But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. Do to others as you would like them to do to you. If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much! And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit? Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return. Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate. (Luke 6:27-36)
Christianity goes against the grain. What we would think of as normal behavior, the Bible says don’t do. What we might consider foolish behavior, the Bible says to do.
Forgiveness is something that is against our nature. People do not naturally forgive. Naturally, they seek revenge. That is common.
And we tend to do good things to people who do good things to us. It is easy to be nice to people who are nice to us, to bless people who bless us. It is not easy to bless people who do bad things to us or our family. That is normal.
But Jesus calls us beyond normal. He calls us into the divine. He says that we are to transcend our human natures – revenge, jealousy, unreasoning anger, pettiness – and embrace instead his gospel of forgiveness.
And that is hard.
But, on the other hand, Jesus forgave those who were killing him as they were killing him. As he said, they really did not understand what they were doing. And he forgave them.
He calls on us to forgive also, like he did. But we cannot just decide to do so. It has to be a shift in the way we think, in the way we are made. And that shift has to come from God himself.
He said, through Jesus here, be like me. Any fool can be nice to people who are nice to him. What credit is there in that? He told us to go against the grain. In fact, not only go against the grain, but change the whole grain. Make it holy. Make it of God. And let God have charge of your life.
Unreasoning anger kills you. Unresolved conflict is physically damaging. And it does no good to hold a grudge. In fact, it begins to eat at you like a cancer and turns you bitter.
Let it go and let God take you over. Be forgiving. The idiot who did stupid things to you and your family will have to take care of himself. You take care of yourself and forgive him.
That doesn’t mean you have to make him your insurance beneficiary or something like that. But it does mean that you need to forgive him and be nice to him. He didn’t ask? So what? They didn’t ask Jesus either. But he did it.
Do it.
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