Gospel of Luke — Abigail Remix

Gospel of Luke 6:27-38 — Abigail Remix

Here’s Jesus, doing what Jesus does best: flipping our whole little moral universe upside-down like a kid dumping out a toy box.

Love your enemies.
Do good to the folks who can’t stand you.
Bless the people who drag your name through the mud.
Pray for the ones who treat you like dirt.

And if somebody smacks you across one cheek? Jesus basically shrugs and says, “Honey, offer the other one too.”
If someone steals your cloak? Don’t clutch the tunic either.
Give to whoever asks.
And if someone snatches something from you, don’t even demand it back.

Then he drops the line we all quote but rarely live:
Do to others what you want done to you.

And honestly — if we only love people who love us back, Jesus says, big deal. Even the folks we call “sinners” know how to run that play. If we only do good to the people who treat us well, who cares? Anyone can do that. And if we lend money and expect repayment? Again — not exactly saint-level stuff.

But then he pivots to the divine mic-drop:
Love your enemies. Do good anyway. Give freely. Expect nothing back.

Why?
Because that’s how you become children of the Most High — the God who is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Jesus says, “Be merciful, just like your Father is merciful.”

Stop judging so you won’t be judged.
Stop condemning so you won’t be condemned.
Forgive — and forgiveness will boomerang right back into your life.
Give — and God will pour blessings into your lap like grain packed down, shaken together, spilling over the edges.

It’s karmic, but make it Christian. Jesus is basically saying:
You are shaping the world you live in by the way you show up in it.
Your giving, forgiving, loving, and releasing create the very atmosphere you breathe.

Selfishness can only receive selfishness. That’s its ecosystem.
Love knows how to recognize love.
Mercy knows how to receive mercy.
What goes around really does come around — not as cosmic vengeance, but as the natural flow of the human heart.

But here’s where it gets spicy.
Jesus gives us this gorgeous, impossible command — and we look around at the religion many of us inherited and think, “Wait… where exactly were we supposed to learn mercy from?”

A whole lot of Christians were handed a God who looks nothing like Jesus:
An eternal torturer.
A cosmic scorekeeper.
A divine rage machine who loves rules more than people.

We were told to love our enemies…
while believing God burns His enemies forever.

We were told to forgive seventy times seven…
while believing God forgives once, maybe, and after that it’s fire and doom.

No wonder we’re confused.
No wonder Christians struggle to be non-judgmental.
We learned our theology from a courtroom, not a wedding feast.
We were shaped by threats, not tenderness.

But Jesus insists the whole thing starts with God’s mercy.
If the Source isn’t merciful, we can’t be either.
If God is eternally furious, then of course we inherit the same posture.
But if God is love — wild, generous, unreasonable love — then that river flows right through us and out into the world.

And here’s the truth we’ve been too afraid to say out loud:
If love isn’t flowing in and out of us, if mercy isn’t reshaping our hearts, if compassion isn’t the fragrance we leave behind, then whatever we’re practicing… it’s not Christianity.

Flush that version.
Let it go.
It’s not healing anybody.

We’re called into a faith that pours out forgiveness, compassion, generosity, and radical, stubborn love.
That’s our real work.
That’s the business we’re in.

We’re in the love business — always have been, always will be.