We are known for a lot of things. At one time you maybe known for your beauty. Some may know you by the job that you do or by your politics. Others may know you by the car you drive or the house you live in. I think that eventually, we become known by our scars. I know this seems a bit strange. But I was thinking about Jacob when he wrestled with God. It was noted that he limped away and that he limped for the rest of his life. He wrestled with God and all that he got was a limp–and a blessing. That limp was a symbol of his encounter with God and it was a symbol of grace.

I was thinking along these lines, and to be honest, I was thinking about this long ugly scar I have on my abdomen. But my thoughts quickly turned to you. I thought of the sheer exhaustion that Marc and Christy must feel each week. I had in mind Nancy who lost her husband and then a daughter and then cancer. Tellius came mind because he still wrestles with cancer. I noted so many of you who have lost fathers and mothers and even husbands and wives and children. I was thinking of those who lost jobs and lived with the uncertainty of paying the bills and feeding the family. And we have had an almost uncountable number of serious surgeries and illnesses in our church. And many of you return to the doctor regularly to make sure the cancer has not returned or that the disease is under control.

Someone said recently that if you want to see miracles, just come here to Trinity and look around. And it is true. But if you will look carefully, you will also see scars, the physical kind and scars on the soul. And for almost every one of us, they have become scars of grace.

My interest in these kinds of scars has to do with peculiar way we live our lives. Many, many people would look at you all and say, why don’t you just give up? How could this happen? Even, what kind of God would allow this to take place? And while we all may have raised these questions at one time or another, these are not what dominates us. What these scars represent is God’s work of grace in the midst of suffering and hardship. Bad things happen to humans. Instead of representing ultimate tragedy, they represent ultimate grace because not only has God lead us and comforted us, he will one day make it all right.

We live peculiar lives. In fact, it may take scars for us to understand the grace of God and what it truly means to walk with Christ. And I think it takes scars for us to understand the odd demands that Jesus makes of us in the Sermon on the Mount. There is a connection between our scars and the new ethic taught by Jesus.

Jesus calls us to be self sacrificing, to give up our personal rights. It seems to me that only people who have been hurt, who bear the scars of life can understand this. Our scars remind us that our lives do not belong to us. We learned that we live our lives, not by our own strength but by Grace. Jesus calls for us to turn the tables on the battle of life by extending grace to life’s circumstance.

Take, for instance, the issue of revenge. The idea of an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth was not to give an individual limitless rights to retaliate, but to restrain. It limited the punishment to a comparable response to the offense. The old way meant that if someone wronged me, I had a right to confront them and get my pound of flesh.

But, now that Christ has come, we are a new people bought by the blood of Christ. He tells us that we must follow a new ethic. To be struck on the cheek was a term of insult. It was to hit the other person on the cheek with the back of the hand. When we are insulted, our natural response is to strike back, each blow becoming harder and harder. Jesus is telling us, respond to evil with grace. When we do this, we are being like Christ who suffered the ultimate humiliation; he died at the hands of those he came to save. Jesus had every right to be angry, to fight back, to call down the angels of heaven and destroy all of mankind. But instead, he submitted to the evil of men and brought good out of it.

We have been called to be a peculiar people, people who act just as Jesus acted. So Jesus said that if a person sues you for your shirt, give him your coat also. In Jewish law, a man's cloak or outer garment was an inalienable right, you could not take it away from him. It was his coat and his blanket. But Jesus said give it to him as well. Now, is this a law to give away your coat? No, it is an example of a principle. The principle of giving your coat or going the second mile or turning the other cheek is a measured response to the outrages of the sinner. It is in the same manner of Jesus, who allowed himself to be spit upon, mocked, beaten and crucified. It is that act which responds to evil with God's love. He even tells us to give and to lend to him who asks. This does not mean to give to the bum who wants money to get drunk, but it might mean giving him a meal or a place to stay. The principle of selflessness does not mean to aid others in their sin, but to resist their sin with good. Why, because good overcomes evil.

Finally, Jesus said we are to love our enemies. It was widely taught in that day that a person had a responsibility to love his neighbor and his kinsman but he had no obligation to love the one who was outside of that description. He had an obligation to hate his enemy. Of course, the Old Testament does not say that. Jesus seems to act as if we have a greater obligation to love our enemies than even our neighbor whom we have been commanded to love as ourselves. We are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us "in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in Heaven."

His command to us is to love our enemy. He said if you love only those who love you, you do no better than the tax-collectors, the greatest abusers of people of that day. If you greet only those who are brothers, you do no better than the most vile pagan. God has commanded us to love others as he has loved us.

There is something in us that does not like this approach. It is not the natural way. The natural way is to respond in kind and in power. But, Jesus says Jesus says that we are to do these things, love like this, have this attitude, think this way. In fact, Jesus’s command to us is that we are to be perfect. I don’t know about you but this disturbs me. I am not perfect. This verse reminds us just how poor in spirit we really are doesn't it.

But, I am wondering if being perfect is to live like the scarred people that we are? You know, to live by grace? If our response to every offensive act is an act of grace, are we not acting as God has acted toward us? The more we submit ourselves to God, the more graceful we become. In those times when we are called on to be self-sacrificial or to love our enemy, God is at work in us, conforming us to himself, making us into a peculiar people. It requires us to work at it, to will it in our lives, to try, to struggle. And in the process, God's Holy Spirit works in us through our attempts and makes us like Christ.

We are called to a very peculiar lifestyle. Just as God takes our scars and turns them into grace, we must respond to those who misuse us with grace as well. When we do so, we will be like the one who is known by the scars on his hands and feet and the scar in his side.