Luke 6: Love Your Enemies, God Will Defend You

Introduction

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you." Stephen Foster, pastor of St Aldates in Oxford, continues the church's series on the teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke with this passage, one of the most famous and one of the most contested of everything Jesus said.

His subject: how to deal with your enemies. Sooner or later, everyone meets people who do not like them, misunderstand them, oppose them or make their life difficult. A colleague, a former friend, an ex. Perhaps people who criticize you or talk about you behind your back. As he puts it, your enemies tend to whisper your successes and shout your failures.

In a polarized age, where you are either a friend or an enemy, loved or hated, the way Christians treat their enemies will increasingly set them apart. The pastor draws three movements from the text: expect to have enemies, face them, then love them with the strength the Father gives.

Message Outline

1. Jesus is on the side of the oppressed, and he says: love your enemies

Context is the key. Just before, in the Beatitudes, Jesus shows that he stands on the side of the oppressed. He cares deeply about justice and about those who have suffered injustice. He is speaking to people living under enemy occupation.
"Jesus always comforts the troubled and troubles the comfortable." He supports the weak and unsettles the powerful. In this reversal of hierarchies, he adds: "But I tell you: love your enemies."
Stephen Foster spent his entire twenties as a criminal lawyer, a defense barrister, out of a passion for justice. He grew up in an environment where people suffered systemic injustice passed down from generation to generation.
What he observed in the justice system: it is very easy for your passion for justice and your anger at injustice to consume your love. "If your anger at injustice consumes your love, all you have left is hatred. And that will not help anyone."

2. Expect to have enemies

Jesus does not say "if you have enemies." He says: love your enemies. The Bible asks us to be at peace with everyone, as far as it depends on you (Romans 12:18). But Jesus also says: "Woe, when all men speak well of you."
Do not look for enemies and do not take pleasure in making them. But there seems to be something worse than having many enemies: having none.
The pastor distinguishes two camps. People-pleasers hate conflict: a message that ends with a full stop worries them, and they wake up at night because they interrupted someone in a meeting. Provocateurs, on the other hand, love debate and do not know whether they truly love someone until they have argued with them.
Either way, do not create enmity without reason. He quotes Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister: "Never make an enemy on purpose, because you will make plenty by accident."
Jesus was good, compassionate, gentle, loving and wise, and he had many enemies. None of them was the result of any sin on his part. "If he had only sought to please, he would never have been crucified." Life is too short to make enemies over unimportant things, but too important to live in fear of making one.
One Friday evening in a pub, a non-Christian friend questions him about faith for an hour and a half, then says to him: "You have convinced me. I want to become a Christian." They pray in the street, outside the pub. Two weeks later, the friend tells him he has broken up with his girlfriend, who was not interested in faith, repeating to her everything "Steve" had said. She took it rather well, but she is very angry with the pastor.
He would have liked the conversation to go differently, but he does not regret having talked about his faith. Sometimes enemies appear not because you are doing something wrong, but because you are doing something right. Loved ones turn cold or critical, colleagues dislike that your way of life is changing.
There is encouragement here: God prepares a table before you "in the presence of your enemies" (Psalm 23:5). Jesus experienced political polarization, religious conflict, insults, accusations and the betrayal of one of his closest friends.

3. Face your enemies: what "the other cheek" does not mean

"If someone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other also" is probably one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible. These words have been used to justify terrible things.
Jesus is in no way telling you to stay in an abusive relationship. Nor is he saying that legitimate self-defense never exists. The reason is simple: he says to love your enemies, and it is not loving to let someone keep mistreating you.
A fight rarely begins with a slap on the cheek. One Sunday, after the service, a very tall and very angry man approaches the pastor, closer and closer, to the point that he thinks he is about to be hit. By reflex he steps back one foot, then tells himself: "I am a pastor. I cannot fight after the Sunday service." He lowers his hands. The man finally vents his anger and leaves.
A friend passing through, used to fighting, saw it all. He reproaches him for not putting the man on the ground: a single punch to the jaw would have been enough. In a sense, he was right: that is how you win a fight. But it is not at all what Jesus is talking about.
In a culture of honor, the slap on the cheek is not meant to hurt, it is an insult. In the Middle East, you offer your cheek to receive a kiss. Slapping the cheek amounts to saying: "I do not want a relationship with you. You are not my equal."

4. Three responses that feed hatred

Escalation: you are slapped, you hit back. You show that nobody makes a fool of you. If someone spreads rumors about you, you destroy their reputation in front of everyone. Cycles of violence, vendettas and revenge rise this way in many places in the world.
Retaliation: a proportionate response, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." At the time, many religious leaders saw this as the holy way to respond.
Withdrawal: "You insulted me, you do not want a relationship with me, I am leaving." This is cutting off contact, very common today in friendships and families. Sometimes through a message like "You are dead to me," sometimes by subtly closing off: you deprive the relationship of oxygen and let it die slowly. Your heart grows cold.
All of these responses risk increasing your hatred. Researchers speak of an asymmetry in the attribution of motives: we attribute our own behavior to love and compassion, and our enemy's to hatred, prejudice and cruelty. The spiral then accelerates on both sides.

5. The way of Jesus: a rebuke and an offer of reconciliation

In a single gesture, offering the other cheek says: what you have just done to me is not right. I offered you my cheek for a kiss, and you humiliated me. It is a demand to be treated as an equal. It keeps the moral position and curbs the bad behavior.
"It is both a rebuke and an offer to restore the relationship," while standing face to face with your enemy. You affirm: I will not let your insult dictate my behavior. It is then up to the other person to choose: will he strike again, or take another path? It disconcerts the enemy, but opens the possibility of rebuilding.
Jesus himself was slapped (John 18:22-23). He turned to the officer: "If I have spoken evil, testify of the evil; but if rightly, why do you beat me?" A rebuke, and also a question.
"As your pastor, I want to tell you: if you do not find this challenge difficult, perhaps you have not grasped its scope." This difficulty encourages him: if Jesus offered an easy standard, he might think of a religion invented by men. A call this demanding, which joins the rebuke of evil with the offer of a restored relationship, makes him say: this may well be God.
In practice: when someone speaks ill of you, do you respond in kind, or do you make sure people hear you speak well of them? When someone is rude, do you treat them with respect? When an enemy is suffering, do you rejoice, or do you choose to be good to them?
The pastor knew a person who opposed him without his understanding why: rude, constantly excluding him, to the point of undermining his confidence. A much older and wiser person advises him: "Why don't you pray for him?" He finds the idea dreadful: "I do not want to pray for him. I want to pray against him."
At night, unable to sleep, he finally prays: "God, I ask you to bless him. I do not know why he does not like me, and I may never know. Can you show me why you love him, and why Jesus died for him?" Then he falls into a deep sleep.
That person's behavior did not change over the next two years. But he did change: because he had handed the situation over to God, the harshness no longer reached him. Instead of being hurt, he felt compassion for him, confident that God would see justice done for him.

6. Loving as the Father is merciful

What gives the strength to bless those who curse and to do good expecting nothing in return? Jesus answers: "Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, even as your Father also is merciful."
Some will go after your reputation, your career, your ambitions, your relationships, or a project you are part of. Consciously or not, they can stand in the way of God's plans for you. But if you are assured that you are a deeply loved child of God, their attacks will no longer have the same effect, and you will be able to show them mercy. That is what it means to bear the image of your heavenly Father.
Jesus did not only say it, he lived it. Struck in the face during his trial, he did not take revenge. He healed the ear of Malchus, who had come to arrest him. He prayed for those who were crucifying him and asked his Father to forgive them.
The pastor admits that he sometimes tells himself that his salvation was easy, that it cost little, as if he were doing God a favor by following him. But the only thing that separates you from the just punishment of a just and loving God is the cross, where justice and love meet. Salvation was not cheap.
When you take the measure of the miracle of your sins being forgiven, and that Jesus bore God's justice in your place, you no longer hold grudges so easily and you are no longer so quickly hurt by offenses.

7. Let God defend you

We sometimes fear that, if we do not take revenge, we will miss opportunities and be overtaken by others. "Any advantage you would gain by revenge is nothing compared to the reward that awaits you from your heavenly Father."
"God loves to defend you, and he loves to do it in the most complete way. He does not need your help to defend you."
He can take all the harm your enemies meant to do you and turn it into good, to save the lives of many (Genesis 50:20). He can turn their hatred into help, their curse into blessing, their persecution into praise.
Imagine the difference in our workplaces, neighborhoods, schools, universities and families if we said: "You may attack me, but I will bless you. I will pray for you. And I will love you, because I have great trust in Jesus, who died for me."
The message ends with the prayer before communion: we can approach the Lord's table as friends of God, thanks to Jesus who joined justice and love.

Key Takeaways

Jesus stands on the side of the oppressed, and it is precisely there that he says: love your enemies. Passion for justice must not consume love.
Do not look for enemies, but do not live in fear of having them. Some appear because you are doing what is right.
Offering the other cheek is not putting up with abuse: it is refusing escalation, retaliation and withdrawal, in order to say both "this is not right" and "the relationship can be restored."
Praying for the one who hurts you does not necessarily change their behavior, but it can change you.
Assured that you are a loved child of the Father, and aware of the price of the cross, you can let God defend you.

Personal Application

Which person comes to mind when you read "love your enemies"?
Are you more of a people-pleaser or someone who enjoys confrontation? How does this influence the way you handle conflict?
Faced with an offense, which response do you lean toward: escalation, retaliation or withdrawal?
Can you, this week, pray for this person and ask God to bless them and to show you why he loves them?
In what situation do you need to stop defending yourself so that you can let God defend you?

Scriptures Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Jesus mean by "offer the other cheek also"?

For Stephen Foster, it is neither about staying in an abusive relationship nor about giving up all defense: it would not be loving to let someone keep mistreating you. In a culture of honor, the slap on the cheek is an insult. Offering the other cheek amounts to saying: what you have just done is not right, and at the same time I offer to restore the relationship.

Is it normal for a Christian to have enemies?

Jesus says: "Woe, when all men speak well of you." We should not seek to make enemies, but it is almost impossible to escape them. Jesus had many, and none was the result of any sin on his part. Some enemies appear precisely when you begin to follow God's plans for your life.

How can you find the strength to love your enemies?

Jesus reminds you that you are a child of the Most High, who is kind to the unthankful and the evil. If you are assured that you are a loved child of God and you take the measure of the price of the cross, attacks no longer have the same power over you. You can trust God to defend you, and pray for those who hurt you.