. And now Jesus is saying that you don’t say something bad about someone when they’re alive. To make it even harder, you’re not supposed to say something bad about someone even when they’re alive and saying bad things about you! You don’t get even. You don’t defend your honor. You let it go. You wish them a good day. You go home and you pray for them.

Why in the world is Jesus telling us to do something so unnatural, letting tacky people get away with their tackiness?

Well, look more closely at the passage, and you’ll see.

According to Jesus, you bless those who curse you because…

YOU HONOR GOD WHEN YOU BLESS.

“[God the Father] is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

If the God Jesus called “Dad” is “kind, gracious, merciful,” even to the tackiest of people, what right do we have to say, “Oh, well, I have a better way of dealing with them!”

More to the point, if our Father has been kind, gracious, merciful to us when we’ve been tacky, aren’t we insulting God if we don’t show that same type of grace to our enemies?

You bless those who curse you because that’s what God did for us, when we cursed Him. God still gave us benefit of the doubt. God still let our hearts go on beating. God still gave us shelter and food. God still held out God’s hand of forgiveness—even when we ignored God, at best, or insulted God by our lifestyle, at worst.

So—we MUST be as merciful to others as God is merciful to us. When we are, we are thanking God.

The second reason Jesus told us to bless those who curse us is this:

YOU GET REWARDED.

“Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High.”

Eulogizing a living enemy isn’t easy.

Saying something nice to someone who’s said something bad takes a lot of strength. You might not even be feeling the nice thing you’re saying to the person.

BUT…you keep doing that, something starts happening.

Newspaper columnist and pastor George Crane tells of a wife who came into his office full of hatred toward her husband. “I do not only want to get rid of him,” she said. “I want to get even. Before I divorce him, I want to hurt him as much as he has me.”

Dr. Crane suggested an ingenious plan.

“Go home and act as if you really love your husband. Tell him how much he means to you. Praise him for every decent trait. Go out of your way to be as kind, considerate and generous as possible. Spare no efforts to please him, to enjoy him. Make him believe you love him. After you’ve convinced him of your undying love and that you cannot live without him, then drop the bomb. Tell him that you’re getting a divorce. That will really hurt him.”

With revenge in her eyes, she smiled and exclaimed, “Beautiful, beautiful. Will he ever be surprised!”

And she did it with enthusiasm. Acting “as if.” Week after week passed of her listening, giving, reinforcing, sharing, showing love and kindness,

After two months passed, and the woman hadn’t returned, Dr. Crane called her. “Are you ready now to go through with the divorce?”

“Divorce? Never! I discovered I really do love him.”

--J. Allan Peterson, The Myth of the Greener Grass

Isn’t that something? It’s as if the more you fill your mouth with words of grace, the more grace becomes more rooted in your heart. The more you give grace to that person you want to get even with, the more you receive grace back.

Maybe when you bless instead of curse, you start seeing the positive traits in that enemy—traits your hurt and anger blinded you to. Maybe you come to grips with your own limits and weaknesses, and move past them by relating to that person gently, not harshly. Maybe, by being gracious, you start the process of reconciling with that person, and the enemy becomes a friend.

When you bless those who curse you, you get a reward. You receive a blessing. You understand yourself better. You understand the other person better. You appreciate better God’s amazing love demonstrated in that amazing man Jesus. And life becomes richer, more beautiful, than you had ever imagined. After all, that’s what being a “child of the Most High” is all about, right?

Yes, there’s a part in us that really would like to twist Jesus’ words into something more in keeping with our natural instincts.

I’m glad those words are impossible to soften.

You know, even if we were able to find some language loophole, still the way Jesus lived his life would direct us to how we should live ours.

In a moment, we’ll celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

May we never forget that the morning after the Lord’s Supper, while he was being nailed to the cross, Jesus said,

“Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.”

“Bless those who curse you”—who even drive nails into your hands and feet: bless them, and “you shall be children of the Most High.”