Saints

 Luke 6:20-31

This sermon on the plain is a tall order. Love your enemies, do good to those who hurt you, and give to all who ask. How much do you really love your enemies? How often do you offer the other cheek? 

We need more of this right now. We need the will to let go. To be changed from letting go. A friend and I were sharing yesterday about how coming to this life transforms us. It is not easy work, it is hard to surrender because we are so brought to the place of winning and losing that we don't see how we all lose the more entrenched we've become.

Our whole spiritual journey is a series of surrenders. It is hard when we truly engage it because it means we see one another. We are vulnerable to one another. We care for one another. If not we are nothing more than a club who likes to come together.

Think of your saints, for instance. What do you remember about that person? I tend to think of all the good things and not the complicated when I remember someone. We are human after all and all we do is a striving to become.

Just recently I was at a good family friends memorial service and the things highlighted from her life were compared to a garden. She was an avid gardener. The speaker wished to be remembered as Ann. Planting rows of kindness, weeding out bitterness, and praying for the living water which brings life. It was a great analogy of someone who strived to do the best they could.

Just because this life is hard doesn't mean we have to return to people what they give. Jesus encourages us to look deeper into ourselves. After all the world was not easy in the time Jesus lived. Rome was dominating the ancient world and they did so by force, not by turning the other cheek. People who they conquered didn't love them either. They plotted ways to overthrow them. So Jesus teaching seems harsh to those who heard it. 

Love is always the way. It is the way to peace. It is the way to freedom. It is the way to life. No matter how difficult the road, love is the only way. 

Jesus came and showed us that love. Those saints you remember also showed that love to you. Remember what this was and go and give it to a world in need of more kindness, more gentleness, and more self-control. This is what we are called to show love and bless one another.