NOTES for Luk 6:24-30

Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus kept away from the populism that, in His words, is characteristic only of “false prophets,” those who claim the title of a man of God without actually being one. Indeed, if everyone says only good things about a person and his activity, it usually means one of two things: either the activity is so insignificant that it affects absolutely no one and no one cares about it, so there is no reason to criticize the person engaged in it; or the person seeks to please everyone without shrinking from any means.

Anyone who amounts to anything will inevitably have friends and enemies, and if he is engaged in something more or less large-scale, he will also have supporters and opponents. Here a natural question arises: how should a Christian, that is, an inhabitant of the Kingdom that the Saviour brought into the world, relate to opponents and, still more, to enemies?

With friends and supporters, of course, things are easier: one loves them and naturally wishes them well, according to the laws of the untransformed world that are known to everyone and therefore need not be taught. With enemies it is more difficult: there is no reason to love them, while the untransformed world, with its nature, whether physical or psychological, presupposes mutual relationships. If there is no reciprocity, if relationships break down or, still worse, turn from positive to negative, there can be no question of a good attitude. Moreover, there arises a desire immediately to break off every relationship with the enemy who wishes one harm. Yet according to the Saviour's word, this is precisely what must not be done. It is no accident that He recommends praying for one's enemies. Indeed, it is impossible to maintain a positive relationship with someone who does not want such a relationship. But love is first and foremost a relationship, a desire for the good of the one who is loved. If love is mutual, the relationship becomes reciprocal and a special spiritual space arises in which it exists and develops. But what if it is not?

Jesus points to prayer as the only possible way of interacting with someone who wants no positive relationship. Of course, prayer presupposes first of all a relationship with God. Yet any other person can be included in the context of this relationship if God is ready to receive him and the one praying asks Him to do so. There will naturally be no delay on God's part, so everything here depends mainly on the one who prays. There will naturally be no delay on God's part, so everything here depends mainly on the one who prays.

Then his relationship with his enemy will be mediated by his relationship with God. The enemy is no longer excluded from the life of the person praying or crossed out of it, as hatred and a curse remove the hated and cursed person from the spiritual life of the one who hates and curses, but is included in it, though indirectly. Yet such indirect inclusion can always become the beginning of other relationships, direct and immediate ones. And they will no longer be relationships between people who hate one another.

Skeptics who rebel against Christianity and Christians often speak of self-interest. They say that, in doing good, Christians are concerned about a reward from above and do everything "for the promises of future blessings." How should we answer them, since we really do say, following the evangelist, "...and your reward will be great"?

Perhaps the first thing to understand is that the Lord calls us to absolute selflessness. And today's passage, in which the Lord calls us to give while receiving nothing in return, and even without hope of receiving anything, should also serve as a warning against this pseudo-Christian reliance on posthumous or some other recompense from the Lord.

It is another matter that the Lord is just. And His justice is above all. But it belongs only to Him; we have no right to judge either it or ourselves in its light. That is why the Lord says, "Vengeance is Mine, and I will repay." In these words there is not only the promise of the final triumph of good over evil, or more precisely, of evil being turned into good. In them there is also the condition of our selflessness before Him.

Continuing His preaching of the Beatitudes, Christ speaks about exactly what must be done in order to "be sons of the Most High." If the Beatitudes spoke about a person's states, about the qualities and properties that belong to him, here Jesus lists a number of actions that a Christian must perform. "But I say to you who hear," He addresses those who have already heard and accepted the radical commandments of blessedness, which contradict the usual understanding of life.

It turns out that a Christian must not only accept life passively, but also actively carry Christ into the world. Bless those who curse, give away the last shirt, turn the cheek... The Lord, saying, "As you wish that people would do to you, do so to them," calls His disciples to perform actions that could move other people also to act in a Christian way.

By answering evil with good, trying to love where there is hatred, and showing true mercy to our neighbors, we are only giving others what we ourselves have received from God as His children.

Jesus strikes at what is most precious. "Woe to you when all people speak well of you!" He says. And this is the greatest desire of many of us... We act with an eye to others. We can allow ourselves a small, or large, meanness - but only if no one sees it. Yet we are afraid to take a step against common opinion. Why? Because we want all people to speak well of us. This is what the Lord warns us against. In such a situation the main thing disappears: objective truth, honesty. If we are honest, by definition we cannot please everyone. But if we adapt a little here, there, everywhere... then we can indeed manage to have everyone speak well of us. And then - woe to us. Because then we are not in the Truth.

The words of the Sermon on the Mount always shake us with their radicalness. Blessed are the poor; woe to the rich; rejoice, you who weep; weep, you who laugh... Christ calls us to a radical understanding of life, in which what is habitually white for us may turn out to be black. From the point of view of an ordinary person, these norms were invented for madmen, because they contradict the logic of life and the commonly accepted idea of a successful life.

But Jesus offers His disciples a look at their life from eternity, from that Kingdom whose unconditional value and beauty He tried to convey to them in many parables. And from this divine point of view our usual problems may appear completely different: insignificant, or, on the contrary, sources of great joy.

Jesus speaks these words immediately after many people came to Him in order to touch Him and be healed. Often we come to God bringing our burdens and wanting to be freed from them, but the Lord calls us to look at them in the light of His eternity, in which reproach, thirst, and poverty of spirit are the greatest blessings.

The Beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke sound somewhat different from those in the Gospel of Matthew (Mt 5:3-12). They clearly contain a social appeal. The Kingdom of God is, of course, not of this world, but it grows in this world. All our “spirituality” is worthless if we are prepared to accept the suffering of other people while saying, “The Lord endured, and told us to endure as well.”

We may say this to ourselves, yes, but we may call only ourselves to suffering, just as we may call only ourselves to humility and repentance. And we are called not only to suffering, but also to compassion. Only such a spirituality, one of grace, mercy, and compassion, is genuine; it is precisely this kind of spirit that God promises to give us.

Like several other episodes of the Savior's earthly ministry, Luke describes the Sermon on the Mount somewhat differently than Matthew does. For Luke, the basis for presenting what Jesus said during this sermon becomes the contrast between two ways: the way of the rich, which the evangelist identifies with the way of the Gentiles, and the way of the poor, which turns out to be the way into the Kingdom.

The idea of two ways is not new in itself; it is well known from Old Testament texts, and for Luke it becomes the very prism through which he perceives the Savior's words. In mentioning the poor, Jesus undoubtedly meant not simply those without possessions, but those who understood poverty as a spiritual state. The Old Testament prophets had already spoken about such poor people. And the rich differ from them not by a property marker, but by a spiritual one: if the poor find their consolation only in the Kingdom (vv. 20-23), then the rich receive what is theirs in this world, having no need of the Kingdom (vv. 24-26).

But in order to enter the Kingdom, one must remain faithful to it to the end. Therefore those who thirst for the Kingdom cannot live by the laws of this world, which has not yet been transformed, even though the laws of the Kingdom do not yet operate in it. It is no accident that Luke singles out in Jesus' sermon the call to treat people as we would want them to treat us (v. 31), making it the compositional center of that part of his account in which he presents Jesus' instruction to those who want to live according to the laws of the Kingdom (vv. 27-36).

At first glance, this call resembles the universally known "golden rule," but there is one difference in the Savior's formulation that is not immediately obvious: if in its traditional version the "golden rule" calls us to treat people the same way they treat us, Jesus advises us to treat people as we would want them to treat us. In other words, if we are truly seeking the Kingdom, then in our relationships with people, according to the Savior's word, we must in a certain sense "work ahead," giving them our good attitude in advance and not waiting for them first to show themselves in relation to us.

According to the laws of our world, not yet transformed, this is of course completely irrational behavior: everyone knows that fallen man is very little capable either of good works or of a good attitude toward neighbors. But, on the other hand, any other approach to the people around us does not presuppose openness, and without openness it is impossible to enter the Kingdom. The Kingdom is arranged in such a way that one cannot enjoy it alone. One cannot acquire it by fencing oneself off from everyone. The Kingdom can be acquired only if one becomes part of it oneself, and one can become part of it only when what we have received we pass on to others, to those who, like us, seek the fullness of life in this Kingdom. And then we become servants of the Kingdom - those whom Jesus chooses so that through them the whole world created by God may become the Kingdom.

These words seem deliberately to contradict ordinary human ideas. Why are the poor and hungry, the weeping and rejected, suddenly blessed, while woe is pronounced upon the rich, the full, and those who laugh? One might think that Christ is proclaiming a revolution that will turn the world upside down! The Kingdom of God that He brings to earth really is radically different from the order of the world familiar to us. Relationships within it are founded on the Father's mercy, not on the struggle for survival. Even as believers, we often forget that entirely different laws prevail in this Kingdom. We call happiness what Christ calls woe, and conversely regard His blessings as misfortune. How greatly we must change to become true citizens of this Kingdom!