Luke 6:35-36: Kind to the Ungrateful

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Luke 6:35-36 (NIV)

Kind to the Ungrateful

Jesus told a crowd to love their enemies, to do good to them, and to lend to them without expecting to get anything back, and then he gave his reason: God is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

Be merciful, he said, just as your Father is merciful. The standard he sets is God’s own kindness, already running, already aimed at people who have never once said thanks for it. And he tells them what they’ll be called if they live that way: children of the Most High, recognizable by the family they came from.

The enemy in that sentence is a person with a name. Jesus asks for good done toward him, and for something lent to him with no expectation of getting it back.

There’s a man who talks to truck drivers between midnight and five. The phone doesn’t ring. He reads the temperature at the state line, says which exit still has diesel, plays something slow, and tells whoever’s out there that the coffee at the place near mile ninety is better than it has any business being. He talks like the road is full. It’s all he can go on.

I can pray for someone who’s hurt me, and I stop short of wanting anything good to actually land on him. Whose name came up for you when Jesus said enemies?

Jesus promises a great reward for it, and the name children of the Most High. Both of those come from the Father’s side of it, and both arrive whether or not the person you were kind to ever changes.

Out on the interstate the trucks go by without slowing, with nobody flashing their lights at him, and the slow song he put on still has a while to run.