Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.

Our gospel reading begins, as it did last week, by quoting from the Old Testament.

You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth

In fact it appears in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

I wonderwhat comes to mind when you hear that familiar phrase, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth?

What would a society be like to live in that used this as a main principle? How would we relate to or neighbours?

We might imagine it to be bloodthirsty and merciless.

Its origins go back 3700 years to the reign of Hammurabi in Babylon and come from his law code.

The purpose of the law was to put a limit on vengeance.

In the tribal societies at that time, if one man injured someone from another tribe the response was usually that all members of the tribe of the injured man would take vengeance on all the members of the tribe of the man who had committed the injury.

This Old Testament law was meant to be used as a guiding principle for the judge in his court room and not by private individuals.

The law put a limit on vengeance and was the beginning of mercy. Rather than the gory judgement of tearing limb from limb, an equivalent money payment was worked out.

The payment included elements that included necessary medical attention, payment for the humiliation endured and compensation for lost wages. It can sound strangely modern.

Even though this is a more sensible law than it first appears, Jesus goes further. He does not contradict the Old Testament law, but fulfils it by extending it.

He tells us to reject completely all retaliatory violence. No forms of getting our own back or getting even are acceptable in Jesus eyes. (Jesus gives four illustrations, walking the second mile, turning the other cheek, and to give your cloak as well as your coat is an example of someone being sued in a courtroom.

In todays world there seem to be many adverts on TV that encourage people to take legal action if they, for example, slip on the floor, or fall from a ladder, or have a whip lash injury.

I believe that nearly a billion pounds is claimed per year for medical negligence from the NHS. Jesus challenges us to think of the effect on others and not to try to get as much out of a situation as possible)

Turning now to the second of Jesus commands,

You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

The phrase, hate your enemy, does not actually appear in the Old Testament, though the sentiment certainly does.

Hatred is a very dangerous thing. It can destroy us.

We can end up consuming more energy hating, than in all our other activities.It creates a legacy of bitterness, hostility, and resentment. Christs way is a better way, though not a soft way, or an easy way, to love your enemies

I dont know if you have heard the story of the magician and his parrot, who became enemies?

A magician was sailing in the Pacific, right after the Second World War, entertaining the passengers,

With each amazing feat of magic the parrot, who perched on his shoulders, would squawk and claim the trick was a fake,

crying faker, faker. No matter what the magician did, rabbits out of a hat, vanishing birds and all, he would repeatedly cry, faker, faker

Finally the magician promised that he would do a trick that would be far better than anything Houdini could do.

The night came, the wand was waved, the magic dust was sprinkled. At that moment the ship hit a floating mine, which blew the ship to pieces. The next morning on a makeshift life raft, the parrot was perched at one end, the magician at the other. Finally the parrot hopped over and said,

Ok buddy, you win, but what did you do with the ship?

We are commanded,

Love your enemies, gosh, at times it can be hard to love family and friends, How then can we be expected to love our enemies? Returning love for hate is one of the most difficult things in the world. Its a high ideal, and a very difficult one, but it makes sense.

Nelson Mandela had every reason to feel bitter and to hate after his 27 years in prison. Instead, he came out seeking reconciliation. In his autobiography he writes,

I knew people expected me to harbour anger against whites. But I had none. In prison, my anger towards whites decreased, but my hatred for the system grew.

I wanted South Africa to see that I loved even my enemies while I hated the system that turned us against one another.

I saw my mission as one of preaching reconciliation, of healing the old wounds and building a new South Africa.

No wonder he is such an international icon. As Christians, we are on the side of non-violence. How-ever, this is not an option for weakness or passivity. Opting for non-violence means believing more strongly in the power of truth, justice, and love than in the power of war and hatred.

As Christians we must try to imitate the generosity of God in our readiness to forgive, not to exact revenge, or to bear a grudge against another.

Unless Christians seek to imitate the all-embracing love of God, they are no better than others.

We are not expected to feel love for our enemy. The greek language has four words for love; they include family love, the love a parent has for a child, and philia, the real affection that exists between close friends. The word used here is agape; which indicates benevolence and invincible goodwill. This love is not a feeling, it is an act of will.

We can make a decision to love someone even though we do not have feelings of love for that person.

I would like to share with you a story I came across about enemies. It is set in Russia at the end of the Second World War, when the author was a boy,

In 1941. Mama took me back to Moscow. There I saw our enemy for the first time.

If my memory is right, nearly 20,000 German war prisoners were to be marched in a single column through the streets of Moscow.

The pavements swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by soldiers and police. The crowd were mostly women.

Russian women with hands roughened by hard work, lips untouched by lipstick and thin hunched shoulders which had borne half the burden of the war.

Every one of them must have had a father or a husband or brother or a son killed by the Germans.

They gazed with hatred in the direction from which the column was to appear. At last we saw it.The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips folded disdainfully, their whole demeanour meant to show superiority over their plebeian victorsThe women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back.

They saw German soldiers; thin, unshaven, wearing dirty blood-stained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades; the soldiers walked with their heads down.

The street became dead silent the only sound was the shuffling of boots and the thumping of crutches.

Then I saw an elderly woman in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policemans shoulder, saying, Let me through.

There must have been something about him that made him step aside.

She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colourful handkerchief and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier, so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now, suddenly from every side women were running towards the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had.

The soldiers were no longer enemies. They were people.

This woman had every reason to hate, yet she showed love. To love an enemy appears to be contrary to human nature. In this story I see a reflection of Gods love.

Only God can help us to love in the way that Jesus asks of us. When he asks us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, the perfection he is talking about is the perfection of love.

God loves us unconditionally. He loves us not because we are always good, or sinless. He loves us because he is good.

We are called, day by day, and with Gods help to become more like him.

So let us pray that Gods grace will give us the love that never ceases to care for others, no matter what they do to it. Grace to forsake revenge and grace to learn to forgive as God forgives,

and to love without measure of discrimination, as God loves. Amen.

The Reverend Greg Roberts, 20th February, 2011