Praying for Strength (Luke 6:27-38)

 These past few weeks, we’ve been reading from Luke’s gospel, hearing Jesus give his followers some not-so-easy instructions. 

A few weeks ago, we heard Jesus say some things that so upset the people of his hometown, that they dragged him out to the edge of town and tried to throw him off a cliff! 

Then we heard Jesus call Peter to leave everything and follow him… an invitation that was terrifying to Peter, because it was huge, and Peter wasn’t sure he was up to it, that he was worthy enough to accept the invitation; yet he knew he could not turn it down.

Then last week, we heard Jesus speak some blessings and woes, but the blessings and woes didn’t go the way we would expect. The blessings went to those who were poor, hungry, and hated; while the woes went to those who were rich, well-fed, and well-liked. 

And that’s another difficult teaching.

Things don’t get any easier today. Today’s scripture comes right after the blessings and woes we heard last week; it’s part of the same set of teachings. It’s all part of the Sermon on the Plain. We pick up right where we left off last week, and right away, we encounter perhaps the hardest, most difficult teaching of all…Listen...

Luke 6:27-38

“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 

“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. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 

“Do to others as you would have them do to you. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 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. 

“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. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

⬛ What Jesus is asking for here seems impossible. Who can do all that? Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. Pray for those who abuse you.

Now, let’s be careful: if you are being abused, you have the right to safety. You have the right to find healing. And you have the right to get out of whatever situation you’re in, if it’s a situation where abuse is taking place.

No one deserves to be abused.

But still: Jesus is calling on us to pray for our abusers. 

And I don’t think the type of prayer he’s calling us to is prayer that asks God to drop a piano on their head, or something like that.

Pray for them? Pray for their healing, their well-being?

And love them? Love our enemies? 

Think about that. Love. 

Maybe not eros love, or philia love. Which means you don’t have to like them. But you do have to love them. Genuinely and sincerely.

Think of someone who is easy to love. A friend. A family member. A spouse or partner. A child. A dog. 

Take a moment and just be aware of your love for them.

Probably there is a lot of gratitude in that love, and a fair amount of joy… And maybe a little bit of worry, because you really want what’s best for them. Health. Happiness. 

Jesus wants us to feel that kind of love for our enemies, for the people we hate. Is that even possible?

There is another occasion where Jesus’ disciples are astounded by one of his teachings; another time when they didn’t see how it was possible for anyone to actually follow what Jesus was saying.

Jesus replied: “It may be impossible for humans, but nothing is impossible with God.”

In the context of today’s scripture, and all the other difficult teachings of Jesus, I’m not even sure what that means. It may be impossible for humans, but nothing is impossible with God.

But one thing that catches my attention in all this is that, before Jesus gave all these instructions and difficult teachings; and before he read from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue and preached on it; and before he pronounced all those woes and blessings we heard last week, what did Jesus do?

What did he do before any of it?

⬛He prayed.

And not just a short little, one sentence prayer: “God help me,” or something like that. 

Not that there’s anything wrong with short prayers…

But no. Jesus prayed. For forty days. He fasted, and he prayed, and he faced his temptations.

Temptations that included using his power to coerce people into following and worshiping him…

There would be no misuse of power. There would be no coercing. Jesus would have to do things the right way. The hard way.

And to prepare himself, he spent time in prayer.

See: even Jesus struggled with all this. It was all hard for him as well. He wrestled with temptations, and he prayed for strength.

And he did this repeatedly.

After he began his ministry of healing and teaching, he prayed. In Luke chapter 5, when “word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.”

And in chapter six: “He went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God.” (Have you ever spent the night in prayer? What does that even look like?)

And in chapter 9, after he fed the 5,000, he prayed… And then, a few verses after that, he goes up a mountain to pray to God, and is transfigured, which is what we’ll hear about next week.

So here’s what I’ve come to realize:

Yes, Jesus calls us to do a lot of difficult things. Things that are really hard. Like, show love to our enemies.

The teachings of Jesus are a very real challenge to us. And if we are really trying to follow his teachings, we’re going to struggle with them.

Anyone who doesn’t struggle with these things, I think, isn’t taking Jesus seriously. 

Now I know, there are some people who think Jesus is just there to justify their own way of living, to justify their own selfish decisions. There are people who use Jesus to help them gain popularity. Or votes. People for whom Jesus is nothing more than a mascot.

They don’t let Jesus challenge them. They don’t let Jesus lead them to repentance. They just want Jesus to put a stamp of approval on their own selfish agenda.

But the Jesus found in the Bible is constantly challenging us to do hard things. To become better than we are now. To show love in ways that don’t even seem possible to us.

And if we were to rely only on our own strength, our own ability, we would not succeed. Even Jesus would not have succeeded if he hadn’t had access to the power of God.

The task is hard, and we have to tap into God’s strength and power.

⬛ Jesus had access to that power, and so do we. 

Isaiah 40: “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary… he gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless… Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Or, as Paul wrote to the Philippians: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

The power of God is there to help us do all the hard things.

And the way to tap into that power is through prayer.

Prayer is the exercise that helps us grow stronger spiritual muscles. 

Physical exercise helps us grow physical muscles, but spiritual exercise, like prayer, helps us grow spiritual muscles.

 And we’re going to need to have strong spiritual muscles, to face the future, and deal with all that is coming our way… to be the church our community needs… to be the church WE need… and to do it all with hearts full of love.

To do all that, we need to pray. We need to grow strong spiritual muscles.

Now, I need to confess something to you. A little secret:

Pastors sometimes find it hard to pray.

We pastors know how to write prayers for worship. And we can quickly and easily offer a blessing for a meal, or a prayer to start or end a committee meeting.

But spending time alone with God, with intention, on our own… for some pastors, that’s a challenge.

⬛ Notice I said praying with intention. It does happen, for me at least, that often, I do enter a state of prayer without realizing it. Working on a sermon, reading a book, going for a walk… during such times, my mind is often drawn closer to the Spirit, and I realize after the fact that I’ve been in a state of prayer, a state of spiritual communion with God. And I am thankful when that happens.

Maybe that happens to you, too.

But what about more intentional times of prayer?

Well, there are many ways to pray. Some like to sing their prayers; many of the hymns we sing are, in fact, prayers, and if you focus on the words you’re singing, you’re praying. Some even say that the one who sings, prays twice. 

Then there is contemplative prayer, which I find helpful. The Center for Action and Contemplation, led by Richard Rohr, has some great resources to help with this. On their YouTube channel, they have a two-minute meditation for grounding that I want to share with you. 

It begins with some deep breaths, accompanied by the sound of a bell. Breathing calms us down, makes us aware, and brings us into the present. Contemplative Christians, Buddhists, and practitioners of other religions have all found it helpful to focus on one’s breath in prayer. So…if you’re willing…

I invite you to sit comfortably, with both feet on the floor… close your eyes if you like…and take a deep breath, slowly in… then slowly let it out…

[bell]

Then another breath, in… then out…

Keep breathing, and say to yourself:

My. deepest. me. is. love.

My. deepest. me. is. whole.

My deepest me is limitless

My deepest me is infinite

My deepest me is compassion

My deepest me is sacred

My deepest me is mystery

My deepest me is forgiveness

My deepest me is beauty

My deepest me is God

My deepest me has knowledge to give

I open my heart and listen

[bell]

In this prayer, I find myself letting go and opening myself up to God… and drawing closer to God’s Spirit… drawing closer to the strength I need.

⬛ There are many other types of prayer. We might explore some more of them in the coming weeks, and through the season of Lent. I might share some in the weekly emails or on our social media pages. If there is a prayer practice that you find helpful, I invite you to let me know about it.

Different types of prayer work for people with different spiritual personalities. Introverts pray differently than extroverts. Thinkers pray differently than feelers. 

In his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul talks about how we each have different gifts, but they all come from the same Spirit. Different ways of praying work for different people, and different ways of praying work at different times.

Please don’t think your times of prayer need to sound like the long, wordy prayers you hear in worship. Personal times of prayer are not the same as community prayer that is part of the liturgy. 

But I do invite you to enter into a time of intentional prayer. Make it a daily part of your life, if it isn’t already. Explore new ways of praying, to see which prayer practices help you draw closer to God, and closer to the strength you need to do all that God is calling you to do.

[CAC meditation on YouTube: A 2-Minute Meditation for Grounding ]

Spiritual Defibrillation (Luke 6: 17-26)

 ⚫ 25 years ago, I was beginning a new ministry at a church that had a parsonage. On the day I arrived with my family to move in to our new home, we found a casserole in the fridge, with a note on it that said, “from Iris.” 

I hadn’t met Iris yet, but I was thankful for her kindness. We heated that casserole up and ate it as we unpacked, and what a blessing it was, to have that food, and to not have to worry about finding or preparing something to eat on our first day.

When Sunday came, I met Iris for the first time. She had just placed a vase of beautifully arranged flowers on the communion table in the sanctuary. I thanked Iris for the meal, and also mentioned the beautiful flowers. 

Turns out that Iris regularly blessed that worship space by creating beautiful flower arrangements for the sanctuary. The flowers used, and their arrangement in the vase, all had a special, symbolic significance. It was a special art form, called “Ikebana”, a traditional Japanese art, reflecting Iris’ Japanese ancestry.

Iris was old, and within a few years, her health began to decline. Age, and diabetes, were taking their toll. Iris had one of her feet amputated, and moved into a nursing home.

In the nursing home, Iris liked to make flowers out of paper, and hang them in her window. She couldn’t make casseroles anymore, and she didn’t always have access to real flowers, but origami was something that she could easily do while sitting in her wheelchair.

On one of my visits with Iris, I told her that I had just spent a week directing church camp, and that one of the counselors at church camp that week taught us how to make paper cranes. 

As soon as I said that, Iris reached from her wheelchair and grabbed a book from a nearby shelf. It was an origami instruction book. 

And she said: “I’ve folded everything in this book, except for the crane. I haven’t been able to figure that out.”

I asked her if she wanted me to show her, and she said, “Yes, please.”

So for the next 45 minutes or so, we made paper cranes.

Her old hands displayed remarkable agility. Some of the folds were difficult, and a few of the cranes were askew, but others were nearly perfect.

As we worked on the cranes, Iris told me about her life, some of which I already knew, but some details I was hearing for the first time. 

⚫ Iris told me about how, when she was a teenager, her family was forced to leave their home and go live at a place called Manzanar, one of the internment camps built to house Japanese-Americans during World War II. 

World War II was thirty years before I was born, and the stories I’d heard about the internment camps made it seem even further back than that. To me, it seemed like ancient history, because I couldn’t imagine that in these modern times, my country would force citizens to leave their homes, their businesses, and most of their belongings; strip them of their constitutional rights; and force them to live in these camps. I didn’t think it was possible that we could treat any group of people so badly, not in my lifetime anyway.

But it did happen in Iris’ lifetime. The lifetime of this person who was right there in front of me. Which made me realize that it really wasn’t that long ago.

Some years later, after Iris passed away, I visited Manzanar. It’s now a National Historic Site, run by the National Park Service. 

I hadn’t gone sooner because it’s a long way from anything. The National Park Service warns visitors that Manzanar is far from major cities and conveniences that we often take for granted, and that visitors should plan accordingly. 

Manzanar is surrounded by desert wilderness, and is situated at an elevation of 4000 feet on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada. It’s a place where, in summer, the average temperature is 100 degrees, while in winter, the average lows are below freezing, and often accompanied by strong winds.

There is a museum there now, inside a building that used to serve as a gym and meeting hall. I walked through the museum. There was a lot there. One thing that stood out to me was a large wall that had listed on it the names of all those who were sent to live at Manzanar. Over 11,000 names in all.

Some of those names are also printed on paper tags, and visitors to the museum are invited to take one of the tags. These are replicas of the tags those who were sent to Manzanar were required to carry. My tag had the name “Hiro Tanaka” on it, along with Hiro’s ID number.

Those who were sent to the internment camps were only allowed to bring with them what they could carry. That’s it. Everything else they had to leave behind. Their homes. Their businesses. Their family heirlooms.

For most of those forced to live at Manzanar, it would all be gone—all their property and belongings—by the time they returned after the end of the war.

The actor George Takei’s family was sent to live in one of the other internment camps. After the war ended, his family lived on L.A.’s skid row, because everything that had been theirs, including their home and property, had been confiscated or taken while they were at the camp. Most of those sent to the camps had to start their lives over from scratch, with no money or belongings, once the war ended.

There were other challenges, too. Iris told me about the discrimination many Japanese-Americans faced after the war. She told me about one time when she and her husband went to a restaurant, and sat down, and waited to be served… and waited… and waited..

No one would serve them.

After World War II, Japanese Americans were hated, excluded, reviled and defamed.

Even though I was learning that it wasn’t really that long ago that these things took place, I still thought of it as another time, separated from my own time, when Americans hadn’t yet learned to not hate one another because of things like skin color, or nationality. Surely, I thought, we’ve come a long way since then, and have progressed so much, that such things would never happen again.

I don’t know whether that was naivete on my part, or wishful thinking. I still wish it were true, that we have progressed into a more enlightened, loving, affirming society, but more and more I realize that we still have a long way to go.

I’ve been thinking about Iris a lot lately. I’ve been thinking about all those who have had their rights unjustly taken from them. I’ve been thinking about those who have suffered from the prejudices of American society, and who still suffer because of those prejudices. Immigrants. Black Americans. Transgender and nonbinary individuals. And others.

People who are condemned in multiple ways by society.

And I’ve been thinking about how Jesus, repeatedly, refers to them, and people like them, as “blessed.”

Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the hungry. Blessed are those who are hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed.

How do you make sense of that? What does Jesus mean?

The way most people use that word blessed, the ones who are blessed would be the ones who don’t have to face such struggles. You get a raise at work: “Oh, I’m so blessed!” You get to go on vacation to a beautiful place: “Oh, I’m so blessed!” You get recognized with an award and you say, “Oh, I’m so blessed!”

Last week, I saw the coach of the Philadelphia Eagles talk about how blessed he was, because his team won the Super Bowl.

I didn’t hear anyone from Kansas City talk about how they were blessed following the Super Bowl.

No one, unable to pay their bills, says that. No one who stares at their empty pantry while their stomach grumbles thinks to themself: “Oh, I’m blessed!” And no one, who has their rights taken away, or who is forced to leave their home, or who gets taken to an internment camp or detention center, or whose very existence is threatened, by the prejudices and hatred of society, thinks to themself: “Yes, I am so blessed.”

Yet Jesus calls those who face such hardships “blessed.” So what is Jesus talking about?

I’m not even sure I have an answer to that. But I am thinking about it, and have been thinking about it for a long time.

⚫ One commentator I read described Jesus’ pronouncements—both the blessings and the woes—as bombs, or bolts of lightning. They are shocks meant to wake us up from our complacency. So, the bewilderment and confusion I’m feeling are what Jesus intended. Because his blessings are the exact opposite of what I would expect. It forces me to reconsider so much.

I don’t really like comparing anything Jesus said or did to a bomb; perhaps a better analogy would be the shock of an AED, an automatic external defibrillator. That’s the machine that is used in conjunction with CPR; it can analyze the signals from a person’s heart and body, and, if necessary, administer a jolt of electricity meant to get the heart started.

Maybe that’s what Jesus’ words are meant to be: a defibrillator for the heart; not so much the body organ that pumps blood, but the heart that is the center of our thought and emotion. That heart needs a sort of spiritual shock from a spiritual defibrillator… 

A defibrillator that shocks us into caring for the least of these. A defibrillator that shocks us into showing mercy to the most vulnerable, rather than scapegoating them and blaming them for the sins of society. A defibrillator that shocks us into actually following the way of Jesus, the way of compassion.

A defibrillator that shocks us out of bearing false witness against Jesus, turning Jesus into a puppet, a marionette, with us controlling the strings, making Jesus say and do whatever we want; making him say and do whatever we need to justify our way of living.

A defibrillator that shocks us out of the idea that some people are more worthy or closer to God, that certain groups of people are somehow created at a higher level than other groups of people.

A defibrillator that blasts away the idea that wealth and power are the signs of God’s blessings. 

The truth is that wealth and power often stand in the way of God’s blessings. The true blessings of God are love, compassion, mercy.

We saw a video earlier about families being broken up, separated, because of the war in Ukraine. 

Any war is a failure on the part of people to recognize our oneness, our unity, as children of God. And God’s compassion is especially for those who suffer, including those who suffer because of war.

Our church is at work in Ukraine, through Week of Compassion; And Week of Compassion is also at work closer to home. Week of Compassion has been working with Chicago Christian Church, a Korean-speaking Disciples congregation in Des Plaines, to help resettle two refugee families, helping them secure apartments as well as necessary furnishings and supplies. 

And although we as a church work to provide these blessings to those who are in need, we find that we ourselves are blessed by doing this work. By caring for the least of these, we are blessed.

I’m still experiencing the blessing of my visits with Iris, many years ago. It’s one of the best blessings of my life, to be honest.

Some of you volunteer at the Helping Shelf, and you’ve said that it is a blessing to you, that you are blessed by the act of serving those in need.

And we discover, to our surprise, that that is, indeed, where God’s blessings are….. 

The rulers of the world don’t get this, but anytime you try to “improve” society by getting rid of the people you think are the problem, you actually end up sending away the blessings. Anytime you divide people or make life harder for those who are already vulnerable, you are distancing yourself from the very people through whom God’s blessings flow.

But when you stand with those who are being hated, excluded, reviled, defamed, and when you show compassion to them, and when you open up your heart to them, you discover, much to your surprise, that your life is more richly blessed because of it. 

I don’t completely understand why it works this way—why The Spirit works this way—but it does. God’s blessings percolate up from the poor, the hungry, and the persecuted far more often than they trickle down from those at the top. 

When we count ourselves among the poor, and when we invite those who are hungry to eat with us, and when we stand with those whose rights are being taken away, and when we show love to those who are experiencing the world’s hate, 

Then we experience God’s blessings in abundance. 

I am so thankful for the ministry of First Christian Church. I am so thankful for all of you who are a part of this church. We’re still learning and still growing, but in so many ways we are just what this world needs today. The love and the compassion that flows through this church are just what this world needs today. 

And as we seek to serve the least of these, and defend the rights of those whose rights are threatened, and build bridges of unity rather than walls of division,

Then we discover that, even as we become a blessing to others, that we ourselves are blessed.