Transforming Love

July 21, 2019 Background Scripture: Matthew 5:38 – 48 Lesson Passage: Matthew 5:38 – 48 This is Part 4 in this series of lessons that examine portions of the Sermon on the Mount. Love has the capacity to change people. That’s the focus of today’s lesson. Love can change the person who shows love as well as the person who receives love. That’s the power of the message in today’s lesson. Jesus taught submission as a response to aggressive evil. Rather than an eye for an eye, Jesus taught his followers to accept non-retaliation as a new way of responding. Rather than escalating violence, Jesus taught how to deescalate tension by refusing to retaliate. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced this approach when he became the iconic leader of the Civil Rights movement. He was not the first to apply Jesus’ principles of non-violent confrontation with evil in recent times. Dr. King had studied the non-violent protest philosophy of Mahatma Ghandi in India and observed its results. Jesus demonstrated his teaching through his own examples. After Jesus’ ascension, his disciples demonstrated his teachings through their examples. There have been others over the centuries to use these principles but these principles have not become common practice among people around the world—not even Christians. Yet, the principles work just as Jesus knew they would. The principles of non-violence work by transforming the hearts of people. Transformation takes time and it cannot be observed externally. What is observed is the change of behavior over time due to the inward change of heart. At the time of the Civil Rights movement, none of the minorities who were being affected had the authority to make decisions to remove the unjust laws and ordinances from the books of municipalities and states throughout this country. That required the transformation of hearts of the decision makers. This is where the teachings of Jesus came in. Dr. King had to cast a vision that led tens of thousands of people to live out the principles Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. The people submitted, God responded, and hearts were transformed. Jesus summarized his teaching on this subject by comparing the character of his followers to the character of God. A person’s response should be governed by their character rather than the character of the ones they are responding to. God is holy and benevolent to good and evil people. That’s because God’s actions emanate from His character rather than as a response to the character of others. This is how the followers of Jesus are called to respond to others. Love people because of who we are and not because of who, or how, they are. It is natural for us to respond to people based on how they act towards us. Even evil people will do the same. It is a completely different matter to respond to people solely out of the goodness of one’s heart. To do that is to act in a manner that reflects the love of God in us. As we unleash the love of God into our surroundings, we will see the transforming power of that love in others as well as in ourselves. Robert C. Hudson June 19, 2019