Today is Sunday the 27th of March, the 26th day of Lent.
Today’s reading comes from Matthew 5: 43-48
43 ‘You heard that it was said, “Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” 44 But I tell you: love your enemies! Pray for people who persecute you! 45 That way, you’ll be children of your father in heaven! After all, he makes his sun rise on bad and good alike, and sends rain both on the upright and on the unjust. 46 Look at it like this: if you love those who love you, do you expect a special reward? Even tax-collectors do that, don’t they? 47 And if you only greet your own family, what’s so special about that? Even Gentiles do that, don’t they? 48 Well then: you must be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect.’
Today we arrive at the most extraordinary passage in the Sermon on the Mount.
If you have assumed that the sermon on the mount is little more than a collection of religious cliches, I hope that today we can lay that thinking to rest.
What we see in this passage is amazing, and if need be, life-changing teaching.
Jesus begins in this passage like he has 5 times before in the sermon on the Mount.

“You have heard it said”

By saying this, Jesus captures the assumptions of a culture. He says this is what the people have heard before, this is the script that they have been given, and this is what you have believed, but today I want to show you a better way.
He begins by saying that you have heard it said to love your neighbour and hate your enemies.
Without saying the word hate, we have been brought up in a world that encourages us to love those that are similar to us, and distance ourselves from those that are different. We as Christians would never use the word hate, but there is a line in western culture of “us and them”
The most simplistic and comfortable way of looking at the world is through a lease of good and bad and good and evil. Most likely we place ourselves in the good category and others in the other category.
Today’s reading is calling us to love those that we don’t understand.


If we want to be more like our father in heaven, then we need to find a way to reach out and love those who are different than us. Those we don’t naturally see as a fit within our Christian dogma.

Jesus didn’t just tell us to love our enemies, he lived this life as well.
As we lead up to lent, we will soon see the greatest demonstration of loving enemies. When Jesus hung on the cross he prayed for the people that placed him on that cross: “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing.”
Before we hear this passage again let's ask God to reveal to us who we need to show his love to. Perhaps it's just someone down the street who believes a different religion than us, or a different set of morals, or beliefs.  Ask God how you can show his love





Music: Dear Gravity 

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