2025.02.23 | FILL MY CUP WITH GRACE

“Fill My Cup with Grace”
Luke 6:17-38
Preached by 
Rev. Dr. Marvin Lance Wiser 
Eden United Church of Christ  
Hayward, CA 
23 February 2025

Good morning, beloved. Buenos días, hermanas y hermanos. Peace of Christ be with you. Today we gather to reflect on a passage that challenges us in a way that few others do. Jesus speaks to us about love, mercy, and grace. 

We are called to live in a way that goes beyond what the world expects—an invitation to fill our cups with grace, and then to pour that grace into the lives of others. “Ama a tus enemigos, haz bien a los que te odian…”. Esto es un mensaje difícil, y a veces parece imposible, pero es el mandato de Jesús, que al amar a nuestros enemigos, podemos tener vidas más completas en Cristo.  Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. These words are hard to preach, and even harder to live out. These words may feel impossible, but they are the counter-cultural path to a deeper, fuller life in Christ.

We should now be accustomed to being counter-cultural. We started this year, saying that we were taking a different road, like the Magi, we would get off the beaten path, we would not take the road that would lead us back to Herod, but look toward ways beyond domination, toward a new economy of life abundant.

This is what we hear in the Sermon on the Plain. Jesus’ four blessings and four woes recalls Jesus’ first public sermon that got him nearly thrown off a cliff, which focused on liberating the oppressed, and healing outside of one’s own ethnic group. 

God’s Commonwealth is a reversal of fortunes, as previously revealed from Jesus’ mother Mary in the Magnificat. “Blessed are you who are poor.” Blessed or Μακάριος signifies one upon whom fortune smiles; favored by the divine; and usually interpreted so through one’s socio-economic status. The rich were normally deemed blessed or favored, as many understood that divine favor was bestowed in this life. Unfortunately, much like how the masses look at billionaires today. But Mary and Jesus flip this commonly held assumption on its head. Favored are the poor! And woe to the rich. Here in the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus speaks of the repudiation of privilege based on wealth and the repudiation of retaliation that spawns violence. It is as almost the two are interconnected, accumulation of and retention of wealth often occurs through violence. Jesus was concerned with how to stop that cycle. Fortunately, God’s Commonwealth, based upon abundance and not hoarding, does not function this way. That’s why Matthew wrote, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

I think most of us can get behind the favoring of the poor and the woes to the billionaire class. We do not view the poor as parasites. Perhaps the harder part then is when Jesus calls us to love those who are hostile to us. Jesus calls us not to be passive, but active, to give, to turn the cheek, not to strike back, but to call attention to egregious wrongs and to interrupt cycles of violence by shining light on the perpetrators. Striking a person on the cheek is injury and insult—a physical expression of cursing or reviling. Turning the other cheek is an equally dramatic and physical form of non-retaliation that attempts to break the cycle of violence and rejects the principle of retaliation, while drawing attention to the wrongdoing.

Jesus is speaking about offering grace when it seems most difficult, but when it would have its deepest impact. I don’t know about you, but I can feel the weight of these words. They are not easy. Jesús no está pidiendo que ignoremos el dolor o la injusticia. Él no está diciendo que aceptemos el abuso. Él nos llama a un amor radical, un amor que se extiende incluso cuando no lo merecemos.

When Jesus says, “Love your enemies,” He is inviting us to break the cycle of hatred and retaliation that so often rules our world. En un mundo donde el odio y la venganza parecen ser la respuesta a todo, Jesús nos llama a ser diferentes, a ser como Él: personas que llenan su copa con la gracia que viene de Dios y la derraman sobre el mundo.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Jesus exposes the deficiency of an ethic that does not extend love beyond the circle of those who are already doing good to one another, that is one’s own tribe. In other words, be the Good Samaritan. This is what got him nearly thrown off the cliff in his hometown, extending love and grace to all, even to those who society deems outside one’s circle. 

To be sure it went against common understandings and practices then as well as today. The Essenes at Qumran instructed their adherents to love or hate each person according to their share in the Council of God or the Vengeance of God. Jesus’ instructions here shatter the principle of retaliation that can be traced back to the code of Hammurabi, which guaranteed the victim the right to recompense yet set limits on revenge. However, as the saying goes, the end result of the law of retaliation is an eye for eye leaves the whole world blind! Jesus wants sight for all. The command to love the person who does harm to you replaces the concern for limits on whom we treat as neighbors with a concern for inclusiveness: Treat everyone as a neighbor. 

Jesús nos pide que rechazemos la idea de solo amar a los que nos aman. También que rechazemos la idea de “ojo por ojo, diente por diente”. En cambio, nos dice todas las personas, son tus vecinos, son tus hermanos. 

Imagínense como fué esto para las personas que vivieron el holocausto, amar a quienes les perseguían?

Even to those who are hostile to you, who degrade you, treat them with dignity, so as to break the vicious cycle of violence. But even then sometimes the cycles do not break.

A more contemporary example of how one lived out this ethic can be found in the diaries of Esther “Etty” Hillesum, a Jew from Holland, who chronicled the atrocities of WWII. Hear her words as she wrestled with loving ones enemy: 

“It is wrong to pour hatred over an entire people. God, do not let me dissipate my strength, not the least little bit of strength, on useless hatred against these soldiers. Let me save my strength for better things.”

“It is all so terribly difficult to look for the divine not only within ourselves, but within the other, including the so-called enemy.”

“I try to look things straight in the face, even the worst crimes. One must be able to bear sorrow, not to relieve it through hatred, but become part of one's body and soul. Give your sorrow shelter, because if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow. . . it will never cease in this world and will multiply.”

“I don’t think life is meaningless. God is not accountable to us for the senseless harm we cause one another. We are accountable to God. . . We must help God to help us. We must help God and defend God’s dwelling place inside us to the last.. . . [We must] Reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves and reflect it toward others.” 

Etty did so until she was murdered at Auschwitz in 1943.

We need more than fear, bitterness, and hatred in this time. Life is beautiful and meaningful even unto the end. Jesus’ only imperative in the blessings and woes was to “Rejoice and jump for joy.” For our joy comes from above and no one can take that away.  

Loving those who are hostile to us may look like my friend Aziz whose brother was murdered by Israeli soldiers, and instead of seeking retaliation founded the Parents Circle-Families Forum, a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost immediate family members due to the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is a gathering of hundreds of families that co-creates shelters big enough for the sorrows of both Israelis and Palestinians, so that violence shall one day cease. 

El odio no es el camino. Debemos compartir nuestra luz, no se trata de venganza, se trata de amar a nuestros semejantes, ese es el camino de Jesús.

Hatred is not the way. Sharing our light everyday, like Etty and Aziz are what we are called to do. The mandate to love our enemies, removed focus from limits on revenge, and placed emphasis on the perpetrator being our neighbor. 

In the twelfth lesson from Timothy Snyder’s 2017 On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, we are told to “Make eye contact and small talk. If you affirm everyone, you break down social barriers.” This mirrors what is often referred to as Jesus’ table ethic. Eating with tax collectors and sinners, those who are hostile. This is important to affirm the dignity and worth, the Imago DEI, or Image of God in all peoples. It also opens the door for unlikely collaboration amid tyranny. Like how Etty was able to smuggle supplies because she was always letting her light shine. As Thomas Merton said, “Be human in this most inhumane ages; guard the image of humanity for it is the image of God.” 

We all have moments where we feel like the cup of grace is empty—where it’s hard to love, hard to forgive, and even harder to be kind. Pero amigos, eso es precisamente lo que necesitamos recordar hoy: el amor y la gracia de Dios no se agotan. God’s grace is infinite and is meant to flow through us. If we let it, God’s grace can fill our cups to overflowing.

In verses 38 of our text, we read, “Give, and it will be given to you.” Dios nos da generosamente, para que podamos dar generosamente. The grace we receive from God should overflow, just as God’s grace overflows in our lives. When we love in this radical way, we fill not only our own cups, but the cups of those around us. Grace, like love, is not just a feeling, but an action. When we choose to act in grace, we fill our cups with God’s love, and that love can transform the world.

I want to challenge you to consider this: How can you fill your cup with grace this week? How can you extend that grace to others, even those who might not deserve it in your eyes? Those who may be hostile. Jesús nos da una visión radical del amor, una visión que transforma todo. 

Amar a nuestros enemigos, hacer el bien a aquellos que nos odian, ofrecer gracia cuando no es fácil… ese es el camino del discípulo. Es el camino de Jesús. Y es el camino que nos lleva a una vida plena, una vida de amor y misericordia sin fin.

May our cups be overflowing, ready to share that grace with the world. Que Dios nos dé la fuerza para vivir de esa manera, y que nunca nos falte la gracia que derrama sobre nosotros. 

Bilingual Blessing of Cups/Mugs

Lord knows we’re gonna need some extra grace in the coming months and years. Jesus reminds us that we have already received the gift of grace. Why would we not live out our lives responding to that gift by giving it again and again to our neighbor?

And so today, we have brought our cups to this altar, a symbol of the grace we receive from God. May they remind us that we, too, are called to fill our lives with grace—grace that overflows to others, just as God’s love overflows in us. 

Hoy hemos traído nuestras tazas a este altar, símbolo de la gracia que recibimos de Dios. Que nos recuerden que también estamos llamados a llenar nuestras vidas con gracia, una gracia que se derrama sobre los demás, así como el amor de Dios se derrama sobre nosotros.

May each sip we take from these cups remind us of the love and mercy that surround us, may every swallow be a blessing, and may we share that same grace with the world. Que cada sorbo que tomemos de estas tazas nos recuerde el amor y la misericordia que nos rodean, y que podamos compartir esa misma gracia con el mundo.

Bendice estas tazas, oh Dios, y llénalas con tu amor abundante. Que sean vasos de paz, bondad y perdón. Y que la gracia que recibimos hoy nos dé la fuerza para derramar esa gracia en la vida de los demás. Bless these cups, O God, and fill them with your abundant love. May they be vessels of peace, kindness, and forgiveness. And may the grace we receive today empower us to pour that grace out into the lives of others.Amen.