Luke 6:27

Jesus is giving a radical ethical teaching during a large outdoor gathering, recorded in Luke as the Sermon on the Plain. At the time, Israel was under Roman occupation, and many people in his audience had genuine enemies — not just people they disliked, but people who caused them real, ongoing harm. The cultural norm was straightforward: look after your own, oppose those who oppose you. Jesus upends this entirely. He addresses specifically those who are willing to truly hear him: love your enemies, and actively do good to people who hate you. This is not a passive teaching — it requires concrete action directed toward people who have hurt you.

Jesus, you asked forgiveness for the people nailing you to a cross. I can't manage a kind thought toward someone who hurt me far less than that. Soften what has gone hard in me. Give me the courage to do good toward someone who doesn't deserve it, and help me trust that you know what you're doing. Amen.

Let's be honest about what "enemy" can mean — not some abstract adversary from a history book, but the coworker who undermined you in front of everyone, the family member who chose a side and it wasn't yours, the ex who told lies that followed you around, the person whose name in your phone still makes your jaw tighten. Jesus is talking about those people. And he says: love them. Do good to them. There is no asterisk here, no clause that says "unless they really deserve it." That is what makes this teaching almost unbearable — and also why it still lands like something new every time you sit with it. The natural response to being hated is a fortress: protect yourself, withdraw the warmth, get even quietly. Jesus does not tell you to pretend it doesn't hurt. He says do good anyway. That requires more strength than retaliation ever does. And somewhere in that act — maybe in them, maybe in you, maybe in both — something shifts. The question is whether you are willing to find out.