Text: St. Luke 6: 27-38
The short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster” by Stephen Vincent Benet is about Jabez Stone, set in the early 19th Century, USA. Jabez is a down on his luck loser and he makes a vow, desperate—”I vow it’s enough to make a man want to sell his soul to the devil!”
Later a stranger, Mr. Scratch, meets him with an offer. If he would sign this paper he held, for seven years Jabez will have wealth, but then Mr. Scratch will come back to claim…Jabez’ soul. It was an offer Jabez could not refuse. Jabez becomes wealthy.
The time comes, all too quickly, and Mr. Scratch is about to return to settle the debt. Jabez approaches the great 19th century orator Dan’l Webster to plead his case before Mr. Scratch, that is, the devil. So the day arrives, midnight and Dan’l Webster is told by Mr. Scratch there will be a judge and jury…of the worse and most notorious of any age: murderers, traitors, molesters and the like. Dan’l Webster looked over these miscreants and the great orator heats up with rage at these detestable people. He cares less for Jabez and more for his desire to crush this vile jury.
But before he started his defense, Dan’l, “…looked over the judge and jury for a moment, such being his custom. And he noticed the glitter in their eyes was twice as strong as before, and they all leaned forward. Like hounds just before they get the fox, they looked, and the blue mist of evil in the room thickened as he watched them. Then he saw what he’d been about to do, and he wiped his forehead, as a man might who’s just escaped falling into a pit in the dark. For it was him they’d come for, not only Jabez Stone. He read it in the glitter of their eyes and in the way the stranger hid his mouth with one hand.
And here is the important part:
“And if he fought them with their own weapons, he’d fall into their power; he knew that, though he couldn’t have told you how. It was his own anger and horror that burned in their eyes; and he’d have to wipe that out or the case was lost.”
I think that is what Jesus is getting at as He forms His disciples. Yes, the Church is called to call sinners to repentance and faith in the Lord’s mercy for sinners. But the case is lost when we fight sinners (who are like us!) with their own weapons: intimidation, innuendo, arising from hate and anger. If we fight with the devil’s own weapons, and sin’s own weapons, we fall into their power. The case is lost and so are the lost! Dan’l Webster had to wipe out his own anger. I think we live in an age of rage. If we see the anger and horror of sin and evil in others, it is in us as well and can flare up. Love your enemies. We are called to take up wholly and holy different weapons…of the Spirit, the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, walking in the sturdy shoes of God’s peace in Christ (Ephesians 6).
Twice in the 20th century the Lord’s command to Love your enemies, turn the other cheek, was put into political protest in a very public way, literally: by a Hindu and a Christian, an Indian lawyer who practiced Law in South African, Mohandas K. Gandhi and a Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King, Jr. and both practiced non-violent resistance. Non-violent but it was still resistance to evil. What did these two individuals, with thousands of people behind them accomplish. Gandhi: home rule in India, that is, England giving up their colony of India. King? The end of American apartheid in the South and a day
But the Lord teaches us His purpose is eternally more: salvation of souls.
Sixteen of the verbs in the Gospel Lesson are in the imperative mood: Love, do good
bless, pray, offer, Give, do not demand, do, love, do good, lend, Be merciful. If a deed is to be done, and it’s imperative, it is of central importance and urgent. Imperative is a command, not a gentle nudge. All those imperative verb forms, love, do good, bless, pray, etc. are all good and powerful actions. The problem is the object of those verbs: people who hate you, strike you on the face, steal the shirt off your back…your enemies. There not the sort of people, I want to love! And Jesus is saying that’s the point. Jesus says to love your enemies twice in this lesson. Jesus sums up these imperatives with another imperative: Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Why is this so imperative?
These verbs and those on the receiving end of them, describe who the Lord is: “…and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” Us! That’s mighty unsettling especially when I think: have I been ungrateful and downright nasty in thought, word and deed? The Lord came in an imperative mission: Love,
bless, pray, offer, Give, return no man evil for evil. For us and our salvation and it is still imperative. When someone has down me wrong is what? Strike back! Not turn the other cheek! That’s unnatural! But unnatural to the nature of sinful flesh. In Genesis, Cain who killed his brother, had a son, Lamech. To his wives one day, he boasts:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for striking me.
24 If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold,
then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”
I can see Lamech strutting as he said this! I killed a man for “striking me”. Now that’s a comeuppance. This is not the Lord’s nature…neither for the redeemed in Christ. The Lord even protected Cain so he would not be revenged. The imperative to “Be Merciful” is the fact that we live in an unmerciful, vengeful world. The cycle of vengeance and comeuppance can only be broken by the Lord’s mercy. On our own, these imperatives can be a law more exacting than the 10 commandments, but He is making us holy in His once and for all atonement for His enemies: us. Only God’s mercy in the Church’s preaching and teaching of the Word and the Word producing mercy in mercy’s perfect deed, Jesus Christ in us, can break the cycles of hate and revenge. The Lord is merciful.
These verses and so many verses in the Bible, in the Lord’s words and deed we find out the exact nature of The Lord’s being: mercy and grace. Your Father is merciful. Three times in this lesson the word “grace” is employed. “Hey, I didn’t hear or read the word “grace” in these lessons?” You were listening! In these three verses, the word translated as benefit or credit,is charis, grace:
- 32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit χάρις is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 3
- 3 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit χάρις is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
- 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit χάρις is that to you?
What does this mean?
We are to extend God’s charis, grace to and for others which will also redound to God’s grace we have also received. Why? The Lord is full of grace.
The Lord commands us to love our enemies to diffuse the smoldering bombs of vengeance and anger but it can only be done in “…your Father who is merciful”. Look to Him upon the Cross and bearing the marks of the nails. Why? Christ alone is our peace and our strength and our hope.
The Lord wills His charis to spread to others, not hidden under a bushel basket, but the candle set on highest place in the house. Even to those who don’t want it in our-let’s-make-a deal world. It’s easy for us to be judging others, as we think the Lord must be like, to eternal damnation. But to live as the Lord in grace toward others is so different, to give just because it’s good and our neighbor needs it…as I do. That’s the thrust of these imperatives. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. We are to extend God’s charis, grace to and for others which will also redound to God’s grace we have also received. The Lord command His grace to be announced in Christ to all.
God’s mercy is for the weak and God’s mercy is by no means weak. The same man who preached our Gospel would love His enemies, us all, and bear the Cross and the weight of the sin of this world, as only God Himself can and did in the flesh in strength, power and majesty bearing our weakness of the strength of our flesh to despise. We so need to disconnect from the weapons of the world in our struggle against the powers and principalities. We need to diffuse so many situations. Wiping out anger is nigh on impossible to do. The Lord commands us to love our enemies to diffuse the smoldering bombs of vengeance and anger but it can only be done in “…your Father who is merciful”.
The working out of the Father’s mercy is long and arduous and faithful. Look at Joseph…his own 11 brothers sold him into slavery because of the sin of jealousy. Sold to Midianite traders to be sold into Egypt. How did Joseph make it? Egypt was a pagan, hostile land, ruled by a despot considered a god. He became a house slave in Potiphar’s estate, Potiphar was Pharoah’s right hand man. Potiphar’s wife accused Joseph of attempted rape. Joseph did not submit to temptation. How? He was faithful to the ever-faithful Lord. The Lord was his strength and salvation…no it wasn’t easy. Joseph then ended up in Pharoah’s prison for two years. The Lord blessed Joseph in those horrid times. Joseph eventually became Pharoah’s number 1 man over all of Egypt. When he married Asenath an Egyptian, he gave their sons Hebrew names, Ephraim and Manasseh, not Egyptian ones. He was a stranger in a strange land. And Joseph did not forget the faith of his fathers.
Another witness: Uwe Sieman-Netto is retired journalist, American citizen, and was born and raised in Leipsic, Germany…during World War II. His book, Urchin at War: The Tale of a Leipzig Rascal and his Lutheran Granny under Bombs in Nazi Germany, is about his childhood, ages 5-10, under Nazism and bombing of Leipsic in which the Americans and Germans dropped some 600,000 bombs. Every day the sirens sounded and if you didn’t say, “Heil, Hitler” you could risk imprisonment and guillotine. Many of his family died. Mr. Sieman-Netto is a devout Lutheran. How did he make it? His beloved grandmother, Omi, a term of endearment for the German word for Grandmother, was strict, loving, taught Uwe Luther’s catechism which they prayed every day and the way they should live in the Lord in those hard days:
I recollect a poignant scene in Omi’s basement during a break between two waves of Lancaster attacks. “Omi,” I asked her, “how do I serve my neighbor with bombs detonating all around us?”
“Let’s begin with the most obvious: I am your neighbor,” said Omi. “You serve me by giving me your love and allowing me to love you.”
“Yes, Omi.”
“Then there are all these other people in this basement. They too are your neighbors,” Omi continued. “You serve them by being strong and fearless, by not flinching, and by smiling even when this house shakes and flames appear through cracks in the wall. You take their fear away by not showing any fear yourself.”
Boom. A bomb exploded close by. “How, Omi, how?”
“Make me laugh with your stories about your latest pranks on trams,” she suggested. I did. We laughed. I noticed our neighbors looking at us, the corners of their mouths slowly turning upward. Boom, boom! More bombs detonated. Undaunted, Omi and I continued our banter about duck-like trolleys and laughed until our neighbors laughed with us.
When his mother and father sent him to the country to live with a Lutheran pastor for safety and more food, they did not realize how ferocious this pastor and his wife were: they were German Christians, that is, members of the church that combined Nazism with Christianity. The pastor would call Hitler the redeemer of Germany…from the pulpit and he and his wife would beat him when he said the wrong words at table, like French words….after 5 months, his parents fetched him and decided:
Vati, Mutti, and Omi agreed on these key points: I was to be brought up as an informed Christian with a sense of history, a good understanding of music and language, and proper manners, particularly at the dinner table. As Omi said, “By all means be an urchin, speak dialect with your friends, if you must, but not at home; at home you will only speak Hochdeutsch (High German) and act like a gentleman.”
He was to be raised different from the culture, yet served their neighbors in love as Christ. That’s what Jesus teaches us today in His Gospel: wholly and holy different way of living. Not a do-gooder, but those who do good as He is good. He is our only hope and catechesis, continuing in Him. Again the imperative verbs.
Look at the 20 years, after Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers who wanted to murder to him. They are reconciled.
Lamech could say not say, I am your brother. He could say, I am your avenger. Joseph could say I am your brother because he realized through all those 20 plus years in Egypt who he was because of Who’s he was. And Christ for us all, I am your brother .Christ alone is our peace.
Pray for those who abuse you. When we pray for those who abuse us are not let off the hook of God’s moral law and civil law. Those who harass and mock, when prayed for, changes us. Here too is someone for whom Christ died for and forgives, even when His forgiveness is rejected. There are 16 imperative verbs in the Gospel lesson. There is another place where the Lord employed the imperative, the prayer He taught us: “Our Father, who art in heaven . . . hallow your name, bring your kingdom, give us bread, forgive our debts, lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil.” We are not commanding God. It suggests that in the struggles in this world, prayer is an imperative. Even constantly. Pray at all times, especially living as Christ’s baptized. Struggle not against flesh and blood but the cosmic rulers in the heavenly places. So did Joseph pray and did not forget in the strange land of Pharoah’s Egypt. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. 8 So it was not you who sent me here, but God.
Only God’s mercy in the Church’s preaching and teaching of the Word and the Word producing mercy in mercy’s perfect deed, Jesus Christ in us, can break the cycles of hate and revenge. Why? The Lord is merciful.
Grace, mercy and peace in the Name of the Father, and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Now may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding guards your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Concordia and Koinonia 
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