March 19th, 2021

Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain is filled with the same difficult (impossible?) moral injunctions as the Sermon on the Mount: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. This is a beautiful version of life in which the power structures are all turned upside down and the only competition is who can abdicate their rights more fully or expeditiously.

How I wish this impulse sprung from this particular heart, but it just doesn’t. The opposite does. I am therefore relieved to find this gem buried in the middle of Jesus’ sermon: “The Most High is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” (Luke 6:35)

Nice to be included in God’s kindness! And yet, we can still pray for God’s Spirit to move our hearts towards others – even and especially those others who are difficult.

“Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (A Collect for Fridays – BCP p. 56)