Responding to Opposition – 5/19/24

I have kind of an odd opening illustration, and I hope you’ll hang with me because I think it’s going to tie in and be okay as we go through. But it might be a head-scratcher at first. Those of us who lived during the 1990s may well remember the scandal that surrounded then President Clinton’s sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. One of the interesting parts in the surrounding investigation is particularly revealing: the president’s rationalization to the grand jury about why he wasn’t lying when he said,

“There’s nothing going on between us,”

when, in fact, there was something going on between them. Clinton, who was a lawyer and a member of the Bar Association, explained. He said this:

“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is… If ‘is,’ means is and never has been, that is not— that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement… Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, ask me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.”

That is at once brilliant legal maneuvering and infuriating. It’s brilliant legal maneuvering because if you’re just trying to nuance out words that get you off and get you out, then great. Good job, actually. But if all of us communicated that way, we would never be able to talk, because you could never use a word like “is” and people understand what you mean.

Journalist Timothy Noah, writing for Slate in September 1998, wrote,

“Bill Clinton really is a guy who’s willing to think carefully about ‘what the meaning of the word “is” is.’ …Perhaps we should start calling him, ‘Existential Willy.’”

Now it’s easy for us to criticize politicians, and I’m using that illustration to explore whether or not we are all that different from him. I wonder if most of us in our flesh wouldn’t do the exact same thing: seek every nuance we possibly can when we feel trapped by sin. How can we nuance our way out of…? We all become linguistic experts when we’re caught, when we feel the need to exonerate ourselves. I think we might all have an inner lawyer within us who stands up to exonerate us when we feel accused, convicted, or condemned. Bible teacher Paul Tripp writes a lot about our inner lawyers and how it affects our relationships. That’s for another talk. But without the Spirit, we may all be President Clintons.

As we’ve toured through Matthew 5 and Jesus has said hard words that are hard to receive, if your conscience has been challenged, you may have had that tendency to go, “Well, it can’t mean that.” But at the end of this section here, if you look at verse 48 in Matthew chapter 5, at the end of this section, Jesus reminds us that relative success is not good enough when he writes,

“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Along with verse 20. That verse forms a bookend.

“…unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Those two verses sandwiched together, bookend together this entire section, which has been case studies that describe the righteousness and perfection that God is, Jesus lived, and Christians are called to live as well. What we’ve seen is two aspects of these bookends, and all the material in between, that God is calling us to through the words of Christ. And they don’t let us dismiss Jesus’ teaching and exonerate ourselves.

The two purposes of these are, number one, as a mirror. These stand as a mirror for us to look and see the perfection that is demanded by God. And number two, as a moral code to be obeyed, not dismissed. We might look in the mirror and go, yeah, but that’s impossible. And yet it’s still the calling of Jesus on our lives to be obeyed. So there’s no room for legal maneuvering for us. Presidents can do it. Christians cannot. Not when you’re listening to the words of Jesus.

Over the last several weeks, we’ve looked at several case studies to help us with this emphasis on the law and how it applies to the followers of Jesus. So we come to case studies five and six, beginning in verse 38 and going to the end. Both involve misunderstanding and misrepresenting the law, and there’s one main point with a couple of emphases to explain this.

The main point is this: meekness shapes the Christian response to opposition. I think meekness is a good theme that we see, and that’s necessary, connecting back to Jesus’ words all the way through the Sermon on the Mount. Meekness shapes the Christian response to opposition.

Opposition can easily fuel a rise of anger in our hearts. Jesus talked about anger just a few passages ago. And you remember, this is all one sermon. Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is one talk from Jesus, so we can’t just go on to the next one and forget what he said. There’s a logical consistency where the things he said in the Beatitudes flow through what he said about anger and flow to what he’s saying about opposition. Jesus said,

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Back when we looked at that passage, Peter said meekness is faith + patience = gentleness. It is confidence in God’s timing and provision, which enables us to refuse to take shortcuts and respond with gentleness. And boy, we need that in the face of opposition, to refuse to take shortcuts and respond with gentleness.

Our response to opposition is unlike the natural man. It’s unlike our flesh that wants to respond differently in opposition, the man without Christ. Responding with meekness is one way that we are salt and light. Opposition gives us major challenges, either to respond with sinful anger or to respond fueled with meekness. And he gives us two case studies to explore that. So here they are, case study five: meekness replaces personal retaliation with patient generosity.

Jesus references a saying that was common to his hearers. The law does say something similar to this idea of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth in Deuteronomy 19:21. It says,

“Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for a tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”

Well, there it is. However, in that passage, the law is meant to be judicial, not personal. It was given for civil authorities, not personal retaliation.

This is one of those cases where the scribes and Pharisees, the oral tradition, had replaced what God’s Word had actually said. It actually meant for the civil authorities—not for you and I—to say, “Oh, you slap me? I’m gonna slap you.” That’s not what it was intended for. In fact, the law was given to emphasize that the punishment fits the crime. It’s not life for eye, it’s eye for eye. That’s what that was trying to emphasize. It was meant to be restrictive, not permissive.

Instead, Jesus says do not resist the one who is evil. That’s a hard word and could easily be misunderstood. But we have to remember Jesus was talking about personal retaliation. Not pacifism, not defunding the police, not the rights and wrongs of war. That’s not what he’s talking about. He’s talking about personal retaliation. His instructions are to people, not states. Individuals, not nations. He is addressing our natural tendency to get even. Our response is to be generosity, not retaliation.

Then Jesus gives some examples, like real practical teaching. In each one of these examples, there’s an aggressor, an opposer, who takes something from us, but we are to respond with meekness. The slapped cheek takes dignity from us. The lawsuit takes possessions. Pressed into service, takes time and effort and work. Responding to the beggar takes resources and patience.

The meek response breaks the cycle of injustice rather than perpetuating it. Getting even perpetuates injustice. You don’t fix injustice with injustice. That’s what he’s saying. Retaliation continues the cycle. It only ensures that there will be more injustice. There will be further retaliation. We don’t solve injustice with injustice.

Now, hear the words of Jesus without misusing what he says. They can easily be misused. For example, look at verse 42—

“Do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.”

That is a dream verse if you live next to a Christian with lots of great power tools, right? And you go and borrow them, he’s like, “I don’t think I’m going to—” “Hey, man, the Bible says do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” That’s a great quotable verse, right? In fact, put it on a t-shirt, wear it when you go to borrow something from your neighbor, then you don’t have to say anything. Or if you’re the Christian who has a neighbor that’s always borrowing tools and then leaving them out in the rain, you’re like, “Well, I guess I gotta keep buying tools and letting them—” That is not what Jesus is saying. That’s not what he’s doing. It’s not that. It’s actually much harder than that. Much harder.

Meekness is frustrating because it takes patient trust. But wielding strength in the moment feels awesome. Retaliation feels great in the moment. I feel like I’m making it right, even though injustice brings more injustice. Let me give you some examples. We’ll start broad then narrow.

Right now in our society and in our culture today, there are well-known public leaders who are arguing that the remedy to past racial discrimination is present racial discrimination. That’s how you answer it. Because black people were discriminated by white people in the past, black people must discriminate against white people in the present. That’s the solution. And that is word for word. It’s the exact opposite teaching of Dr. King. He has a sermon called “Loving Your Enemy” that he preached in 1957. He said the exact opposite of what’s being promoted today.

It’s easy for us to see the emptiness of those dramatic policies that people are promoting that encourage eye-for-an-eye justice. But I wonder if we act in the same way with more subtlety than that obvious wrong. Like cutting someone off in traffic because they cut you off and gave you the finger of greeting. It feels so good in the moment to cut them off and tell them they’re number one as well. It does. Let’s not pretend that doesn’t feel good. And it’s more injustice.

If you tear me down on social media, I will tear you down on social media. Two can play at that game. If you don’t support my hopes and dreams, I won’t support your hopes and dreams. If you don’t approve of my choices—whether they’re moral or immoral, even just good things—if you don’t approve of my choices, I’m done with you. I’ll cut you off. I’ll make you pay. I might not make you pay eye-for-eye, I’ll make you pay by withholding relationship because of something you’ve done.

That’s retaliation. It’s the exact cycle of injustice that Jesus says, this is not the way of Christ. It’s everywhere in our society. Everywhere. It’s not the way of Christ. We are not people who are characterized by retaliation. Meekness replaces personal retaliation with generosity. Do you see that it’s much harder than letting your neighbor borrow your tool? Can we just let our neighbors borrow our tools and say we’re doing what Jesus said? No, it’s much harder.

Case study six: meekness replaces selective love with selfless love. The tradition that Jesus references in the last case study is similar to the other case studies in that the Old Testament never says to hate your enemy. It says the love part (love your neighbor), but it doesn’t say the hate part (to hate your enemy). If you look at Leviticus 19:17 on the screens says, Leviticus 19 says,

“You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

Great. On the contrary, it does talk about how we treat our enemies. For example, it says in Exodus 23:4-5,

“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of the one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.”

Listen to Proverbs 25:21-22. Listen to the generosity, the selfless love in Proverbs 25—

“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”

What does it mean to love your enemy? Those descriptions that I just read from the Old Testament are actually great examples of how we can love our enemy. But let’s talk about what Jesus says in Matthew 5. When Jesus says love your enemy, this is actually one where I wanted to go, “Yeah, but what does love mean?” Does love mean love? What does that mean? Maybe he’s using another word that’s translated in English “love” but it doesn’t mean love.

It’s the word agapē, which means “giving oneself for the good of the recipient.” Unfortunately, he does mean love. It is goodness based on the nature of the giver, not the worthiness of the recipient. When you go to love, you’re revealing your nature, your character, not the worthiness of the recipient.

God does this. In Psalm 145:9 he says,

“The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.”

God’s goodness is based on the nature of the giver, not the worthiness of the recipients. God gives freely not because you’re awesome, but because of his character, because of who he is.

Love is not romantic, erotic, familial. It’s not liking a person or enjoying their company. It doesn’t mean you make your enemy your best friend and that you have to hang around them all the time. It doesn’t mean that you’re giving someone what they deserve. It doesn’t mean destroying someone by giving them something that will harm them. It doesn’t mean empowering others to destroy themselves when they demand it. Because see, what the enemy does is take everything good that God has made (and God is love) and the enemy takes everything good and perverts it to destroy. And so he takes the word love. And you have people that say, I thought you loved me. If you loved me, you’d give me what I demand. That’s not love. That’s not what it is. It’s giving based on the character of the giver, not the worthiness of the recipient.

We have people who we genuinely love who seek to define love to mean that you will give them what they want, even if it will hurt them or destroy them. Like an addict who demands money so that he can buy more and fuel his addictions. This is particularly hard if it’s your family member. It’s particularly hard if it’s your kid and they’re like, “Mom, you say you love me. I need $1,000 and you have $1,000.” In that moment, love is no. I’m giving you what’s best for you, not based on your character but what’s good. Or a relative who demands that you continue to endure abuse and criticism and hurt because they define love as power and control because they desire that. That’s not love. Those things and many more are not. Look how Jesus frames the call to love our enemies in verse 44,

“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven.”

Jesus says, “Act like your heavenly dad. Love like he does.” And then he gives us three examples, descriptors to help us get concrete. One’s positive and two are negative. They all begin in English with a conjunction: for, for, and. Loving one’s enemy is even-handed, it’s not reciprocal, and it’s not preferential. So let’s look at those. Verse 45, it’s even-handed. He says,

“For he [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.”

He says, be like your father who rains on the good and evil. He doesn’t just make it rain on Christians’ yards and gardens. He actually makes it rain. God gives good things based on his character. Even the evil get to enjoy gardens and lawns. Even those who spit in God’s face, he rains on them. They use the very breath he gave them to curse him, and he still gives them breath. That’s God.

Now even-handed does not mean equity. It doesn’t mean equal outcomes. That’s how immature children talk to their parents, right? “You gave him a cookie. How come I don’t get a cookie?” That’s what kids do. “You gave him a phone when he was in ninth grade. Why do I have to wait till 10th grade? That’s not fair.” That’s not God. The people in Florida could say, “Why do the people in the Pacific Northwest get more rain than us?” The people in the Pacific Northwest could say, “Why do the people in the Sunshine State get more sunshine than us? God’s not fair.” It’s not equity. He doesn’t give everybody the same amount of rain and the same amount of sunshine. That’s not what God does. He does it based not on you, but based on him. He gives it freely. He blesses people. God loves in an even-handed way based on his goodness for the good of people. Not based on their demands. Kids demand fairness. Teenagers do. But even adults do sometimes. They say, “That’s not fair.” So it’s even-handed.

It’s not reciprocal. Verse 46,

“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”

He’s saying reciprocal love is the lowest common denominator love. It’s what the lowest common denominator does. It’s easy to respond that way. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. That’s what everybody wants to do. It’s much harder to love your enemy. It’s so easy to say, “Oh, you did that for me. I’ll do that for you.” That’s what everybody does.

It’s not preferential. Verse 47,

“And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”

Preferential love is what the lost do. They are not shaped and fueled by the grace of God. I imagine there might be people in here who have something against somebody else in this church and when you walk in the lobby and you see them across the lobby, you go the other way. That’s preferential love. That’s acting out on some kind of offense. That’s your way of saying, “You treat me that way, I’ll treat you this way.” Jesus says that’s Gentile response, meaning that is how the lost respond. Not Christ’s followers.

Do you have enemies? Those who drive slowly in the left lane are not your enemy. It feels like your enemy. It feels personal. That’s my testimony. Driving on the interstate, they put those white signs up that say “State law: slower traffic keep right.” This person’s passing sign after sign after sign slowly in the left lane. It feels like they’re doing this to me on purpose, right? Doesn’t it? There are a lot of people that are nodding their heads right now because you know exactly— Some of you are judging me. The left-lane slow drivers tend to marry people who get frustrated at left-lane slow drivers. They tend to go together, just saying. They’re not your enemy.

Someone asked me when I was talking about this passage, do you think Peter Hubbard has enemies? Such a nice guy. He really is. He seeks to be compassionate towards people and love them. It’s easy for us to think, if I’m just nice enough, if I’m just kind enough to people, if I just show enough compassion towards them, then I won’t have any enemies. But Peter does have enemies. Jesus was perfectly loving to everyone all the time, and they killed him. That’s stunning. Yes, you will have enemies for doing right. The apostle Peter says, if you are persecuted for doing wrong, you deserve it. But if you are opposed when you’re doing right, that’s a different thing, because it happens. It happens.

Somebody listening to me could respond to me, someone who knows me well, “Hey, you’re not good at this.” And you would be right. Several months ago, Peter Hubbard gave us a few passages that were coming up and said, which one of these would you like to preach? And I said, probably the enemies one because I really need that one. I really do.

Several months ago, I said something in church about a difficult time I was going through when people were publicly hurling insults at me. I serve on a public charter school board, and when you serve in a position of leadership like that, sometimes you have to make unpopular personnel decisions that are the right thing. And they’re confidential, so you can’t talk about it. But people are free to say whatever they want about you in public. And you have to keep your mouth shut in that situation because you can’t say, “You actually have no idea what you’re talking about. This is what actually happened.”

I’ve had people stand in public meetings and lie about me publicly. Somebody a couple of years ago filed a complaint with the South Carolina Ethics Commission. It was false — thing after thing after thing that was a lie. They’re obligated to investigate, and they did, and that was unpleasant. I was cleared of every one of those things because they were all lies, and yet I had to sit with an attorney and endure someone’s hate. They are my enemies. They made me their enemy when I was trying to do what was right. I can see them in my mind right now. I know who it is, so when Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” I don’t have to go, “Well, I wonder who that is.” I know who that is. I see them in my brain.

Do you know how hard it is to listen to Jesus un-defensively? Do you know how hard it is not to treat them according to their character? Exodus 23 says when you see your enemy’s donkey or his wagon in the ditch, help him. Do you know how hard it is to think if I’m driving down the road and my enemy’s broken down on the side of the road, and I have the ability to help, that Jesus says, get over there. Help your enemies. Treat them based on God’s character working in you, not based in their emptiness and worthlessness, but on God’s character because you’re not them.

That’s hard. I can’t do it. I’m not condemned.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.”

I know I can’t do it in my own strength, and yet I also know I’m not condemned, and I know that Jesus’ command is still on me. I’m not condemned, and he still calls me to do it as his follower. And that stinks. I hate the things Jesus says sometimes. And he says it, and I follow him. So that’s my heart to do.

These passages are very difficult when someone is your enemy or has committed evil acts against you. But we are free to love people who hate us or take advantage of us. What that means is that we act based on goodness and not what they deserve. It means we seek to love like God loves, generously but not foolishly with acts that add sin upon sin. It means that we are not weak. Meekness is not weakness. We are not weak, but we seek to respond to opposition with gentle strength who trust God.

I think the best commentary on Jesus’ teaching here is Romans 12 and 13. I don’t have time to unpack it. I would encourage you to look at what it says because Paul uses some of the same— it’s like he’s thinking about this when he writes those. It does a beautiful job of warning us against personal retaliation, leaving vengeance to the governing authorities, and trusting God for the balance. After all, we are exiles in this world, and so it will always be out of balance. It will always be out of whack. There’s never going to be a time on earth when justice is perfect. It’s always going to be out of whack. We are exiles here. This is not our home, and yet we continue to strive for good. Weep with the weeping. Hold back evil wherever possible for better things for ourselves, our neighbors, and our enemies. And we trust God for the rest. We have to. We have to trust God for the rest.

Breaking the cycles of retaliation and loving your enemy is very hard. They are not natural responses. Right now, every one of us likely has an attorney that’s sitting in our hearts and going, “Not you. This doesn’t apply to you.” But it does if you’re a follower of Jesus.

I just finished reading a book that came out last year called The Watchmaker’s Daughter: The True Story of World War II heroine Corrie Ten Boom. I think this is the first biography on her, if you can believe that. It took 80 years. Well, not that long, but close for this to come out. Many of you know who Corrie Ten Boom was, but I’ll just give you the CliffsNotes version.

When the Nazis invaded Holland, and the persecution of the Jews began, Casper Ten Boom (who was Corrie’s dad; he’s the watchmaker)—Casper Ten Boom, who was a Christian — not Jewish, a Christian—had to be persuaded not to sew the Star of David on his coat to identify with those who are being persecuted. They’re like, don’t do that. That’s not the best way to help them.

One day he watched a truck filled with Jews pass by with the Germans taking them away, and he said to Corrie,

“I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God’s eye.”

His oldest son Willem was soon hiding Jews, and when a Jewish woman asked Casper for help, he didn’t hesitate. He said,

“In this household, God’s people are always welcome.”

Over the next two years, the entire Ten Boom family was involved in the resistance and in hiding Jews. Corrie once saved a hundred Jewish infant orphans from an orphanage and smuggled them out to families in the countryside. They were set to be killed. The Ten Booms hid Jews in a secret room in their home, known as “the angel’s den” or “the hiding place.” The Ten Boom family was responsible for rescuing over 800 Jews. That’s astounding.

Corrie and her family were eventually caught and spent the remainder of the war in prisons and in concentration camps.

It is a timely read when you’re thinking about retaliation and loving your enemy. It’s fantastic. There are many times I was reading and going, oh no! This is so good and so convicting. She actually has a chapter towards the end of the book called “Loving Your Enemy.”

A real loving-your-enemy moment came after the war when Corrie was speaking at a church in Munich. When she finished speaking, a man worked his way through the crowd and she recognized who he was. He was balding and heavier, but she recognized him as a sadistic guard from Ravensbrück concentration camp.

She remembered his leering and mocking as she and the other women were forced to strip naked. Here he comes, working his way through the crowd, and he said to her,

“How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein. To think that he has washed my sins away.”

He held out his hand, and she froze. You might understand. He continued,

“You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk. I was a guard there. But since that time I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for all the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein, will you forgive me?”

Corrie had traveled for a year preaching forgiveness, and now God, by his grace, put the guy in front of her, and she felt no spark of warmth or forgiveness. All she did was pray,

“Jesus, help me.”

Not a bad prayer. It’s a great prayer when you’re in that moment and if God brings your enemy right in front of you to say, “Jesus, help me.” She said I knew I could just hold my hand up, and you got to do something else, Christ. She just held her hand out, and she said that when he grabbed her hand, she felt overwhelming peace and grace, and her eyes filled with tears. And she said,

“I forgive you, brother! With all my heart.”

Later she wrote,

“I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.”

That is beautiful meekness when facing your enemy. It’s not weakness. Corrie Ten Boom was not a weak woman. She was a strong, meek woman filled with the Holy Spirit, with power. When faced with her enemy, filled with the Spirit, she was able to offer him forgiveness and grace because of her confidence in God’s timing and provision, which enabled her to refuse to take shortcuts and respond with gentleness. May God do that work in all of us. Let’s pray.

Jesus, you know that I’ve needed this more than anyone else in this room. It’s so hard when people hate you and seek to destroy you to not just say, “Jesus could not mean that. He could not mean to love them.” But I think you do. Please fill my own heart with grace. You have not let me redefine what the word “is” is to try to get out of this, and you know I’ve tried.

Holy Spirit, you have to fill your people because when our enemies face us, we want to retaliate. We want to strike out. Jesus help us. Please help us, God. Your words are hard and you give us life, and we praise you in the name of Christ, amen.