A reflection for Epiphany VII Sunday 20th February 2022 by the Rev'd David Warnes

Luke 6:27-38

One of the things that has sustained me through the pandemic is watching vintage sitcoms on television. We are currently revisiting One Foot in the Grave and enjoying the performances of two fine Scots actors – Richard Wilson, who grew up in Greenock, and local lassie Annette Crosbie, born in Gorebridge and educated at Boroughmuir High School in this city. I first saw this in the 1990s and I am now marvelling at the ability of the writer, David Renwick, to capture the irascibility which afflicts ageing men – no mean feat, since he was in his forties when he wrote the scripts. And I have to confess that I sometimes find myself channelling Victor Meldrew, especially when trying to navigate the wheelchair through Roseburn at the moment.

Much of the comedy is rooted in Victor’s lack of self-awareness. His exasperated cry of “I don’t believe it!” is tragi-comic because he is unable to see that his angry, combative approach to life only makes things worse for himself and his long-suffering wife. He certainly isn’t a man who turns the other cheek, and he hasn’t grasped the important truths in today’s Gospel, including:

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

New Testament scholars have spilled a lot of ink discussing what Jesus meant when he said:

If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.”

Some suggest that this is the kind of exaggeration that Rabbis used in those days and that it shouldn’t, therefore, be taken literally. Others have suggested that it was a well-known figure of speech – that verbal insults were often described as “a blow on the cheek”, and that Jesus is counselling people not to respond to an insult with another insult. Luke’s version is somewhat shorter than Matthew’s, and other scholars argue that the key to understanding the saying lies in the extra detail that Matthew gives us:

“If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”

The majority of people are right-handed. A right-handed person trying to hit another person on the right cheek would have to do it with the back of his or her hand. In the culture in which Jesus lived, a back-handed slap on the cheek was a way of showing that the person being hit was seen as an inferior – a slave, perhaps, or a child or even a woman. To respond by offering the other cheek, the left cheek, is therefore a way of saying “You can hit me again if you want, but I am your equal.”  It’s a response which not only refuses to return evil for evil, but which questions the social order and the assumptions that inform that evil. That was certainly the approach of Martin Luther King and many others whose response to prejudice and discrimination was non-violent direct action.

Today’s Gospel passage is an invitation to break out of the cycle of violence, aggression, judgmentalism and prejudice by not responding to them with more violence, aggression, judgmentalism and prejudice. At its heart are two very demanding teachings: that we are to love our enemies and that we are to be merciful as God is merciful.

Understanding what Jesus meant by “love your enemies” is more difficult because the English language makes the single word “love” carry a number of distinct meanings. The Greek word that Luke uses – agape – does not mean romantic love, or friendship or even liking. We are certainly not capable of liking everyone whom we encounter, and we are not called to do that. What we are called to is to wish for and, in so far as it is possible, to work for the well-being of other people, and to do so without expecting any reward or appreciation in return. To wish for and work for the well-being of someone with whose politics we profoundly disagree involves something much harder than a mere agreement to differ, and it may well involve challenging that person’s attitudes and prejudices, but the challenge has to be constructive. All too easy to look at the behaviour of some of our politicians and then merely to echo Victor Meldrew’s exasperated “I don’t believe it!”.

When Luke reports Jesus as saying:

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

He uses another Greek word – oiktirmones – which is difficult to translate. The oik bit is actually the Greek word for house, so there’s something here about recognising that the person who insults you, the person who irritates you, the person who exploits you is nevertheless a member of the same household, the human household which includes everyone, for we are all made in the image and likeness of God. So being merciful isn’t simply about forgiveness, though that’s important, it's about a gut recognition of our common humanity, a visceral and inclusive compassion, a prodigal generosity.

That might sound like an impossible ask. All too easy to react to this teaching with Victor Meldrew’s catch phrase. That would be to miss the good news – the Gospel – at the heart of this Gospel passage. What Jesus is asking for is, to quote Bishop Tom Wright:

“a lightness of spirit in the face of all the world can throw at you. And at the centre of it is the thing that motivates and gives colour to the whole: you are to be like this because that is what God is like.”

And since that is what God is like, we are called to live out of the understanding that we and everyone else are part of the household of God.